Anyone got any really good hints, tips, links, forum threads, books, cross training plans for totally injury free training for long distance tours, races, ITT?

Make sure that cardio is always your weakest point as opposed to the muscles not being able to keep up with your lungs & heart.

Here's my 2 pence-worth:

Having done the whole training plan malarky thing years ago, including training with a power meter, I now just "ride my bike". Sometimes I ride quickly, other times less so. I mix it up a bit, technical trails, fireroad, big mountain rides, 1 hour rides, 10 hour rides. Whatever I feel like, or whatever time is available.

If you're thinking TD or HTR, then start now at a moderate volume and make incremental increases each week. Have an easy week once a month and build volume up to whatever feels comfortable. Repeat the same rides from time to time at similar effort and see how you improve. Try riding two big days back to back to see how you recover is.

It's not just fitness though either - you should test different kit in different conditions all the time you're riding, so you know what works, how well, and in what conditions. What are its limitations - you need to know before the race. Vary eating strategies and so on, so that when you get to the event every aspect is totally dialed in.

Make sure you never lose the joy of the riding while you're doing it though :)

(other opinions may vary - what works for me might not work for you, etc...)

I've read numerous books over the years but sadly I can't reccommend any of them. Some contain 300-400 pages and appear to be stuffed full of tips / tricks all designed to make you a better endurance cyclist. However, after reading them you realise that they all say the same thing and that is simply ... RIDE YOUR BIKE MORE. Ride it more often and for longer and you'll become much better at riding your bike more often for longer.

The same is true of books like 'Racing Weight'. It promises to get you to your ideal weight for endurance events and if you follow the advice then there's a good chance it will. 200 pages and numerous facts, figures, graphs and pie-charts later you now realise that you should eat less crap, processed food and more unrefined food ... job done

I know that doesn't really help, sorry.

*One thing I did read was regarding cross training - "if you want to get good at cycling, don't go skiing"

EDIT: I think Ian's described it very well.

Why not Skiing?

Try riding two big days back to back to see how you recover is.

Agreed. It's all about recovery I think. During a race/ride or training. Chocolate milk and good sleep etc. I know little about training but learned a a few things that seem to work in the last 2 years, main thing is that you need to build efficiency first ie base miles in Z2, then work on threshold ie sessions on a turbo where you stress your max sustainable (20-30 mins) pace. Base and build cycles. You can't tune an inefficient engine. The sessions that seem to work for one may be different to another but most of it seems to be based on that. Pre-breakfast 2hr rides seemed to work to get my endurance efficiency up - coincidence or chance I'm not sure. Joe Friel's blog is useful for info and myth-busting.
Also worth doing longer trips to learn in practice about how your power can develop after 6-7 days on the bike - a real confidence booster on future rides.

Why not Skiing?

I don't think they were implying that skiing was a bad thing to do if you were a cyclist I think the message was more about concentrating on your specfic discipline.

Maybe try this one ... " Don't take a knife to a gun fight". Any better?

"Don't take a knife to a gun fight"

Unless it's an underwater gunfight

Unless it's an underwater gunfight

You take yer knife, I'll take this





Caliber: 5.6x39 mm MPS
Action: Gas operated, rotating bolt
Overall length: 823 mm (butt retracted), 615 mm (butt collapsed)
Barrel length: n/a
Weight: 2.4 kg less magazine; 3.4 loaded
Rate of fire: 600 rounds per minute (in air)
Magazine capacity: 26 rounds

The APS (Avtomat Podvodnyj Spetsialnyj = Special Underwater Assault rifle) was developed during the early 1970s at TSNIITOCHMASH(Central Institute for Precision Machine building) by the team lead by V. Simonov. APS has been in active service with combat divers of the Soviet and Russian Navy since circa 1975.
The APS is designed for special underwater cartridges, which fire 5.66 mm needle-like projectiles 120 mm long. The projectiles are stabilized using a hydrodynamic cavity, generated by the flat point of the projectile. The cartridges use standard 5.45 x 39 cases, sealed from water. The APS itself is a relatively crude, smooth bore arm, with a gas operated, rotating bolt action, fired from an open bolt.Single safety / selector switch is located at the left side of the receiver and allows for single shots and full automatic fire. The gas system features a patented self-adjusting gas valve, which allows the gun to be fired both underwater and in atmosphere. The simple trigger unit allows for single shots and full automatic fire. The rate of fire under water, as well as the effective range, depends on the actual depth. Sights are crude: a non-adjustable open notch rear and post front. The retractable buttstock is made from steel wire. The most complicated thing in the whole design is the feed system, which includes several parts to avoid double and even triple feed with the extremely long projectiles. Unusually deep (front to back) magazines are made from polymer and hold 26 rounds.
It must be noted that while APS could be fired "above the water", it should be done only in the case of emergency. According to the available sources, the expected service life of the APS when fired "in theair" degrades severely, and the effective range is limited only to severaltens of meters. So, the APS is useful only under the water, where it is quiteefective.

