How Enric Mas Trains (Leading the Vuelta a Year After Surgery)

In May, Enric Mas finished 32nd at the Giro d'Italia and lost the general classification on the first mountain day. As of 4 September he leads the Vuelta a España with eight stages left, 1:45 clear of a four-time winner. His physiology did not change in four months. The training block in between did.

A year that started with a blood clot

Mas crashed on the Mur-de-Bretagne stage of the 2025 Tour de France. Tests found thrombophlebitis in his left leg, a clot in an inflamed vein. He abandoned in the Alps and missed the Vuelta, where he has four podiums, for the first time since 2019. He told AS he had no idea when he would ride a bike again.

He had surgery in mid-October 2025. His first race back was a team time trial at Challenge Mallorca in February, about seven months later. "It has been a long process and I am still in it, little by little." Training followed the recovery, not the calendar. He then skipped the Tour de France: "I want to take a break from France for a few years or a few months, let's put it that way."

The Giro was a block

Mas went to the Giro in May saying a podium was realistic and finished 32nd. As a result it looks like the end of a career. As training, it was three weeks of the hardest aerobic load available, absorbed by a rider eight months post-surgery. Then he did not race for two months.

His own account: "After a very difficult start to the season, this summer I had a training camp at altitude, went to San Sebastian and then the Vuelta a Burgos and I've started having lots of good moments."

That sequence is copyable at any level:

1. A big aerobic load (the Giro), taken as stimulus.
2. A long absorption block at altitude, where the adaptation happens.
3. One hard single-day race (17th at Clásica San Sebastián) to reopen the top end.
4. One short stage race (5th at the Vuelta a Burgos) to confirm the form repeats day on day.
5. The target.

Most amateurs compress steps 1 and 5 and skip 2. Load without absorption is fatigue. Mas went into the Vuelta saying "we've come from altitude and we don't know exactly how we will respond." Altitude blocks pay off weeks later, and you find out in the race.

What he does well

Mas is 1.77m and 61kg. His career rests on one repeatable skill: a very high steady power on a 20 to 40 minute climb, day after day, for three weeks. He wins by still being there.

Stage 9 to the Alto de Aitana: 187.4km, 4,952m of climbing, six categorised climbs, 32 degrees. He sat in the group all day, went with 3.2km to go, and outsprinted Oscar Onley for his first win since 2022, with Roglič third at 12 seconds. Three days later on Calar Alto he attacked again and took another half minute from Roglič. Both moves came late and both were sized to what he could hold. He rides to a ceiling he knows.

The number that governs a rider like that is threshold power against body weight.

Enter a recent 20-minute or ramp effort for an FTP estimate and the zones that follow. Then divide by your mass on the watts per kilogram page. On an 11.9km climb at 7.2%, W/kg is nearly everything. To derive the same anchor from two maximal efforts, use critical power.

The rest of his week looks like Vingegaard's and Pogačar's: mostly low-intensity riding, a little very hard work, altitude blocks, years of it. The principle is in how to train zone 2 and polarized training.

The limiter he never fixed

Four Vuelta podiums, no wins: second in 2018, 2021 and 2022, third in 2024. The reason is about to be tested again.

Stage 18 on 10 September is a flat 32.1km time trial into Jerez de la Frontera. In the 2021 Vuelta's 33.8km time trial, Roglič won in 44:02 and Mas was ninth, 1:24 down. In 2020 he called his Vuelta time trial "a disaster." His lead over Roglič is 1:45, and Roglič is the Olympic time trial champion. On history, that stage erases the lead. Mas knows it: "We have to be aware that Primož Roglič is an Olympic champion and has an impressive time."

A limiter you never train stays a limiter, and eventually it decides your season. Mas has been the best climber in this race and has still not made it safe.

Why he can still win it

• Stage 14, tomorrow, finishes up the Sierra de la Pandera, 11.9km at 7.2%. Every second taken here is one he does not defend at Jerez.
• Stages 19 and 20 come after the time trial. Peñas Blancas, then Collado del Alguacil in the Sierra Nevada: over 5,000m of climbing and a final ascent of 8.3km at 9.8%.
• Stage 21 is not a parade. 112km around Granada, classified hilly.
• Roglič turns 37 next month and has a history of losing Grand Tours to third-week bad luck, covered in the profile of his career.

He needs a buffer of more than two minutes by 10 September, and Pandera is where he gets it.

What you can steal from it

• Judge a comeback in blocks, not races. 32nd in May and red in September is the same rider.
• Load, then absorb. The Giro was the stimulus. The altitude camp turned it into fitness.
• Test the form before you need it. One hard one-day race, one short stage race, then the target.
• Pace to a number you know. Set yours with FTP and W/kg.
• Train your limiter in the off-season. A weakness you avoid all year finds you on the day it matters.

More in this series: Primož Roglič, Jonas Vingegaard, Tadej Pogačar, Remco Evenepoel and Demi Vollering.

Sources

• Wikipedia
• 2026 Vuelta a España
• Cyclingnews on the thrombophlebitis
• Cyclingnews on his return to racing
• Domestique on his 2026 changes
• Cyclingnews stage 9 report
• CyclingUpToDate GC after stage 13
• IDL Procycling on the time trial maths
• Vuelta 2026 route

Cover photo by Yannick Arts, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.