Road Race Training

[holliscx]

My spring / summer road race calendar looks like this:

March 3 - 120 km
April 14 - 172 km
May 12 - 175 km
June 22 - 205 km

Right now I have the fitness to race 120 km. I don't want to peak too early as the June race is my focus. My training consists of a long ride on weekends plus one ride during the week, either hill training or a 40-70 km ride. Next month with more light I'll be able to get out twice mid-week.

I'm wondering how to hit my long rides for 172 km by mid-April sounds early to race that far. What if I shoot for long rides of 120 (where I am now); 150 for April; 170 for May; and 190 for June? I usually ride 3 weeks and then step back a week but weather can cancel a ride so that tends to happen organically versus a set schedule. In early July I'm planning to use my residual training to ride trans-Pyrenees (Girona-San Sebastian) in four days. It will be 180 km a day average with two days of big climbs.

All of the races above are heavy climbing. Thanks for any tips, advice even for my mid-week rides. I have two kids < 3 so go easy on me. ;)

[EDS]

Personally, for longer road races I prefer to have a few training rides under my belt that are longer than the race itself. Granted, I have never done a race that was more than about 130km.

[holliscx]

A lot of the races will have significantly more downhill than my training plus myriad pelotons which is why if I can ride 190 km solo I know I can race 205 etc. It's also a lot about hours in the saddle but I don't disagree mentally it's an advantage regardless to have trained the distance you're planning to race. Still races will always be easier than training in that there's more drafting and often longer mountain descents.

[David Tollefson]

My experience from back when I was road racing was that time in the saddle was the easy part. Training the "racing" aspect was the more difficult part -- responding to attacks, being smooth in the pack, etc. Hopefully you're including a lot of very spirited group rides in those miles.

[holliscx]

Hopefully you're including a lot of very spirited group rides in those miles.

Thanks, yeah I am, both my mid-week ride and my long ride are with a group that I ride faster with than if I were training on my own. Still I try to do a few epic rides by myself too for it's good prep to be able to handle both the monotonous solo hours as well as the spirited attacks that usu come with a group of strong riders.

[sonny]

i'm a total rookie at this, but it seems to me that a ride of 200k isn't even close to approximating a race of similar distance

i've done a few 175k+ rides built into ~1400k/month of base this winter, but no way can i hang for much more than 125k. obviously, all of this depends on what kind of fitness you're coming from before training.

i think intensity and ability to recover over time is what you need to be talking about. power would nice for something like this as you could chase race day tss values or something of the sort


i'm sure tom officer can get you on the right track

[Tom Officer]

Me? Really? LOL......I'd only add that riding once a week and then on weekends will make it tough to get a lot of improvement in your fitness. If at all possible get in as many short rides as you can during the week, even 30 minutes will help. Consistency is often overlooked in training plans and it will always pay many more dividends than trying to cram in rides after days off to make up for lost time.

[holliscx]

<snip>If at all possible get in as many short rides as you can during the week, even 30 minutes will help. Consistency is often overlooked in training plans and it will always pay many more dividends than trying to cram in rides after days off to make up for lost time.

What I find tough with road riding and cycling in general is leg fatigue. I ran cross country and track in hs and college and continued running after college. While my legs would feel tired some days due to training it's nothing like cycling where I can feel accumulative training in my legs via burning, tired, heavy legs. I notice this much more in cycling than running. So weeks where I can only get out for one ride during the week I feel great i.e. fresh going into my long weekend ride. Maybe the trick is less distance with more frequent rides but I think there's a fine line between riding too little and too much. I'm 37 and notice I need a lot more recovery time than I did in my 20s. A long ride is followed by 2-3 days off the bike (usually 2) for my legs usually feel trashed and I need the rest.

[David Tollefson]

What I find tough with road riding and cycling in general is leg fatigue. I ran cross country and track in hs and college and continued running after college. While my legs would feel tired some days due to training it's nothing like cycling where I can feel accumulative training in my legs via burning, tired, heavy legs. I notice this much more in cycling than running. So weeks where I can only get out for one ride during the week I feel great i.e. fresh going into my long weekend ride. Maybe the trick is less distance with more frequent rides but I think there's a fine line between riding too little and too much. I'm 37 and notice I need a lot more recovery time than I did in my 20s. A long ride is followed by 2-3 days off the bike (usually 2) for my legs usually feel trashed and I need the rest.