Edward Pickup has a good blog, with links through to a few others.

http://edwardpickup.com/2013/10/23/endu ... ling-tips/

*One thing I did read was regarding cross training - "if you want to get good at cycling, don't go skiing"

without writing a (boring) essay. there's a lot of rubbish talked for and against cross training.

The key thing is WHY. If you are (cross) training what purpose does it serve; what is your goal and how is this helping you achieve it.

The key thing is WHY. If you are (cross) training what purpose does it serve; what is your goal and how is this helping you achieve it.

In fairness to whoever said it, they did also say that, cross training was a good way to improve general fitness levels, so could prove useful at the start of a training regime ... but once a good base level was maintained, concentrating on the discipline in question would be of greater benefit.

After reading the replies to the OP and looking at the links, what comes across is ... experimentation.

Anyone got any thoughts on including some resistance training?

Thanks, you've saved me from a lot of wasted time reading bullshit training books etc so there is no magic bullet (even if there is a magic Avtomat Podvodnyj Spetsialnyj) but I think I will go with Ian's wondrous advice to maintain the joy of riding at all costs. I am deeply old fashioned though and will take both a knife and a gun to the fight just in case. Specific training is OK but I am easily bored and need the variety of cross training, from weights in the gym, plyo, stretching, yoga, muni, SUP, packrafting, fell running, barefoot running, slacklining, swimming, bouldering, tiddlywinks and even (roller skiking) cross country skiing. If all I do is bike, then all I work are the riding muscles. Which is OK, but, if not careful then muscle imbalances develop, which pull the body out of alignment and cause serious problems down the single track of life. I'm getting old and crumbly and don't have a car so depend on my fragile knees to keep me cycling as prime form of transport. Need to focus on getting faster, stronger, quicker, more flexible, and more durable so when I do crash (and I do with monotonous regularity (maybe I should do a course with forest freeride or backcountry biking when I can afford it!) I can crash often and hard without getting too badly hurt.

s8tannorm wrote:Anyone got any thoughts on including some resistance training?

My preferred method is to pedal the Puffin uphill into the wind

The only non-bike "training" I would be inclined to do is core body work*. Every year I seem to get by without doing any, so never commit to a programme. Even the prospect of ripped abs isn't enough get me motivated, and success is nearly always derived from being motivated to do it in the first place.


* though to be fair, riding a SS around here is quite a good upper body workout anyway

Ian and jameso have some good points. I am not to far away in my thinking either, although a much slower pace.

Firstly what is your target? If say, it was a certain gravel race in Wales you know you will need to cover 100 or 200 miles off-road with more climbing then you would like. So you need to train to ride for this long. It is no good me getting the road bike out and doing 100 miles on the flat roads in the Derbyshire/Notts/Leicestershire area, I need to go into the Peak and get some hills in.

Joe Friel has got some tips in his blog or a book I have (Training for over 50's)

I think it is getting the basics right. I understand you lose endurance after a week and speed after 3-4 days. So if I ride 3 times a week then one long and 2 'fast' is what I aim for. Fast can be anything, local chain-gang or various turbo sessions or blasting up hills. I try to get a 4th ride in when as well. Backing up long days is important to. But then I ride 2-3 days in a row on overnights sometimes as well.

What Joe Friel reckons is that the nearer you get to your target then the more specific you need to be, he also suggests 10-12 weeks is sufficient in this last phase. This of course assumes you are fit in the first place, base and build as jameso says.

A lot of it is common sense at the end of the day with some trial and error.

Anyone got any thoughts on including some resistance training?

weights?

My core stuff is:
dead lift; good for hamstring glutes and core/ back
Squats: quads and core
one arm shoulder press: shoulders, back, core

supplementary:
Bent over row, reverse fly: i have a rhomboid issue
kettle bell swings: core, quads

The whole lot takes less than the other half watching an episode of eastenders.

I've been going with the principle of keeping it wobbly, stay away from machines, use a gym ball instead of a bench, use dumbells in preference to a bar, and juggling kettlebells is really fun as long as you don't drop them on your feet. As Ian says, need to do lots of core work but only doing gym twice a week because the gym is just freeking boring.
The Goal is HTR in 2015 which seems a long way away but with my current level of fitness, skills and age will probably be enough time to crank myself up enough to do an ITT safely in a reasonable time or who knows, a group start if I work on it. The Joe Friel stuff looks good, thanks.

Other things to mention are its not all about the pedaling on these types of events.

