Marin1227

Hi -

I am looking for help on how to train for a 3 day 300 mile ride. All of my training has been focused on racing, road and tri, so single day high output. How do I train in 9-10 weeks to be able to ride 100 a day? I have been unable to find good sources or help.

Thanks.

pdlamb

I'd suggest focusing on back-to-back long rides. So if you're used to riding 75 miles per day, try doing 50 miles each on Saturday and Sunday. As usual, increase distance of your paired long rides about 10% per week. You may find you'll need to back off on other rides, so think about recovery rides (or no ride) Monday, shorter sweet point rides Tuesday and Thursday, and perhaps one long interval ride on Wednesday. If you can manage that, take Friday off to recover and be ready to ride Saturday. Adjust as necessary when you're approaching burn-out!

Barry2 

Know your Lactic Threshold and stay under it, the distance will come WAY easier.

Barry

caloso

What's a typical week for you now, in terms of number of rides, total hours, and total miles?

101stairborne

Bike Forums is a great place to learn. And there are many helpful people and a few of the other kind.
If you look around Bike Forums you will find a section devoted toLong Distance Competition/Ultracyclin, Randonneuring and Endurance Cyclind.
There is also another section titled Training and Nutrition.
Good luck with your goals.

Troul 

Dedication of your time each day will need to be known.

Marin1227

I ride Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Sunday - 25-40 miles per ride, 100-125 miles per week. I race on zwift with a team on Tuesdays, so hard effort and usually try to make one other ride a week hard ftp type intervals. We have snow on the ground so everything is on trainer for now. I can drive out of the snow, about 45 minutes away for longer training rides. I started to build a plan but unsure of how to handle rest weeks, how much I should build to, figured I would need to do back to back rides. I am good with 10-12 hours on bike a week but much more becomes a strain on non-bike life. A week or two at 15 would be ok but not 10 weeks at 15.The 300 miles over 3 days is a ride not a race but want to be strong for all 3 days.

Troul 

You'd want to plan at least 10 hours a day to achieve your daily mileage requirement.

datlas 

You are going to need longer rides than you are doing. See if you can gradually increase your saddle time to 60-75 mile rides.

Marin1227

yes, realize I realize that daily mileage is too low. It's low because of winter. Was thinking of doing 3-day block rides, increasing distance each day in block, increasing each weeks block by 10% gets me to 265 miles for block and around 330 for week. is that enough?

example-
tuesday 1 hour intervals or hills
thursday 40
friday 50
saturday 70

tuesday 1 hour intervals or hills
thursday 44
friday 55
saturday 77

thoughts?

Thomas15

Consider a free account with Training Peaks. They have a ton of workout plans but you have to pay for them. Some are very reasonable cost.You can export those workouts into Zwift and/or a bike computer such as a Garmin Edge.

cjenrick

just do long rides every day, more intensity 2 weeks before the ride, then ease off a bit 1 week before the ride,

oh , and by the way......




































































Your Gonna Die!

Marin1227

Haha.. so I’m over thinking it. Sounds about right. On TP. Have used coaches for past races/training. Thanks for the feedback.

caloso

I’ll bet your fitness will be fine, but you’ll really need to figure out a way to do the long rides.

Marin1227

Haha.. so I’m over thinking it. Sounds about right. On TP. Have used coaches for past races/training. Thanks for the feedback.

datlas 

Yeah, since it’s not a race you don’t need to train so much but you will need to adapt your body to longer time in the saddle. That means (wait for it) longer time in the saddle.

CAT7RDR

What gets in the way for me in riding centuries is not only time but comfort.
Can you ride a century now in comfort on your current setup with regards to your points of contact? Saddle/Chamois/, hands/shoulders/bars, feet/knees/pedals/shoes, frame size/reach/back?

hubcyclist

I think a lot of people are going to say 'more volume' but I think you'd be surprised at how well trained you can get on 10-12hrs a week with the proper structure. Anecdotally, in 2020 I trained indoors all winter and spring using trainerroad, and the plans I follow have workouts with a max duration of 2hrs. On July 4, I did my first outdoor ride of 100 miles easily (5.25hrs), I also did a century in September after another stretch of just doing indoor stuff. Of course, doing just one day of 100 miles is easy enough and your question is about averaging 100 over 3 days. I would say that with my training, I felt like I could have done another 100 the next day, and my motivation was high for it. The key is pacing (I rode entirely endurance) and of course recovering/refueling between, but my endurance was great because I had spent a lot of time doing sweet spot intervals indoors, so it was a lot of quality work near threshold as opposed to just piling on endurance miles.

I'm not sure if you track TSS, but on my bigger training weeks, I'll have 730TSS. My century rides were about 250tss, so if I were to do 3 days in a row, I'd have 750TSS, so as far as the training stress goes, it would be in line with my bigger training weeks. So it might be helpful to think along those lines, rather than just feel like you have to go out and do big rides to prepare. Personally, I'm hoping to do back to back 100 mile rides this year, no real reason other than it sounds like it could be a good accomplishment!