150 mile solo ride training

po51uk

At the end of July, I'll be cycling from Norfolk to Kent (total of 150 miles). I intend to do this all in one day and I'm looking for some training tips and general advice.

I'm in my twenties and I've only been cycling (on my road bike) for about a year and my longest ride to date has been 135 miles (last year). My longest ride this year has been 100 miles (a couple of weeks ago). I'm cycling betwwen 90 and 110 miles a week (one long ride at the weekend (about 80 miles) and a short ride in the week) averaging about 15mph. I also play badminton competitively in the week (singles) so I'm fairly fit. Should I be getting more miles in per week or doing some other training in addition to just saddle time or is this enough?

Regarding nutrition, I normally take bananas and those little Soreen maltloaf things (in addition, i'll usually stop somewhere for a bacon roll and a mars bar or something on the long rides). I use SIS powder sashets and those high 5 zero tablets for drink.

I always carry a spare inner tube and I use a Garmin 705. I will be completely on my own on this ride so I need to make sure that firstly I can make the distance and secondly that I've got everthing I might need along the way.

Any advice/tips would be greatly appriciated.

jibberjim

Ride more often, for less distance, and harder...

mrbrightside

You reference 'solo', so If all your rides are club runs then doing all the graft on your Todd is going to hurt! Especially riding a one way if you get a headwind.

TakeTurns

That's a great distance! Good job on taking up the mission, it can take quite a bit of motivation to get started, it certainly did for me anyway. For the first 30-40miles I kept saying to myself "My form is not good enough, legs don't feel that good today, maybe I should turn back and do this next week". But then the positive thoughts kicked in, "this'll look good on my strava" Of course, I don't ride solely for strava.

I did a 160mile ride 3 weeks ago, didn't do any long distance training for it. Just a day off before the big one. I believe I had 4 litres~ of fluids 10 soreens, 4 bananas and 5 flapjacks. Bit like you I'm young (19) and have been riding for just over a year now. However I've been racing and doing plenty of high intensity stuff. Most of my training is around 1h; short, medium, long sustained efforts. I also do 1 longish ride per week of 70miles~ hard.

You'll be fine, all the best and don't forget to report back.

po51uk

Thanks for the comments guys. The advantage of this being a solo ride is that I get to choose the day. I've allowed myself a 3 day window so that I can pick the best weather conditions (hopefully avoiding a nasty headwind).

Sounds like what i'm doing is not too far off the mark. I just need to add some shorter high intensity runs.

Thanks for your input TakeTurns. By the sounds of it we're quite similar in some respects. So the fact that you finished a 160 is good encouragement for me. Hope you got some 'kudos' on Strava!

Bordersroadie

Well done for going for it! Sounds like you have the right approach but I'd want more than one spare tube if you have no back up.

Toks

You'll definitely be able to ride the 150 miles. Just remember to stay on top of your nutrition and hydration throughout the ride and you'll fine. Now Jim's already let the cat out of the bag and it's the thing most newbies don't know. If you can ride at a moderately fast pace for ~ 60 mins (you should be able to manage a few brief words if someone started speaking to you but definitely not a sustained conversation) at least 3 times per week and do your longer ride say half target distance every 7-10 days. So assuming everything else is ok you should do reall well especially if you can do this for a minimum of 12 weeks. Good luck

SBezza

Got agree with Jim on the ride more often, 2 rides a week isn't really training as such. If you can ride 100 or 135 miles you can ride 150 without a doubt, how comfortable you will be is another matter, but that will depend entirely on the route and the wind direction, like as mentioned above, if it is a headwind for the majority of the route it will feel a whole lot tougher, and will obviously be slower.