Training (with power) for an Ultra Event

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Well, I'll agree to disagree, but last season I did a total of two rides over 70 miles before finishing the season with a 206 mile road race with over 7500 of climbing held at altitude. I raced very competitively and finished in well under 10 hours. We all wore timing chip bracelets and across all categories for the day my time was 72 out of over 1400 cyclists. I rode away from and finished half an hour or more ahead of team mates that swore by long training rides to prep for this event.

Stripping away the power terminology I had no trouble racing competitively in an event nearly 3x my typical long training rides but did so by having relatively high sustainable power and by paying attention to feeding and hydration on race day. Sure it's totally anectdotal but I'm not alone in these experiences and others on the Google Wattage lists have reported similar results. Specificity is important, but relating it to distance, hours on the bike or calories burned during training can be misleading.

I'm sure there's some minimum durations you need to adjust to before attempting long events, but the idea that you need to match your training to your events in terms of: hours, time in saddle or calories burned is based in tradition and intuition, not science or experience.
You had a great result in Lotoja. Here is my question though: If you were dedicating your training to doing well in 206 mile Lotoja rather than dedicating your training to doing well for an entire season of USCF cycling races, would you train substantially differently, and if so, how? :)

...: If you were dedicating your training to doing well in 206 mile Lotoja rather than dedicating your training to doing well for an entire season of USCF cycling races, would you train substantially differently, and if so, how? :)I suppose I might, but I don't think it would be very different except perhaps for peaking strategies. LOTOJA was sort of an afterthought to a good season. My power numbers peaked in early August for the Montana State 40k TT and I started a new job about the same time. But I'd registered for LOTOJA back in the spring so I figured, why not?

If that event had been my season long goal I would have continued to build CTL up through late August (I was in heavy CTL taper for all of August with the new job) and would have done a structured week to 10 day taper prior to the race. I probably would have skipped the microintervals I was doing earlier in the season as I wouldn't care as much about crits and an event like LOTOJA isn't going to be determined by how many times you can jump in sucession.

If a race like that, or maybe a really long event like a 24 hour Mtn bike event were my season goal then I'd guess I'd do some longer training rides. But I still wouldn't try to match the event time, distance or caloric requirements as has been suggested here. I just don't believe you need to train your body to burn X number of calories to be able to do that on race day. I'd still have a power first focus since it's power margin that allows you to burn fat and it's peak sustainable power that allows you to hang in the tough sections.

It's a good question Chainstay, but since I don't really target ultra events I don't have a good answer. My point was that for relatively long road events even including something as hard as the Everest Challenge mentioned early in this thread you don't necessarily have to do regular long endurance rides. Some sure, for the reasons listed on page one but not necessarily weekly, biweekly or as regular part of training as many seem to believe. Yeah I know it's sacrilege but so is advocating SST over LSD and lot's of things we talk about on these power forum threads.

-Dave

I suppose I might, but I don't think it would be very different except perhaps for peaking strategies. LOTOJA was sort of an afterthought to a good season. My power numbers peaked in early August for the Montana State 40k TT and I started a new job about the same time. But I'd registered for LOTOJA back in the spring so I figured, why not?

If that event had been my season long goal I would have continued to build CTL up through late August (I was in heavy CTL taper for all of August with the new job) and would have done a structured week to 10 day taper prior to the race. I probably would have skipped the microintervals I was doing earlier in the season as I wouldn't care as much about crits and an event like LOTOJA isn't going to be determined by how many times you can jump in sucession.

If a race like that, or maybe a really long event like a 24 hour Mtn bike event were my season goal then I'd guess I'd do some longer training rides. But I still wouldn't try to match the event time, distance or caloric requirements as has been suggested here. I just don't believe you need to train your body to burn X number of calories to be able to do that on race day. I'd still have a power first focus since it's power margin that allows you to burn fat and it's peak sustainable power that allows you to hang in the tough sections.

It's a good question Chainstay, but since I don't really target ultra events I don't have a good answer. My point was that for relatively long road events even including something as hard as the Everest Challenge mentioned early in this thread you don't necessarily have to do regular long endurance rides. Some sure, for the reasons listed on page one but not necessarily weekly, biweekly or as regular part of training as many seem to believe. Yeah I know it's sacrilege but so is advocating SST over LSD and lot's of things we talk about on these power forum threads.

