335 miles in 3 days...Training Program?
 

I have been riding for about 5 years now non-competitively. I am currently riding 6-8 hours a week mainly using interval training as my route to fitness. When I do join group rides I have no issues maintaining averages of +20mph for 40 to 60 miles. I do not own a power meter so I have no references as to wattage output.

I have recently signed up to do the Vuelta Puerto Rico in Jan. 2011. 335 miles around the island in three days. I would like to move into a serious training program now. I do enjoy riding hard so often my ego takes over and I kill myself riding with the hammerheads. Any suggestions on a training program that would allow me to ride hard and still enjoy puerto rico over those three days.

I should mention that my time is limited to a two hours of early A.M. riding time on the weekdays and 2-3 hours on one weekend day. Like many of you I have kids that I enjoy spending time with. Thank in advance for the comments and advice.

that's probably the most important realization. as you mentioned (and as we've discussed many times in the last few days), hammer rides aren't good for training and are rather dangerous, so don't do'em

get friel's book for training plans. main gist is that your fitness is periodized, so plan accordingly. get your base build up for a while (4-6 weeks of nothing past zone 2), then start building up intensity and give yourself a lower intensity week every 3-5 weeks as you see fit. i assume you have a HRM, if not, get one. spring for a PM if you can afford one, but it's not necessary. i have a teammate who's catting up to 2 but rarely uses his HRM, but then again, certain groups of people are better at listening to their body. i'm not, and i use a HRM.

I'm considering doing the same ride. Website (www.vueltapr.com) lists it as 375 miles with a total of about 8,000' of climbing over 3 days. I have roughly the same amount of time each week to train that you do, guachinango. I'll take a look at Friel's book and keep an eye on this thread for tips :)

My main problem is I live in Seattle and training for something like this in the dead of winter up here is what's gonna determine if I do the event or not. Guess we'll see...

Thanks McJimbo,

I will pick up Friels book. For the record, I ride almost exclusively solo but from time to time I join a group out on the road and when the front end decides to crank up the intensity, rather than stick with my plan I rev it up with them. Stupid and dangerous, yes, but sometimes fun, a fine line to straddle. I am working on becoming more disciplined.

I do own a HRM and would like a PM when one is affordable. I also have done well simply listening to my body as I have been a lifelong athlete just fairly new to cycling. Thanks for your advice. It is greatly appreciated.

Gracias Nene,

I live in Florida so the winter is our time to train :). My only issue is going to be finding some suitable hills to climb. Fort Lauderdale's highest point is a landfill so I will have to use the wind for resistance. Thank you for your help.

I am training for a similar ride in the mid east i still believe that TITS and plenty of it is the only real answer but means doing more (way more than 2 hour rides )

this may sound like a problem, but it could be circumvented by improving your Functional Threshold Power (FTP, defined as power you can maintain for one hour). As long as the hills you encounter in your race aren't the short, punchy ones (aka sprinter's hills), being able to maintain power for an elongated period of time is more important. And a FTP workout is a FTP workout. For a list of what people here do, check out the road racing forum: there's a sticky at the top.

My 2 cents on Training to climb, living in Florida: http://everestchallengex2.blogspot.c...t-landers.html

Actually I wouldn't worry too much about the hills; 8,000 vertical over 375 miles is not that much climbing.

Your bigger problem is developing enough endurance to do 3 long days in a row. The best way to prepare for a ride like that is to do back to back long days. But it sounds like you don't have time to do that.

So you have to substitue intensity for miles. By raising your functional threshold power, you can increas the amount of time that you can ride at a comfortable pace below that. Thus I would do a program that had steady state intervals (i.e. 10-20 minutes at FTP) at the core of the program. If you only got an hour and half to train, a set of 3 x20's is going to do the most for you for that type of riding.

And try to find time as you get closer to the event to do a couple of 5-6 hour rides, and 2 weekend days back to back.

EDIT I was typing as McJimbo was posting, but we both agree that raising your FTP is going to do you the most good.

Offhand it sounds like you most likely have good fitness and a reasonable amount of time in the saddle. The key challenges here will be climbing ability and time in the saddle.

If you really can't find hills, consider getting an indoor trainer with variable resistance. This will not only get you used to the efforts, it will result in a more effective use of your training time.

Saddle time won't be easy given your time constraints. Getting used to those durations is as much mental as it is physical. It's not just fitness, it's knowing hydration and nutrition, including what you can tolerate eating and drinking after mile 101, how to pace your resources and so forth.

If you have a penchant for stiff and responsive bikes, you may find that doing 80, 90, 100 miles on a racing-style bike might work out -- but might not have sufficient gearing, and may leave you feeling fatigued and sore by the end of the first day, and punishing on the second. You may need to cushion the bike (e.g. wider tires, better saddle, more upright position, wider cassette) or possibly look into a cushier bike that doesn't detract much from performance (e.g. endurance or sport touring bike).

Since the ride is in January, I recommend you schedule a hilly century for September or October. That will help shake out your setup, as well as test hydration and nutrition

Coming from Florida, the best one to do is Six Gap, last weekend of September in Dahlonega Ga.

You can't just leave that there. It could go in so many different ways. What is it supposed to stand for?

