Ultra-distance training: reality check?

aka_finto

As seems to often be the case, I'm a long-time lurker, first-time poster, so please be gentle...

I got talking to a family friend at the weekend who rides ultra-distance events and he jokingly suggested that I take it up, even saying I should enter the Race Across the West (http://www.raceacrossthewest.org) if I dared. Given I'm a naturally competitive type, it got me thinking - would it be realistic for me, a relatively new cyclist, to enter a race that's 860 miles long?

I have to say, I'm a realist, so appreciate that it would take a vast amount of training. What I was hoping, was to tap into some of the experience of people on the boards to get some advice, i.e. if it's a total non-starter then I'll focus my efforts elsewhere.

As a bit of background, I've been cycling for about 4 months now, starting with commuting to work (25 miles/day) and then longer rides at weekends. A couple of weeks ago I rode the women's Olympic Road Race course (c.145km) solo, in 5 hours 45 mins, so averaging about 25kph. Whilst I'm relatively new to a bike, I've previously played international representative sport, so can appreciate the commitment that a significant amount of training will entail & am willing to do what it takes.

I'm considering either entering as a solo or part of a 2-man team and thinking of either next summer or, if this is likely to be too soon, summer 2014. As I said, more than happy for people to bring me back down to earth in terms of realism, but just wanted to gauge some thoughts.

Thanks in advance & like I said, be a little gentle to a newbie

thiscocks

sounds like you are pretty decent on a bike and you do a decent amount of miles so why not? Might be an idea to just try and do the 70miles (or whatever it is) back to back on consecutive days- that (I imagine) would become tiring even with eating enough.

Maglia

If you're realistic about how much training you'll have to do and disciplined enough to increase the training load progressively you should be able to do it. As an n=1 anecdote I hadn't ridden further than 200km in one hit before January last year and rode the 1230km of PBP last August.

dw300

RAW - an appropriate acronym perhaps!

It'd be easy if it started in Colorado and ended in Cali, lol. How many days is it? I'd just focus on riding big miles several days in a row as often as you can, i think that's gona be the bit that you'll not be used to.

I'm presuming you'll be training while holding down a 9-5 which could make it tricky .. is your commuting at a fairly easy pace? It's might be worthwhile adding distance to your homeward journey to help get your mileage up.

Perhaps doing a decent distance on a Thursday and Friday evening and then 2 long runs on a Saturday and Sunday, and do this once every 2 or 3 weeks? You could tweak the mileage to what you feel you could start with now, but that would get you several days in succession of big mileage.

You're base commuting mileage is 125 miles. If you could get out and do 50 (a balance of mileage and available time) on a Thur and Fri evening, then 75 on a Sat and Sunday .. you'd be starting at 375 miles in a week. Then every 2 or 3 weeks later add miles to the weekend cycles, and maybe go longer on a Weds or Monday evening to extend the 'days in a row' training.

You've got to increase your weekly ability by 500 miles. If you do this over 17 'cycles', doing a big week every 3 weeks (51 total weeks), that's 30 additional miles per 'big' week. 20ish if you attempt a big week every fortnight.

This will give you recovery weeks and allow you to do family and friends things as usual in those weeks so that you don't go mad, or get demotivated or sacked or divorced if you're married. If you don't have friends or family then you can probably go a bit harder at it all round.

I'm not a cycling coach, but combined with other advice you could probably tweak this and carry it off without too much impact on your life, or getting overtrained.

aka_finto

Thanks for the replies. Sounds like a promising start.

I guess in terms of time commitments, it probably helps that my gf is a keen runner so spends a fair amount of time out training at weekends. Will make it easier to fit in more long rides myself.

As for the event itself, it's a running clock from the start, so minimal time for stops/sleep etc. So quite something to build up to, but with any luck possible!

dw300

How many hours a day are you planning to be cycling? Are you gona go crazy and cycle 16-20hrs a day? I figured it'd be a stage type race with 4-8hrs in the saddle daily, depending on your speed.

aka_finto

Well the time limit for solos is 90-odd hours, so would need to maintain a 10mph average including sleep. Looks like some long days in the saddle!

SBezza

To be honest if the family friend is experienced at doing the ultra endurance events, get some advice from them. Racing (and that is what it is) the RAW is a completely different experience from just doing back to back days of endurance riding.

You will need to be able to do back to back day long rides, just to condition the body if nothing else, and in the position (if you are doing it on a TT bike) you will most likely be in. I would also do some night riding as well, or at least one ride throughout the night to see what it is like riding for a long time by headlight.

No doubt you can do it, but it is unlikely to be easy, either doing the event itself, or the training required to complete it within the time limit (if like RAAM you will have time limits for each checkpoint). No doubt it will be easier as a 2 man team, you can then share the workload, but as a solo entry I would imagine you wouldn't get much sleep in the event itself, so riding with sleep deprivation will be a big challenge.

Good luck if you do it though.

bahzob

I rode the London-Edingburgh-London back in 2009, which is roughly the same distance in roughly the same time (880miles in 93 hours). It also had a lot of climbing, something else the RAW seems to have based on this year's profile at least.

My short advice is go for it. Regardless of what happens it will be something you will remember for the rest of your life.

From your background and based on how you are riding atm I don't think you need to worry too much about the physical training side of the challenge, just keep doing long rides and up the mileage. That said once you can do around 200 miles its a reasonable bet that you will be able to do 1000 in terms of fitness, especially once you factor in the motivation riding an event like the RAW provides. FWIW my longest ride pre LEL was 255miles,

However events like the RAW are more a test of the head than the legs. Hardest thing about the ride isn't the distance its the lack of sleep. The FAQs for the RAW say the max you will be able to sleep is 4 hours a day, it may be less.

But you can practice for this too. I'd had to do the occasional non-stop 48 hour work shift and that, together with a good set of lights, stood me in good stead when I had to put in a 36 hour stint during my ride. (Indeed the sensation of riding from one dawn to another is one of the things I most remember, its something quite special.)

Good luck, it will be hard but worth it.

amaferanga

If the aim is just to do it then 90 hours is pretty generous. All you'll need to do is condition your body to riding for a long time each day. You don't need to be an athlete as such to do this - look at the many non-athletes that do PBP. If this is your aim then just get some long rides in this summer, building up to 400km in <24 hours with some night riding experience, perhaps a 600km. Joining some audaxes might help give you something to focus on. You could even aim to do London-Edinburgh-London next year to get some ultra-distance riding experience before doing the RAW in 2014.

One really, really important thing is bike fit. That may sound obvious, but a bike that's comfortable for 2 hour rides or even 5 or 6 hour rides may be hell after 24 hours. So as you build up the distance of your long ride make sure you address any niggles that arise. A slight niggle after 300km could be enough to make you pack after 600km.

Are you absolutely set on the RAW? PBP, LEL or the 1001 Miglia Italia can be equally challenging (you can ride them as fast as you want even though they're not races as such) and would be much cheaper and easier logistically.

vorsprung

Can you do it? 860 miles in 90 hours? Yes, that's not that far off long distance audax rides like PBP or LEL. Lots of unfit old blokes do those events

Can you ride it like a race and get a good placing? That would require a lot of training and some natural talent

Also there are other factors such as the route seems to cross some deserts, the heat could be a problem