-DaveThanks for your answer. I just started checking in here periodically over the last year, but left for quite awhile considering all the spam and just checked back. I have noticed from your posts that you made a great deal of progress using modern training methods. I am a beginner racer in my fifties (have raced three times) who managed to pull out a win in one of the Lotoja Cat V divisions this last September (much slower division than yours), and now being mildly encouraged, I am wanting to prepare for Lotoja a little more scientifically this next time around. I am still reviewing various strategies though.

I don't have a power meter, but there are stationary bikes at my gym that read watts output that I have been using lately to try to improve power while there is snow out on the ground. But my intervals are relatively short and I suspect I am doing much more to improve my power over short durations than long durations like an ultra event. But hopefully some of my progress with short distance sustainable power will be useful and transfer over to helping my long distance sustainable power when I get back outside.

... I am a beginner racer in my fifties (have raced three times) who managed to pull out a win in one of the Lotoja Cat V divisions this last September (much slower division than yours), and now being mildly encouraged, I am wanting to prepare for Lotoja a little more scientifically this next time around...Good job on your LOTOJA, how did your race play out? Did you get away with a small group on Strawberry or Salt River Pass? Did it end in a sprint or were you solo at the end? Regardless of the category a win in a race of that length is great. Nice job.

...I don't have a power meter, but there are stationary bikes at my gym that read watts output that I have been using lately to try to improve power while there is snow out on the ground. But my intervals are relatively short and I suspect I am doing much more to improve my power over short durations than long durations like an ultra event. But hopefully some of my progress with short distance sustainable power will be useful and transfer over to helping my long distance sustainable power when I get back outside.If you can't tell, I'm a huge fan of on the bike PMs as they've helped me tremendously and really turned around my training and racing. But obviously they're a big investment that not everyone will make. Still I'd get one if you're serious about tracking your improvement. Just the ability to load data files(or manual entries from gym ergs) into the Performance Manager in WKO+ is worth it. Tracking CTL prior to an event like LOTOJA is crucial in terms of keeping tabs on your training load and planning a taper if you've got the CTL to spare.

But, sales pitch aside I use gym ergs as a regular part of my training and they're a great tool. The power numbers vary a lot and you can't take their numbers too seriously but if you can ride the same erg regularly you can use it to gauge progress. When I travel for work I use ergs in hotel gyms but adjust levels based on how I feel.

Whether your "relatively short intervals" will help you for long races depends a bit on what you mean by relatively short. I do weekly gym erg intervals starting at about 20 minutes long but I prefer 30 minute to hour and a half efforts on gym ergs. These won't all be right up against my best possible power for those durations but given the big power jumps between levels on most gym ergs I'll tend to work longer efforts than I will on my road bike. Steady efforts at least 10 minutes long and preferably longer that push you to breathe deeply and steadily and that require focus and concentration to finish but don't absolutely kill you are the key to getting a lot of benefit from these shorter efforts.

If your relatively short efforts are less than 10 minutes long, then no I wouldn't expect them to help much for an event like LOTOJA but longer efforts focusing on core aerobic fitness can lay a great base for outdoor work later in the season. And to be clear I'm not suggesting that you never ride long all day rides, just that it isn't necessary to base your training on really long days. But definitely do some of them just not necessarily weekly or even monthly. Get your power up with steady efforts including Tempo rides up to 3 or more hours in length. And when you do ride those longer days, try to ride them quickly don't just slog out the miles at low speeds.

Good luck,
Dave

I suppose I might, but I don't think it would be very different except perhaps for peaking strategies. LOTOJA was sort of an afterthought to a good season. My power numbers peaked in early August for the Montana State 40k TT and I started a new job about the same time. But I'd registered for LOTOJA back in the spring so I figured, why not?

If that event had been my season long goal I would have continued to build CTL up through late August (I was in heavy CTL taper for all of August with the new job) and would have done a structured week to 10 day taper prior to the race. I probably would have skipped the microintervals I was doing earlier in the season as I wouldn't care as much about crits and an event like LOTOJA isn't going to be determined by how many times you can jump in sucession.

If a race like that, or maybe a really long event like a 24 hour Mtn bike event were my season goal then I'd guess I'd do some longer training rides. But I still wouldn't try to match the event time, distance or caloric requirements as has been suggested here. I just don't believe you need to train your body to burn X number of calories to be able to do that on race day. I'd still have a power first focus since it's power margin that allows you to burn fat and it's peak sustainable power that allows you to hang in the tough sections.