For the HTR you'll have to go a fair amount of hike-a-bike, so make sure you are including rides which are going to include this so you get your body used to it.

Make sure you ride loaded, as there is little benefit to 'training' with a non-loaded bike and then adding 5-10k of equipment/food/water for the event.

Knowing how your equipment works is also key. When you're knackered and its cold and raining, you dont want to be trying to work out how you put up your tent and keep your sleeping bag dry. You'd want to be in a position where it becomes automatic within your brain without having to consciously think about it. Being able to spot good bivi locations can mean the difference between a miserable/restful night.

Theres also the physiological aspect to these events. You may be able to ride 200k a day, but what happens if thats into a headwind, you run out of food/water, you take a wrong turn due to being tired? Things like this only come from experience.

If the aim is HTR15 go and look at a bit of the route next year if you can. No need to push yourself but you will have some familarity as to what you are up against. Quite a bit of hike-a-bike as Chew says, also riding with kit. Certainly I rode with full kit even on day rides, some successive, in last 3 months up to TD to get body used to it.

I've done very minimal "training" this year. Only event I've really made (bar a few social weekends of riding with friends in Wales) was BearBones 200 - never ridden the bike I used for the BB with luggage before (but tbh I ended up with a pretty lightweight setup so that helped).
All my riding this year has been commuting...and I decided to do the Bear Bones about 3 months before the event (when Stu posted the thread asking who's doing it, I thought why not!) - I upped the miles on the commute home, I even managed for a few weeks 10 hours of riding during the week, and kinda mentally prepared myself and worked out my kit so I was happy with it. Did a test ride of riding with massive sleep deprivation after a party which gave me a mental boost that I can function on a bike without any sleep...
And that was pretty much it prep wise for the Bear Bones 200 - enough to get me to a sub 18 hour finish.

That said , once upon a time when I was a student, I did the whole training plan thing - found out a lot of sport science stuff (easy to do when you're at Loughborough!) Nutrition, all about training zones, the base-build-peak-taper routines, circuit sessions, early morning rollers etc.
Now I just ride my bike to keep me smiling, can't be dealing with all the seriousness of training etc. these days along with a full week of work and a part time masters course- I've got a bit of experience on my side which is a massive help. To be honest, I really think from my small dabbles in anything endurancey on the bike, is that your head really has to be in it, and mental strength will probably out do everything else.

*Everyone is different - so this may or may not help!

I used to do a lot of running, and then started circuit training twice a week when I took up biking. When I started biking I had very strong legs (and core), and since I stopped circuits and running about 4 years ago, and focussed solely on biking I am sure I am not as strong as I used to be (but probably just as fit).

I now plan on 6 months of circuit training to get some of that strength back, as well as lots of short, medium and long rides. Can't stand the gym, and I like to eat food (cake is a particular favourite) so am not going to go all calorie controlled and diet focussed). I want to enjoy my riding - when I stop enjoying it I will stop doing it and take up something else. My advice would be to do what feels right - if you are a data analyst junkie, start focussing on heart rate training zones blah blah. If you like being outside then ride your bike. If you like sitting on a turbo trainer in your garage do that, but above all - enjoy it!

I went through a similar question a year ago, wanting to go from day only rides to long distance events. I specifically wanted to compete in the Kielder100 (doh).

I found that getting a personally tailored training plan helped a lot. Firstly it was geared to around when I could train. It also was geared towards what I needed to improve.

I found that I had plenty of cardio V but was as weak as a southerner's shandy. As in 20 press ups was a killer. The training plan pushed me to the point where I was able to do Kielder100, BB200 etc which would not have been possible a year previously.

Check out this: http://prorideguides.com/pages/flat_out_fit

As a general comment, it does seem that seasoned MTB riders need muscle training rather than CV. If that is the case with you then don't train the things you can do already, train the aspects you find hard. As my training planner said, you can already ride for hours on the flat but if you can get up the hills faster and with less degredation it will have a much bigger impact.

your head really has to be in it

- this is a good point, motivation is all. No point ticking stuff off for any other reason than a deep-seated want to do an event/ride etc. It's the thing that most impresses me about some racers, that they always come back from one crazy-tough race wanting to do the next one. Near-certifiable in some cases )

Now I'm worried.

I've entered HTR14 and I'm just planning to ride around a bit between now and May. It did occur to me that upper body strength might be useful for picking my bike out of bogs though.

ScotRoutes
"riding round a bit" might not cut it, but "riding round a lot" might. Don't get worried until nearer the time, when you realise that your gear is too heavy, your bike needs fixing, you're not fit enough, and the weather will be crap. That's the time to worry!

For what it's worth I am more worried about telling my better half about the frame I have just bought for the HTR than the race itself!