Long ride and lack of fitness!

OwenB

Hi, I've recently verbally comitted myself to do a long (for me) ride through the lakes, it's a point to point ride from Shap to Grizebeck which works out to about 40 miles.
I've not been out off road since before Christmas due to injury and illness and am a bit concerned that I'll not be ready in time for the ride in June.
I'm currently doing some turbo sessions 3 times a week as my bike has developed a brake fault and it's away getting repaired so can't really do any more at the moment but know I'm going to have to get out soon.

Do you think I'll have enough time to get in shape to complete this ride? Can you offer any tips on getting into shape?

niteryder666

There is plenty of time.

The best approach is to get basic fitness first by doing slower longer rides. Then as you get fitter as your body can take harder training gradually increase the intensity.

Once you have basic fitness a one hour ride really hard will give you much more fitness than plodding for four hours.

bobpzero

setting up an weekly or "whatever days you know you have free "action plan would help keep yourself organised. its best to gradually build up and then ease off a few days before the big day. worth checking out or ask the organisers about the exact route and building your training on what the route/course is like. and if you know anyone has done it before then they would be of great help.

ive a similar problem, been burnt out with a some sort of cold/flu for the past 2 weeks, tho the charity ride im doing in the 1st week of May is all on road. i usually do some 30mile routes trying to mix it up between big hills and flat fast bits.

bigmart

could you ride 40miles comfortubly before the time off, if you could you'll be fine if you get a few rides in before

OwenB

bigmart wrote:

could you ride 40miles comfortubly before the time off, if you could you'll be fine if you get a few rides in before

To be honest not off road I couldn't. My maximum off road ride would be about 20 miles, and that was tiring, but am a big bloke too so that doesn't help (20stone) but am in the process of losing weight and am hoping to have gotten down to about 17 stone by then so will be a lot lighter compared to last year.
At the moment I'm hoping to get two shortish ten to fifteen mile rides in a week once my bike is returned and one longer ride every weekend. Until then I'll have to keep working on my trainer.

tlw1

I found running helps