For that kind of event, I think some distance riding may be called for. Unfortunately, it takes time, a "commodity" that most people don't have. If you are young and in good shape, you can do the event, and feel wasted at the end. Young bodies recover quickly. For prep, try a century and see how you feel, i.e. can you ride the next day? If not, you have to get into a regimen of doing some 60-80s five or six days a week. Or try 250-300 in three days. If you can do this, then 335 in an event is doable.

actually, i should be thanking you & the senior members of the 33 for knowledge like this :thumb:

TITS - time in the saddle.

Somehow you need to carve out a weekend where you can do 5-6 hours of riding on both Sat. and Sunday.

I did 215 miles in 2 days a couple years ago. The first day was a breeze. Getting back on the bike the second day was the hardest thing. It took about an hour to get everything going and for me to feel "normal".

And stay away from convenience store pizza no matter how good it looks at the time. Trust me.

Trust me, I'm definitely Pro TITS. However, there actually is more to life than just TITS. And the OP's life only allows him a limited amount of TITS.

While real TITS are very good, if you can't have real TITS, you may have to settle for some artificial enhancement to your smaller TITS, and this is where the FTP work comes in.

By raising your FTP, you can ride faster longer. For example if the OP has an FTP of 260 watts, and he needs to ride at close to that 260 watts to get up the hills, keep an acceptable pace, or hang with the group, by definition he can only do that for an hour.

But if he raises his FTP to 300, and only has to put out 260 watts, he'll be able to go many many more miles 40 watts below threshold.

To realize that intensisty work can improve your endurance, just take a look at your local century to the group of Racers that finish the Century sub 5 hours. Lots of times many of those guys are racing mostly crits and shorter RR's and 50 miles is a long ride. Yet because of the intensity work they can easily handle a century.

:lol::D:roflmao2::lol:

:innocent:

8000' in 300+ miles over 3 days isn't really a lot of climbing. I trained for 6-gap (10k of climbing over 100 miles in 1 day) just by riding around N. Florida.

Down where you live, there's a "hilly" course at the "Vista View Park" (it's somewhere in southern Broward near Davie). You can use that for steep interval climbs.

http://www.naturescape-broward.com/P...s/Default.aspx

Good luck! (btw, that sounds like an awesome trip)

Thank you for all of the great advice. Someone was wondering if I were young. To many that is subjective. I am 39 years old but like many of you, I'm sure, I certainly feel much younger and have been confused for still being in college. I am not sure if that is a reflection of my behavior or appearance. :lol:

Another question though. How do I measure FTP without a Power Meter? Can I use an equation with a Heart Rate Monitor to get a close approximation?

Thank you again. You are all a tremendous help.

technically, you can't (there are calculators out there, but none are that accurate). realistically, you don't need it. The avg HR for that hour is another indicator you could use, but you have to take into account the fact that it may take a good 10 for your HR to ramp up to FTP levels.

the only thing for which HR is lousy is short, anaerobic

don't worry about it.. if you're not "racing" this thing, and given the time constraints you have, just ride as much as you can, and put some intensity in it. You'll probably want to get a kitchen pass for riding one or two whole weekends though just to get ready, maybe do a century one weekend and a back-to-back century another weekend sometime in December.

oh, and take pics and share them!

OK, I got a bit curious and looked this ride up. You're in trouble. :D

http://www.vueltapr.com/The_Tour/Route

1st day is 150 miles with around 2000ft of climbing, day 2 is relatively mellow @ 91 miles with 1500ft, day 3 is 134 miles with 2300ft.

I'd agree the climbs on their own aren't too bad, it's broken up reasonably well over the three days. But if you don't put *cough* time in the saddle, you're gonna be real unhappy at the end of Day 1.

Thanks kensuf.....I am not racing it but I figure if I can train as if I were or close to it I will be able to appreciate all three days of cycling more. I don't want to have to gut it out just to finish if you know what I mean.

I will be sure to post plenty of pics of my beautiful island!

You don't need a power meter to do steady state intervals. When people say to do an interval at "FTP" they're basically saying at an effort level equivalent to what you could just sustain for one hour.

Training by heart rate that same effort level is commonly referred to as lactate threshold heart rate. You can calculate that HR, by taking your average HR from a one hour effort, or 95% of a 20 minute effort, or 92% of the average of 2 8 minute efforts.

Or you can just do the steady state intervals at 8/10ths perceived effort.

As long as you're doing some harder efforts on your shorter days to get maximum benefit from your limited training time, you don't need to get overly precise about all this.

I would suggest a recon trip. Ride the stage courses, get your logistics squared away while you're there(hotel, meals, spas -anything you may need) and get as much knowledge as you can from people who have done the event. This is called a 'Campaign' in simple terms. You need the miles on the bike, true. But, I find doing the course, clearing all the details away far ahead of the ride make things go easier.

I threw in for Everest Challenge this year. Far beyond my abilities but, a challenge I need to step beyond where I'm at now. Committing to an event like you have and, importantly, throwing this all on-line in a big forum like BF, shows something about yourself beyond the usual chatter about what you did last weekend on your club ride. You'll get encouragement from the guys who've done it and can steer you in the right direction - invaluable coaching that wont cost a cent.

Ride the course - it's a key part of the preparation. Read pro training diaries - they put the miles in on the courses they're going to race. You need to know when you'll be hurting and when you can gather yourself back and relax. I've done half the recon of Everest and will finish the rest in two weeks. Make the investment - you'll feel more focused on what you have ahead of you. Enjoy yourself and good luck!

Do you still have your beer bong? Behavior.
Do you still have your hair? Appearance.

If you can't put in the time, then pace yourself. Resist the hammer.