It's a good question Chainstay, but since I don't really target ultra events I don't have a good answer. My point was that for relatively long road events even including something as hard as the Everest Challenge mentioned early in this thread you don't necessarily have to do regular long endurance rides. Some sure, for the reasons listed on page one but not necessarily weekly, biweekly or as regular part of training as many seem to believe. Yeah I know it's sacrilege but so is advocating SST over LSD and lot's of things we talk about on these power forum threads.

-Dave

Great job on the race!

Your strategy sounds on target.

My first event for the this year is the Devil Mountain Double in the SF Bay Area, which is 206 miles and 18,500 feet of climbing, so the course record there is somewhere around 12 hours.

Right now I am working on upping my FTP using SST/L4, and I will mostly doing long rides to do the Bettini:


"Two-time World Champion Paolo Bettini has passed a relaxing winter to ready himself for the 2008 season, on the roads in his rainbow jersey. The 33 year-old Italian put on some extra weight this off-season, but now the Quick Step rider is ready to battle, starting with his season debut in the GP Etruschi on Saturday.

'This winter I exaggerated a little bit and found myself nine kilograms over my inform weight," noted Bettini to La Gazzetta dello Sport. "It was almost double body fat [59 to 68kg, 7 to 13% body fat - ed.]. However, when it is a party, it is a party.'

Ever professional, Bettini was already back down to 63kg during the Quick Step training camp, thanks to five hour rides without as much as an energy bar. Often he will not eat or drink in training to simulate emergency racing conditions." ;)

...and I will mostly doing long rides to do the Bettini:
Ever professional, Bettini was already back down to 63kg during the Quick Step training camp, thanks to five hour rides without as much as an energy bar. Often he will not eat or drink in training to simulate emergency racing conditions. I can't tell if you're kidding here. Try that for 5 hours and we'll see you on the side of the road, laying on the ground, staring into space, trying to figure out why you have tunnel vision and it feels like your brain is shutting down....because it is, from lack of glucose.

For a multi-day ultra event, specifically the Everest Challenge, what is the best way to train for recovery? I rode the DeathRide last summer (comparable to the first day of the Everest event) and it was hard for me to even look at a bike the next day much less climb another 13,000 feet on it.
-- Bryan

For a multi-day ultra event, specifically the Everest Challenge, what is the best way to train for recovery? I rode the DeathRide last summer (comparable to the first day of the Everest event) and it was hard for me to even look at a bike the next day much less climb another 13,000 feet on it.
-- BryanI'd start by getting your CTL up as high as you can within real life constraints of work and family obligations. I don't have any hard and fast numbers, but I'd be thinking in terms of a CTL of at least 100 to 110 TSS/day prior to an event like that.

-Dave

how did your race play out? Did you get away with a small group on Strawberry or Salt River Pass? Did it end in a sprint or were you solo at the end?
My race really had a lot of ups and downs, including me having a lead going over Salt River Pass and even bigger lead going in to Afton, only to lose that lead again heading in to Alpine when I was nearly bonking from lack of proper nutrition---my support guy was missing in both Preston and Afton. But I made somewhat of a miracle recovery following the Alpine feed zone, and managed to catch back on to the race at about the 180 mile mark. I finally came across the finish line first in a full anaerobic sprint that I think may have well have been the longest, most intense anaerobic period that I had ever experienced, although I suspect it was just par for the course or even short for you more experienced racers. But the thought crossed my mind more than once during that sprint as to whether I was putting myself at risk of having a heart attack and dieing. I think you guys may call it L7. Nonetheless, I have a long lifetime of relatively intense exercise activity at the recreational level, including running, mogul skiing, mountain biking and road riding, including plenty of hard mountain climbing on the mountain bike and road bike, so my heart and lungs have quite a bit of cumulative, high intensity training over the years, which I am sure helped let me leave the finish line on my own two feet rather than in a coffin. LOL.

Whether your "relatively short intervals" will help you for long races depends a bit on what you mean by relatively short.Well I hate to admit it, but I am not a very motivated winter bicycle trainer; I ususally do other athletic activities altogether during the winter, so I figure that maybe doing any length intervals at all this winter is better than none. My intervals have been under 10 minutes, but off and on over the course of an hour. :o When it warms up and the snow melts off the roads, I will start making at bare minimum, 45 minute hard efforts up some of the mountain roads like usual, and later on, the minimum, hard climbing efforts will be at least an hour.

