Newbie planning a few long runs next year

timboellis

Okay I am new to this but not 100% sure where to start.

I am planning in June a night run 110 miles approx Carlise to Edinburgh, then end of June Gretna Green to John O Groats.

So looking a starting training January whats the best idea on the bike / Gym / Swimming to prepair?

JackPozzi

Don't bother with the gym and swimming, just concentrate on the bike...

imposter2.0

Ride your bike a lot. Assuming your events are only based on cycling, then gym or swimming will be a distraction rather than beneficial...

timboellis

Thanks, so what plan woudl be best lots of 20-30 mile runs then 50 mile run once a week then 100 mile each fortnight ?

city_boy

Imposter wrote:

Ride your bike a lot. Assuming your events are only based on cycling, then gym or swimming will be a distraction rather than beneficial...

As above...ride your bike. Try to mix it up with some shorter rides in the week, perhaps at a higher intensity and try to include some hills.

A longer ride at weekend but I wouldn't try to jump from 50 to 100 miles in one go! Just add 5-10 miles on each week to the long ride. I would also suggest that you don't necessarily need to be riding 100 miles every week. Once you get to riding 60-80 miles regularly and comfortably then a 100 should be straight forward.

Also, use you long rides to practice regular eating and drinking on the bike.

diy

If you have Gym membership, it can often be easier this time of year to hit a few spin classes and the odd stretching class. If you are new to endurance cycling you will benefit from a bit of all over light working out to improve your flexibility, core strength and recovery. If all you do is cycle, you may end up with back pain and shortened muscles from only exercising them in one way.

High Intensity interval training can also help, in fact you should get better gains early on in your development. i.e. studies show that HIIT will give you faster route to improving endurance than conventional training.

I'm not saying you need to do weights, but you need to properly stretch. Mixing it up a bit will help. Try to build some speed work in to your training rides. Just doing long training rides in the endurance zone is probably the slowest way to get results.