Training for multiple climbs in one day

phreak

I did an event on Sunday with a few decent climbs in it, the first of which was the Stelvio. I got up that in under 2 hours and felt alright, and the hope was that I'd recover a bit on the descent in time for the next climb, but that 2nd one was horrid.

My VAM went from 900 or so to 600 or so and I had no energy at all. Seemed able to hang on to groups on the flat bits but as soon as there was a climb of any length I was grovelling badly.

As we don't have these kind of climbs in Britain I've mostly been training for 90 minute efforts. Was it a lack of endurance that let me down or did I go a bit hard on the Stelvio and suffer later on?

meanredspider

Sounds like it could have been a bit of both (going too hard & lack of endurance). I suspect you blew it all on the first climb. There's no reason you can't do lots of climbs if you go at the right pace (I did Alpe D'Huez 6x in one day a few weeks ago and I'm neither small or young and I live in Amsterdam). Endurance is certainly something you need too though - long slow rides will give you that. Losing weight also makes a big difference (I lost 10kg in preparation).

marcusjb

Agree with a bit of both. Pacing yourself comes from experience (and a bit of guidance from HRM and PM if you have them), but endurance comes from riding.

If you've trained for 90 minutes efforts - do you mean just one session of 90 minutes effort? Or repeats?

Riding in the big mountains over multiple passes goes something like, big effort for 60-90 minutes, recover for 20-30 minutes, big effort for 60-90 minutes, recover for 20-30 minutes. Repeat until broken.

I found myself slightly underprepared for a trip into the pyrenees despite having some big miles in my legs last year. It is that recovery and then effort that really needs a lot of work on it. A friend described riding in the mountains as something like 4 25 mile TT level efforts (an hour of hard effort) with a bit of rest between them. Sort of true, and not many of us can ride 4 25s in a row.

I don't think you necessarily need to find long hills to train for it - I think there is value in even riding flatter courses at high output for 60 minutes, recover for 20, repeat.

phreak

Yes, it has tended to be single sessions of 60/90min, with those done primarily on the turbo. Doing more than that would be mentally quite challenging I think, and living in central London make it quite tough to do those kind of efforts on a road.

I have done half a dozen continental sportives before, but seemed to fall off quite a bit on this one. I suppose the Stelvio is a pretty tough climb so it's to be expected a bit.