Also, I have relatives down around the Monterey, California area, and I am probably going to go down there with a buddy and and participate in some of the Sea Otter races this April. The 50 mile road race has an 8 mile loop with a couple of half mile climbs in it for which I figure it would pay for me to be strong for three or four minute intervals, so I have been convincing myself that some of the real short intervals that I have been doing lately are helping me get ready for those two half mile climbs on the road race loop.

And when you do ride those longer days, try to ride them quickly don't just slog out the miles at low speeds. The anti slogging message is something that I can easily grasp. I have never really had to fight off "slogging" once I am out riding on the road, whereas I definitely have to fight off slogging when I am sitting on the gym bikes. When I was outside last season, I tried to go hard over a wide variety of distances, (unless I was purposely doing the occassional recovery ride) with the shortest distance being about a 9 mile climb out my door, and the longest distances being a couple of 150 mile events that turned in to a psuedo races like events are prone to do. I sort of worked up to going hard for longer and longer distances, but even when I worked up to the longer distances, most of my training was still on shorter distances. I had a log of personal times for many routes so I could race against myself. I also used a HRM extensively last season for the first time, although I am well aware of the many limitations concerning drawing conclusions from heart rate that have been posted here.

Looking at my log, it looks like I had about 6 centuries last season, and then about 4 more 125 mile plus days with over 10,000 feet of climbing each time, including those two 150 mile events above. Overall mileage was a little over 6,200 miles. But judging by your Lotoja experience and hearing the experience of a number of other USCF racers above Cat V who had experiences similar to yours where they did well with many fewer long distance rides, it sounds like I easily had more than enough long distance rides under my belt to compete. And I don't know how you measure it, but I am guessing my critical training load going in to the race was high, since I did a great deal of hard riding in July and August. On another note, I believe, but can't prove it, that I was in shape to do better than I did in Lotoja had my support been there and I had got my planned calorie intake, but I guess I will have to try to prove that hypothesis another day.

Of course I can almost picture you raising your eyebrows and scoffing at that last remark, and saying well "what is your FTP/kg?" :D Sorry, I still don't know, but eventually I will. Thanks for sharing your tips and your training experience.

So what about your Lotoja race? Were you riding in that group with the overall winners at some point? How did it all play out?

... I believe, but can't prove it, that I was in shape to do better than I did in Lotoja had my support been there and I had been able to follow my fueling plan, but I guess I will have to try to prove that hypothesis another day....I bet you would have, it's hard to finish a race of that length without feeding yourself and the neutral feeds were just handing up gatorade and a Gu packet, not nearly enough for that kind of a day. Great job perservering. Don't worry, no scoffing here, you did great.

...So what about your Lotoja race? Were you riding in that group with the overall winners at some point? If so, how did that all play out?Yeah, there were two Masters 45 groups and I raced with the eventual course record setters. We caught the masters 35 group, the 4's, 3's and the 1/2 field before the first feed in Preston. Strawberry canyon was downright terrifying with high speeds and a massive group of mixed categories. Things were a total mess after the first climbs as that megapelaton broke up into various groups of mixed categories. You couldn't tell where you were or who was ahead of you.

I stayed with a large group till Salt River Pass but they were pacing kinda slow so I pulled away there and solo'd up to a few guys by the top of the climb. We started picking up folks on the way to Afton and then again into Alpine and had a strong group up the Snake River canyon and into Jackson. I took a few too many pulls in the canyon and got gapped on the small hill South of Jackson but was able to chase down the group by the time I hit town and stayed with them till the end. We sprinted in our small field, but the results were meaningless as it was a mixed category group.

I hadn't expected much on the conventional wisdom that I hadn't trained anything nearly that long and definitely exceeded my expectations. 11th place doesn't sound all that great, but not bad considering the first two places in our group went to course record setters who caught and rode away from the 1/2s field and I'd broken my personal goal of 10 hours by nearly 20 minutes. If I was lacking, it was the power necessary to stay with the leaders in Strawberry Canyon only a couple of hours into the race. Late race bonk wasn't a problem and my average power for hour 9 was greater than hour 1 so I don't think endurance was an issue.

-Dave

I bet you would have, it's hard to finish a race of that length without feeding yourself and the neutral feeds were just handing up gatorade and a Gu packet, not nearly enough for that kind of a day. Great job perservering. Don't worry, no scoffing here, you did great.After I couldn't find my guy at Afton, the second time that had happened with the first time being Preston, I was pretty rattled and made another mistake when I finally gave up looking for him and went to neutral. All I could think about was my group bearing down on me and my Salt River Pass attack going for nothing. LOL. At the neutral booth I failed to calm down and focus on trying to get what I needed. I ate half a banana on the spot, but then just threw a Cliff Bar in my pocket, grabbed a Gatorade bottle, jumped on my bike and left. I didn't even see the gels---which would not have been nearly as good as the liquid food I prepared for my guy to have ready for me, but a lot better than an unusable Cliff Bar. At 126 miles in to a ride and going hard on a bike, I can't chew and swallow Cliff bars. I knew that from experience, but I just wasn't thinking clearly. And sure enough, I could never choke that baby down.

