Multiple day event training

dov2711

Planning a charity ride next year (July) 10-12 days at 100 mile per day and want to get ahead of the game by starting research and preparations early.

I have been looking at sourcing detailed lejog type plans with minimal success. The general theme of "just go for it" or tales of people who underprepared but slogged it out are not really the route I want to go.

I ride regular and am now into the 4th week of the mid level sweet spot plan on trainerroad just to give myself a bit of a kick and to see if I can commit to following a plan. Its been tough but worthwhile and has certainly helped focus my attention.

Any tips on where I can focus some research?

Will M

I did the first 10 stages of the 2014 tour for Charity so might be able to help.

The main thing you need to do is get used to riding 100 miles then getting up the next day and doing it again (and again and again....). When training I found it very easy to do long mileage on the Saturday, but very very hard to motivate myself to do the same or similar on the Sunday. Don't fool yourself into thinking a couple of hours/recovery will do - it wont !!! Build it up gradually, but from January onwards you should be looking to do a longish back to back ride at least every 4 weeks (and from April - every couple of weeks)

Do what you can during the week (I usually did a couple of turbo sessions), but the B2B rides are the key.

What you will find once you are into the charity ride is that after about 3 or 4 days your body gets used to the fact that you're going to be asking it to do this 100 miles thing every day. One thing that did help was, for the first hour or so on a B2B was to spin REALLY easy - eases the legs back into the ride.

Above all - enjoy it.

Will M