Originally Posted by
Hill160881
I live in Monterey and my psycho brother wants me to do a 30 something mile gravel race with him at sea otter. Look I want to but he does psycho things like unbound 200 and pan America north (5100 miles) and the ? divide. That?s in this country!
I am 43 and a fat old weight lifter that rides for my heart not the love of riding. IV tells me my ftp is 160 and I think it has a very high opinion of my
abilities lol. I do have a sprint because of lifting weights for years. Like 1800+ if I trained it. Oh ya I drink one maybe two nights a week. So including that in my macros would be great ?I am 185lbs atm.
Here is the thing. I can train for a powerlifting event but have no idea how to train for an endurance event. My brother is no help as he did unbound 200 in normal shape. He did not train, just showed up had no issues. He loved it so much he is doing it again this year the total idiot!
I want to survive a 30-40 mile race and not look like an old ass 40 something.
So how do I train? The nutrition is not an issue. At 185 I will have no issue getting down to 165 for the race. Fat loss is easy for me. You just cut carbs and do lots of cardio in a calorie deficit. It?s not hard. The hard part is training my endurance. Do I just concentrate on zone 2? How long do I ride and how often a week? I lift weights I don?t do cardio lol so all the help is needed.
I am riding two to three time a week or about an hour in zone two atm. I personally love interval training but have no idea how to adapt that to training for what I have stupidly committed to.
If you can put out 1800w in sprint, you're like 80% there! This course is about interval power and recovery. So you've got that down. I've come back couple times since my 1-2-P days and found smart training gets me back into tip-top shape quicker than brute-force:
1. Look over
waterrocket's Workout Recipe. It's helped me come back much, much quicker and faster than any other programme.
2. plan your workouts several macro-cycles in advance, 3-6 weeks. Verify results after each macro-cycle and adjust next as necessary.
3. watch your diet and lose some blubber gradually without depleting muscle (difficult, pay attention to nutrition during and after rides, cut calories at other times),
have sufficient recovery times!!! Monitor your waking HR, it'll signal overtraining.
4. practice form (low, flat-back) and spinning, makes your strong muscles more efficient at moving bike horizontally. Lots of power is lost trying to stretch crankarm at bottom of stroke. Practice gearing and cadence in sprint to see where you generate most power. Skinny dudes require faster 130rpm+ spin, powerful legs tend to generate most power around 110-120rpms.
5. do weekly practice races. Most areas have them after work during weekdays. Work on:
- being comfortable in pack,
- drafting and hiding from wind at all times
- reading others' movements and following/reacting (but not overreacting. My velodrome coach always said, "make it easier on those behind you than it is for you". For example, if someone 5-ft ahead of you slows down, don't slam on your brakes, slow down more gradually and close gap to 1-ft. You've gained 4-ft with no effort! Those behind you will have easier time because you braked slower than guy ahead.
- "terrain" you're trying to conquer is not road course, it's other riders around you. Who's slow, who's blocking, whose wheel to be on 5-km from end, 2-km from end, 1-km from end.
- know exactly what distance you can pull at max-speed, that's when you're coming around leadout. Measure backwards from finish line.
In end, racing is mental game, chess match in how you set up training programme months before race. In race itself, it's purely chess strategies, although at beginning levels, minimum amounts of fitness helps. It's watching all other racers, seeing what they're doing, seeing what you can do to save energy and make other guys waste theirs. Seeing where your strengths are on course and their weaknesses so you can pounce!