Flounce

Keeping the car at work, and a spare bike at work, are good ideas I'll explore.

antimonysarah

With a similar distance*, I actually have found that it makes a big difference. My body remembers that riding is a thing I do.

I think you'll be fine, in general, unless you were at the very edge of the upper time limits on your 200k/300k, and I assume if you were you'd have mentioned it.

Lift some weights to strengthen your back/neck/shoulders for supporting you on long rides, do your weekenders, get your nutrition right, you'll be fine.


*Short version is that I usually do a multimodal commute with bike and train, but in the summer in good weather and sunshine into the evening I will skip the train, making it much longer. However, that usually doesn't start much before the brevet season does. (I will ride in the dark on brevets any time, and for short urban distances, but 20 miles of rush hour at night is just miserable.)

Rowan

Your post brings up a couple of additional points. Back/neck/shoulders are critical to getting through the long events. As, of course, is saddle-butt interface. More time on the bike is handy from that point of view. I remember the first SR series I did, my butt was close to minced meat by the 600. I fitted a Brooks Pro to the bike before PBP which made things much more tolerable (although not perfect, and I eventually went to B17).

The other point is riding in the dark. One late-evening ride a week might be useful for getting used to the dark, and ensuring (a) lights are up to scratch and (b) you can actually see the stuff you want to see (computer, phone, potholes...).

jlippinbike

FLOUNCE wrote:

I've done 200k and 300k brevets without issue and hope to do an SR series and a 1200km this year.

Being a physician with four young children, my responsibilities have increased as the kids get older and have more extracurricular events. It’s become very difficult to ride during the week, but I have Saturdays free.

Do you think it’s reasonable to train for an SR series by riding centuries (or longer) every Saturday, and the brevets of increasing distance (200, 300, 400, etc.) of course, and nothing else?

JLIPPINBIKE response:

A good answer to your question really depends on how old you are, what percent body fat you have, and how long it currently takes you to finish your 200k and 300k rides. Your age matters because the older a person gets translates into slower recovery times. And the older you are the harder it is to improve your fitness over time. Your percent body fat matters because the heavier you are the less benefit you will see in your training efforts. And your current ride times for 200 and 300 km rides matter because if you are barely making the cutoffs and you want to do a full series and an RM, then you have a lot of improving in your fitness to do.

You have included in your question: And Nothing Else. Doing a 100 miles on saturdays as a sole weekly bike ride in most cases will equate to riding junk miles. Sure, they will count toward a base of miles. But they will still be junk miles. A bike rider with no time to waste during a week should probably avoid doing junk miles as much as possible. Furthermore, a 100-mile ride will kill your saturdays that probably should be spent some with your kids. I know, I'm being judgmental.

I like the advice from others that suggest riding your bike to work and climbing stairs on your lunch hour. Every time you turn the cranks while straddled on a saddle you are getting some sort of training. And stair climbing is one of the best ways to strengthen your legs for cycling. Of course, neither of these activities are (nor should be) done at or above your threshold. Your will probably be wearing work clothes and you don't want to get them all sweaty.

Ideally your weekly workout schedule should following what is called a polarized training routine. See https://jlippinbike.wordpress.com/20...ized-training/. During the weekdays do high intensity workouts at home or at a gym involving your road bike on a trainer, a stairclimber machine (or elliptical machine used as a stairclimber), and maybe a few spinning classes. You probably don't need nor should do more than three sessions of these a week. These are done at very high intensity. Then on saturdays slip in a metric century done at as high an intensity as you can muster while keeping the pace the second half of the ride just as fast as the first half. Do NOT loaf on this metric century.

A couple of weeks before you are scheduled to start your SR series, then up the metric century to a full century distance (100 miles). The following Saturday drop back to a metric century. And then the next Saturday do your 200k event. Two saturdays before an SR event do a 100-mile ride. On other saturdays stick to the metric century.

Keep in mind that when you say you are training to complete a long bike ride you really are training to increase your threshold capacity. Can you ride your bike comfortably holding a conversation with a riding partner for an hour at 13.5 mph? Can you do this at 15 or 16 mph? The higher the mph you can do this for an hour, then the better prepared you are to complete an SR and RM. Greta Waitz was a 10k running specialist when she ran and won her first NYC marathon. She didn't do long runs in the beginning. But she was super fit. Polarized training will get you fit if you work it correctly. And polarized training is the way to go for time-strapped parent-professionals.

Just my two-cents.

rhm

Could you please define the concept of "junk miles"?

Steamer

https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/t...-for-cyclists/

https://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/7/5/2/752a...076ecc09c2307c

jlippinbike

RHM wrote:

Could you please define the concept of "junk miles"?

JLIPPINBIKE response:

I define “junk miles” as follows: miles ridden that have no training purpose besides increasing your general fitness. When somebody is pressed for time they don't have the luxury of exercising for general fitness. Every workout should have a purpose since there is limited time to devote to training. Probably the best way to look at training and workouts is to think of it as money. If you have more than you know what to do with, then you can give it away or even burn some of it. The same holds true with training time. If you have more than you know what to do with it, then sure, have fun, and ride some “junk miles.” Riding your bike to and from work typically amounts to riding junk miles. However, since you have to get to work anyway, there is nothing wrong with riding your bike to help out general fitness. Just don't use precious training time to do junk miles.