11th place doesn't sound all that great, It sounds great to me. Your division dominated the entire race, including the Cat 1,2s. Congratulations. :D

Late race bonk wasn't a problem and my average power for hour 9 was greater than hour 1 so I don't think endurance was an issue.Thanks for regularly sharing your training insights on this board.

This is a follow up question to a thread I sort of hijacked on building CTL. :D I'm preparing for an ultra event (ultra in my mind) that is 112 miles w 12k feet of climbing.

Using the calculator on kreuzotter I've estimated that the event will take me roughly 7:30 hours plus and I'll burn 5,600 calories at an NP at of 220 watts (an L2 ride for me given my FTP).

Twice a week I do long rides (1/2 w a group and 1/2 by myself) where I put in roughly 75 miles and burn roughly 2,700 calories. I plan to crank these up to 100 +miles 2x per week to get ready for the demands of this event.

gene rI deleted a lot of the quote for clarity and I'll remove the FTP, CTL, L3, L4, L12323, headshrinker horseshit from the equation just to make it easy.

"Seven hours can your butt sit and climb?" Yoda.

Simply put, you have a lot of climbing condensed into a short time frame. Go find some hills and get used to climbing for 7 hours. I don't mean going for a ride for seven hours in the hills, I mean go spend 7 hours climbing. Hills put stress on the legs and lower back in a way that riding on the flat or trainer will ever do.

From past rides on The Deathride, I can say that altitude is not to be underestimated - if you're spending a significant amount of time over 5000ft then be prepared to ride slower and consume more fluids. Gear lower than you'd expect - there's no "man awards" for having 42x23 as the bottom gear. If you can comforably climb a 3 mile 10% grade in 42x23 at sea level, tag on a few extra sprockets and lower the chainring by a few for altitude - say 39x25 or 39x27. Your milage may vary... proceed with caution. I don't know how strong you are. If your final climb is 5 miles of 20% then consider something much lower. LOL. Wear sunscreen at the higher elevations too... factor 6,000,000 should do nicely. LOL

Arnie Baker has a wonderful .pdf on the "fun" that can be had for riding at altitude in his training guide for The Deathride. Its available for a small fee from his website. To be honest, for flatlanders like me (pasty white boy from England), it's worth every penny.....

The Mullholland Challenge (112 miles w 12k of climbing) was this past weekend, so here's a post-event update...

First leading up to the event I chose NOT to train ultra-distances. Instead I put in a steady diet of...

2-3.5hour SST (L3 & low level L4) rides 2-3 times/week w lots of climbing (4-6k ft in 30-40 miles)
complemented by 2-3 Endo (L2/3) rides per week that lasted 2-3 hours
with 1 Active Recovery ride.
I avoided group rides for the most part and high intensity interval sessions > L4. My CTL peaked at 103 two weeks before the event and was 95 the day of the event w a TSB of 25, higher than I wanted it to be but work forced me to taper more than I wanted to.

Unfortunately the MC was brutal, not because of the distance, but rather because of the heat. It was unseasonably hot (>100 degrees F) and I along with many others suffered.

I was good up until mile 85 when my body shut down. The last big climb should have taken me 1/2 hour but took me 1.25 hours w multiple stops, and I had to stop at the top, take some aid, or I was heading to the ER. I made it to the finish in a time of 8:45 mins w a ride time of 7:45.

Most that I talked with who had done the event before said that they were between 30 mins to 1 hour faster the year before. Under normal conditions I think I could have easily hit my target of 7:30 to complete the ride.

In the end I think my approach worked, as I could have easily handled the distance, and the climbing, had the temps been at their normal levels. Unfortunately where I live we rarely get above 85, so I just wasn't able to handle the weather, but I've always struggled in extreme heat.

Just another note along the way I did the Solvang Century (ridden as a race by the locals here in S Barbara) and finished in roughly 4.75 hours, faster than last year.

