Training Advice - Multi Day Event

grazza_e

Hi all, I had a bit of a search but didn't find a lot (might have used bad keywords, but anyway..). Keen on a little bit of specific advice / opinions on an approach to a mutli-day event. For context, it's 5 days, and effectively replicating 5 grand tour stages, from flat to a serious mountain day, anywhere from 100-140 miles a day. It isn't a race, so aim is just to stick with a group and basically to get to the finish...

I've designed my training plan this year to focus almost exclusively on endurance miles. Basically as follows:
- I managed to get a week in spain to try to get some base miles in, and pretty much just sat in the saddle and churned away for as much time I could put aside (roughly 500 miles across 7 days)
- My plan for the next few months to event is just a much time in saddle as possible, e.g. at least one long ride on weekend, topped up with two or three turbo sessions of 2hrs or so. About 10 hours is about as much as I can realistically do given work / home constraints suplemented by a couple weekends where I can do back to back 100ish mile days.

So my question is on intervals / higher intensity work and trying to improve my threshold. Last year I was training for a one-day, hilly event, and did a awful lot more high intensity work, this year, almost none, meaning on some group rides (with friends training for the Etape) i'm getting dropped on climbs.

Does anybody think there is much value in trying to build some high intensity work in? Physiologically will it provide me that much benefit on day 5 going up a mountain or should I just continue to focus on working on endurance pace, trying to get the body to be as efficient as possible at working in that zone.

phreak

I've never done a 5 day event of that magnitude, but instinct is saying that the training that applies to a 1 day event of that nature (ie good tempo training to get you over the climbs of an hour or so) still applies, but you'll need to work on your recovery process.

I don't know if there's much you can do to train your muscles to recover faster, but you can practice with massages, diet and so on to try and recover from each session you do in the run up as quickly as possible.

Lightning

Your most limiting factor (on whether or not you finish the event) will be recovery and ability to ride consistently every day without fading too badly. I doubt you'll be spending much time riding at threshold during the event, especially on the later days, but high intensity stuff is still good training.

In my opinion, your plan (2hrs+ 3 times/week + long ride/s during weekend) sounds solid. I'd suggest you spend two of those turbo sessions focusing on tempo/sweet spot and one of the sessions on threshold stuff (+ endurance during rest periods and such, to make it 2hrs). On the weekend ride/s, focus on long distance/time at endurance pace and tempo during climbs (as similar as possible to the event ones). Whenever you can, ride back to back (weekend long rides) to get used to it.

grazza_e

Cool - thanks, i'd been more and more leaning towards increasing the intensity on the turbo, an hour or two at an endurance, I just wasn't convinced how much it was really helping. Your comments have made me conclude I should!

I'm the same on recovery, I really don't know, and beyond using up a few weekends, I think i'll just have to wait to find out (and probably suffer on the later stages). I'm not exactly in a situation where I can go out for 5 days a few times for practice!

Thanks again

FatTed

If you are able to pace yourself so you don't overdo it on the 1st few days recovery should not be a problem. Back to back rides at the weekend should help, especially if you go as hard as you can on saturday?

bigpikle

having done a few of these sort of things:

1. bike fit - make sure you are very comfortable for days
2. lots of miles and make sure in your training you do some good blocks of long days in the saddle (70-80 miles) back to back - make sure you can really handle 500-600 miles in a week day after day
3. pacing on the event itself
4. nutrition - get good habits formed about eating during and after each stage. Remember that eating in the last couple of hours of each day is the fueling for the next day
5. good stretching/recovery routine for each day

high intensity stuff will help build other elements of your fitness if done appropriately, so it may have a place, but I'd really suggest as much tempo/sweetspot/threshold work as you can as many days a week as you can. There really is no substitute for lots of miles in training when your event will be loads of miles day after day. Take a few days holiday and do a 3-4 day block of solid riding at some point or get out v early each day over the bank holiday weekends and get 4 hours done by mid-morning each day. It really will help prep you.

bahzob

Bigpikle wrote:

having done a few of these sort of things:

1. bike fit - make sure you are very comfortable for days
2. lots of miles and make sure in your training you do some good blocks of long days in the saddle (70-80 miles) back to back - make sure you can really handle 500-600 miles in a week day after day
3. pacing on the event itself
4. nutrition - get good habits formed about eating during and after each stage. Remember that eating in the last couple of hours of each day is the fueling for the next day
5. good stretching/recovery routine for each day

high intensity stuff will help build other elements of your fitness if done appropriately, so it may have a place, but I'd really suggest as much tempo/sweetspot/threshold work as you can as many days a week as you can. There really is no substitute for lots of miles in training when your event will be loads of miles day after day. Take a few days holiday and do a 3-4 day block of solid riding at some point or get out v early each day over the bank holiday weekends and get 4 hours done by mid-morning each day. It really will help prep you.

I too have done lots of these sorts of events both as races and as hard touring (including shadow ride of full TDF and 4 day LEL) . I would go along with all of the above and add the following:
- Be prepared to feel a bit rough on day 3. I find that's when the fatigue of day-day rides starts to hit. Strangely after then the fitness benefits start to kick in and days 4 onwards I ride stronger and stronger.
- Training including some high intensity work helps because it will increase your overall capacity. So if you do VO2 intervals that's good. It helps strengthen your cardio system which is great because it means for a given level of sustained sub threshold effort you will feel less tired. However high intensity efforts should be avoided as much as possible during the event itself. The cost in terms of fatigue is not worth any marginal benefit you will get in terms of speed. (This especially applies if there are serious long climbs, you should have enough gears to allow a steady tempo bottom>top)
- Tri bags are a great way to hold small bits of easy to eat food. Get into the routine of eating a little something often. A couple of these can hold enough for a long session.

grazza_e

Thanks for advice Bigpickle / Bahzob, good to hear from a couple of people who have done similar.

Agree my mindset for the event itself was as much as humanly possible ride within myself. I'm probably going to add one or two shorter interval sessions during the week as I get a bit closer. I am concious of fatigue / getting sick etc. by ramping up too fast. Advice on nutrition also good, i'm pretty good these days at fueling on rides, but my recovery routine terrible, basically I don't even think about it so I need to get more disciplined in that respect.

I'm aiming for 3 'big weekends' between now and June to get some multi-day efforts in. They will probably be 3 days max (maybe bookended with some shorter turbo sessions), but there is only so much I can do taking into account family etc. Interesting you mentioned day 3 as I found similarly I was down in spain early in the year and did 2 solid days fairly comfortably and then on the 3rd legs just didn't want to go.

It's strange i've got to a point i'm thinking about riding from london to paris 'for a bit of training', my colleagues at work think i've lost it... But somehow I rationalised if I leave on a thursday, other half can arrive friday night and we can have a weekend and I keep everybody happy....

bahzob

Good luck. One other thing. After the event finishes you will feel very rough for a couple of days.

It really doesn't matter how long the event is, when you are in the midst of it you force yourself to keep going but pay for it after it all finishes and may even feel like you never want to get on a bike again.

However that soon wears off and if you don't go mad celebrating and do some gentle riding 2-3 days later then about a week after the finish you will probably feel stronger than you ever did in your life. This is a great time to try to set a PB or do a one day sportive if you fancy another challenge.

bigpikle

hte day 3 hing is probably linked to a lack of 3 day training blocks. I used to suffer the same thing, but at Xmas went to G Canaria for a week riding only in mountains and did 2 x 3 day blocks of riding (80-100km/2000m climbing a day), and on both blocks I had my PBs on the 3rd day. That was after spending a lot of time riding 3 days back to back in the last couple of years.