An online coach who puts it pretty well. See https://coachlevi.com/training/junk-...hat-why-avoid/.

kingston 

That makes me a junk miles junkie.

jlippinbike

KINGSTON wrote:

That makes me a “junk miles junkie.”

JLIPPINBIKE response:

If you say so. But there's nothing wrong with being a junk miles junkie unless you are FLOUNCE who has a demanding career, a wife and 4 kids to feed, and a desire to improve his bike fitness level so he can complete an SR series and RM with very limited time to do so.

ThermionicScott 

Works for me!

kingston 

Of course there's nothing wrong with it. You're the one making the ridiculous claim that anything not part of a structured training plan is junk miles.

jlippinbike

That sounds confrontational. Could you please tone it down a bit. Thanks!

83cannondale

I think that if that is the time you have, then train the best you can then go for it! IMO even 20 minutes of trainer time when possible, (daily?) would help keep your body in the mode for Saturday. Maybe expect your finish times on longer brevets to be a little long which means get good lights!

kingston 

My apologies. You and I just have completely different philosophies on nutrition and training.

Spoonrobot 

hey man we don’t really do “junk miles” in this forum

Doubly so when used illogically as you have done. If his only ride per week is a 160+ km ride in preparation for rides of 200-1200k, is that not training?

I think the biggest issue is the metal focus to do a big ride every Saturday for months on end. Missing one seems like it could set you back a bit fitness wise?

znomit

Junk miles are miles you do so you can eat junk food.

Hey OP, don't forget to factor in the 2-3 days after the 600 where you'll be a walking zombie. Maybe a day or two after the 400 too depending on how you cope with lack of sleep and undercarriage damage.

Steamer

As they say, intensity can make up for miles, but the original plan described in the OP has neither.

Op - find a way to do a couple hard 30 minute sessions during the week to supplement your weekend ride, and dont make that one too long. Make it zone 3 mostly, and some zone 4 on hills, perhaps 3 hours or so.

Thats my advice.

Flounce

Thanks, all. Just rode a century yesterday, 2nd half was in the dark /cold, it sucked.

Appreciate everyone's input, I will try to work in a hard, fast ride in the middle of the week, and keep my weekend long ride to whatever is sustainable, be it 70 or 100 miles, and keep HR low enough that they are real base training miles and not junk miles. That is probably the most I can attempt at this time. If it allows me to achieve my goal of completing the SR, that would be great, but if not, oh well, I suppose the larger goal is to keep on riding consistently.

To me, this long distance thing of ours is about a certain lifestyle, not completing a particular event or events.

Carbonfiberboy 

IME after 3 days without the bike or something similar, like ski, run, hike, gym, I start to lose it. 3 days is my absolute limit. I try to not go over 2. Just an hour on my resistance rollers makes a big difference, and takes up a lot less time than going outside. OTOH, I seldom ride over 4 hours on the weekend and only the one day. 4 hours in hilly terrain is perfect training if you go all out. At 6 hours, you're actually wasting time because you can't go hard enough to get the adaptations.

ThermionicScott 

Many of the early long-distance races had the purpose of demonstrating the bicycle's suitability as transportation (and selling a few newspapers.)

I came into it indirectly. Biking started off as something fun to do, but completing my first RAGBRAI really set something off. It felt so silly to hop into a car to go a couple miles after I had just ridden my bike across a whole state.

StephenH

"I define “junk miles” as follows: miles ridden that have no training purpose besides increasing your general fitness."
More commonly, I see the term used as "miles ridden that have no purpose".
A lot of us NEED to increase our general fitness, so those aren't "junk miles", they're "essential be-less-fat miles".
Keep in mind that randonneuring pretty much IS junk miles for most people. So if you're training for junk miles...

rhm

Yup, that's pretty much it.

Steamer

The principle of specificity doesn't really extend as far as rando time scales.

The upper limit I have heard is something like 5 to 6 hours.

The only ways in which riding a long way in training really is specific preparation for rando is one of hardening contact points and sorting out your bike fit, and for general experiential learning.

ThermionicScott 

The thought occurred to me the other day -- if you are in a position where "junk miles" are an actual possibility in your training, you're probably in good enough shape to knock out a 200k or 300k.

skiffrun

By now, you likely understand that there are as many different training or "training" plans as there are randonneurs.

You indicated that you previously completed a 200 and a 300. Unless you were completely exhausted when you finished the 300, just do what you did for those rides. And the 300 is training for the 400, and the 400 is the training for the 600.

If you were completely exhausted at the finish of the 300 -- slow down a little, and the immediately above will still apply.

I add one thing, to paraphrase something attributed to Yogi Berra: completing the series is only 90% physical, the other 50% is mental. So ... DECIDE to do the series, not "hoping" to do the series or "gonna' try" to do the series.

But unless you are very lucky, there will come a point at which you will hate the bike, cycling, etc., and be sure that you cannot continue. Keep pedaling, and perhaps within 10 miles you'll have an epiphany, and all will be well; it may take more than 10 miles.