Reflecting on training for the Etape

Duncanandthemachine

With about 9 hours in the saddle riding yesterday's Etape I had plenty of time to reflect on my training!

Over the last 2 years I've followed Joel Friel's training bible, with a particular focus on threshold training - partly to assist with the monster climbs of the Alps, but mostly for TT's. The TT's have gone well (23:01 for a ten and 1:00:03 for a 25, happy with these times in my first ten races).

I deliberately took the first climb (Col de Madeleine) 'easy' yesterday, hr zone 2/3 with the occasional foray into zone 4, never over LT though. The second climb (Col du Glandon) was brutal, but I stuck with my zone 3/ lower end zone 4. By the top however, with the final few kms up Croix de Fer, Col du Mollard and the final climb up to La Toussuire I had no choice with my speed! HR was maxed out at mid zone 2 and about 10km/hour.

Whilst I'm never going to have time to log many rides of over 4.5 hours, my aerobic fitness in 'coupled' (to use Training Bible terminology). By way of creating a point for debate, is it always going to be a case of hanging on and gritting teeth for the second half of such a tough ride? Will increased strength training help with average speed whilst accenting?

Your respective thoughts are greatly welcomed

Duncan

Herbsman

Duncanandthemachine wrote:

Will increased strength training help with average speed whilst accenting?

The first rule of Bike Radar is DO NOT TALK ABOUT STRENGTH TRAINING.
The second rule of Bike Radar is DO NOT TALK ABOUT STRENGTH TRAINING.

ut_och_cykla

No I think most people will agree that for an event of that length strength training (like squats in teh gym) won't help much with increased speed on ascents. Only your power to weight ratio will help that. You can improve it in two ways- lower your body weight (lose fat) or increase your power output at a heart rate/effort level that can be repeatedly maintained over a longer period. Most people who are already fairly fit will try to do a bit of both.
Training wise I think threshold work would be good (as you have done) but you probably didnt do enough repeats. a 23 minute TT is different from an hours climb. personally I favour 2 x 20 but 3 x 20 or 2 x 30 minute sustained efforts might help, together with some over threshold work and a fair bit of 'saddle time' - just doing something strenous for 4-5 is tiring - even walking!

bigpikle

Huge amounts of threshold development massively helped me at the Maratona the other week. Even managed to ride the Passo Giau at low tempo power, without the need to get to threshold, and that was 10km at a steady 10%. I think what can help is going threshold/tempo work at lower cadence to get really specific with your training. I tend to ride about 95rpm but on those climbs its more like 70 or sometimes less on the steeper bits, so I'd like to improve my power generation at those cadence numbers.