You need to learn the art of the recovery ride...

[Tom Officer]

Here's your prescription.....start finishing your hard rides with a very easy 15 min spin, this will help get the blood working to get the crap out of your legs and start the recovery process....then get out of your kit, get showered and get under the covers for 10 mins, then stretch for a bit or do some easy yoga....the other things is do very easy recovery rides on the other days, like I said even 15 mins will help enormously. I guarantee you'll feel better when the next hard ride comes around and you'll get fitter quicker.

What I find tough with road riding and cycling in general is leg fatigue. I ran cross country and track in hs and college and continued running after college. While my legs would feel tired some days due to training it's nothing like cycling where I can feel accumulative training in my legs via burning, tired, heavy legs. I notice this much more in cycling than running. So weeks where I can only get out for one ride during the week I feel great i.e. fresh going into my long weekend ride. Maybe the trick is less distance with more frequent rides but I think there's a fine line between riding too little and too much. I'm 37 and notice I need a lot more recovery time than I did in my 20s. A long ride is followed by 2-3 days off the bike (usually 2) for my legs usually feel trashed and I need the rest.

[devlin]

These two articles are pretty good at explaining whats needed in general. Use and adapt the information to suit your self. As Tom said consistency is the key. You are better off with 4 or 5 rides at 2/3 distance than two big rides a week. Roughly.

Starting From Scratch | Cycling Tips

Starting From Scratch – Phase 2 | Cycling Tips

[sk_tle]

km doesn't mean anything, it is hours on the saddle that counts.

I would focus on riding more often, smaller but faster rides and do one big epic ride of the same length or more a week before your main objective followed by a recovering ride the next day and a less intensive week. You don't need to focus on long rides only, but I realised that without one long ride the body seems "locked"

[sk_tle]

oh, and a smaller but fast race (like a criterion) during the week or the day before can be good too. Just don't try to go in a big break, hide in the peloton and spin. Contesting a few sprints won't do any harm.

I figured that I always did my best races when I felt tired, with legs aching a bit in the warm up. Then suddently during the race when the rythm raised the engine unlocked and I was flying (no doping involved). I assume I was a bit under trained and because of my studies and I was just faster in may-June when my weekly training consisted only on 1 or 2crits during the week + a race on Saturday and on sunday.

[holliscx]

Appreciate the feedback everyone I will focus on more training rides and not marry myself to the long ride as I have been. More is less.

[dogrange]

What I find tough with road riding and cycling in general is leg fatigue. I ran cross country and track in hs and college and continued running after college. While my legs would feel tired some days due to training it's nothing like cycling where I can feel accumulative training in my legs via burning, tired, heavy legs. I notice this much more in cycling than running. So weeks where I can only get out for one ride during the week I feel great i.e. fresh going into my long weekend ride. Maybe the trick is less distance with more frequent rides but I think there's a fine line between riding too little and too much. I'm 37 and notice I need a lot more recovery time than I did in my 20s. A long ride is followed by 2-3 days off the bike (usually 2) for my legs usually feel trashed and I need the rest.

Just to express some solidarity here, I have exactly the same problem. I'm generally in great shape, strength-wise (lots of kettlebells and olympic lifting), but haven't done any endurance training for a long time and at 42 I have the heavy, burning legs problem a lot, with slowish recovery after doing intervals on the bike 3 times/week. I'll take the recovery ride advice offered here and see if that helps.

[devlin]

I'd suggest doing intervals 3 times a week without a good base fitness might be a little bit too much. In my opinion I would swap one of the interval sessions out with a long 3-4 hour ride at a good tempo. I would almost say you'd be better off after a couple of months. This is saying that without knowing how much you have done and are doing up to this point. You would have to look at your whole program and have defined goals to work that out.

[dogrange]

I'd suggest doing intervals 3 times a week without a good base fitness might be a little bit too much. In my opinion I would swap one of the interval sessions out with a long 3-4 hour ride at a good tempo. I would almost say you'd be better off after a couple of months. This is saying that without knowing how much you have done and are doing up to this point. You would have to look at your whole program and have defined goals to work that out.

Thanks, makes sense, I'll take your advice.