I also made the break and got a decent result at Copperopolis, one of the tougher RRs in NCal. I was surprised by that result because as I said before I did almost no training at high intensity and very few group rides. I guess this SST stuff does work. :D

So thanks to Dave R for some sage advice. :)

The Mullholland Challenge (112 miles w 12k of climbing) was this past weekend, so here's a post-event update...

First leading up to the event I chose NOT to train ultra-distances. Instead I put in a steady diet of...

2-3.5hour SST (L3 & low level L4) rides 2-3 times/week w lots of climbing (4-6k ft in 30-40 miles)
complemented by 2-3 Endo (L2/3) rides per week that lasted 2-3 hours
with 1 Active Recovery ride.
I avoided group rides for the most part and high intensity interval sessions > L4. My CTL peaked at 103 two weeks before the event and was 95 the day of the event w a TSB of 25, higher than I wanted it to be but work forced me to taper more than I wanted to.

Unfortunately the MC was brutal, not because of the distance, but rather because of the heat. It was unseasonably hot (>100 degrees F) and I along with many others suffered.

I was good up until mile 85 when my body shut down. The last big climb should have taken me 1/2 hour but took me 1.25 hours w multiple stops, and I had to stop at the top, take some aid, or I was heading to the ER. I made it to the finish in a time of 8:45 mins w a ride time of 7:45.

Most that I talked with who had done the event before said that they were between 30 mins to 1 hour faster the year before. Under normal conditions I think I could have easily hit my target of 7:30 to complete the ride.

In the end I think my approach worked, as I could have easily handled the distance, and the climbing, had the temps been at their normal levels. Unfortunately where I live we rarely get above 85, so I just wasn't able to handle the weather, but I've always struggled in extreme heat.

Just another note along the way I did the Solvang Century (ridden as a race by the locals here in S Barbara) and finished in roughly 4.75 hours, faster than last year.

I also made the break and got a decent result at Copperopolis, one of the tougher RRs in NCal. I was surprised by that result because as I said before I did almost no training at high intensity and very few group rides. I guess this SST stuff does work. :D

So thanks to Dave R for some sage advice. :)So you followed his advice afterall. Good for you. Congratulations on the other races. :)

I hadn't expected much on the conventional wisdom that I hadn't trained anything nearly that long and definitely exceeded my expectations. 11th place doesn't sound all that great, but not bad considering the first two places in our group went to course record setters who caught and rode away from the 1/2s field and I'd broken my personal goal of 10 hours by nearly 20 minutes. If I was lacking, it was the power necessary to stay with the leaders in Strawberry Canyon only a couple of hours into the race. Late race bonk wasn't a problem and my average power for hour 9 was greater than hour 1 so I don't think endurance was an issue.

-DaveDave,

This has been a very interesting read for me. Thanks again for your great posts on this board.

You had a great Lotoja. Congratulations.

Speaking of conventional wisdom and ultra events, I got a spot for Lotoja this year (Masters 45+ Category), but work and some other circumstances will limit my training time and I won't be able to put in a bunch of saddle time and mileage for build up if I actually follow through and go. I don't focus on ultra events, although I get a couple centuries per year and do the usual seasonal racing and competitive local group hammerfests.

It seems like the most I will be able to muster will be between 8-12 hours per week of training time for the next couple of months. I have my trusty SRM, and your posts and others on this board, saved me this past winter by helping me ignore the conventional winter approach and by focusing my limited winter training time on L3, SST and L4 work. As a result, I've had the best spring/early summer on the bike and seen some good improvement.

My question now is... Based on your experience last year with your training and Lotoja... Do you think I could use the limited training time I have with judicious use of SST and L4, and still do Lotoja without it just being an enormous sufferfest? My CTL has been hovering during the past couple of months at 70-80 and my weekly TSS is around 450-700. I'd much appreciate your thoughts. Until I saw your post, I had pretty much given up on the idea of going to Lotoja this year. Now I'm wondering if it couldn't still be feasible somehow.

Thanks.

So you followed his advice afterall. Good for you. Congratulations on the other races. :)
Thanks BBW. Sometimes I need a good whack upside the head and the members of this forum can often provide that. Iin a nice way of course. :D

Thanks BBW. Sometimes I need a good whack upside the head and the members of this forum can often provide that. Iin a nice way of course. http://cyclingforums.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif
Nice job with the MC. The heat has been brutal lately and I'm sure that was a big factor. Solvang at 4.75 is really nice too. Thanks for letting us know your training set up and how it went. Do you think that training and a build to that CTL would have carried you in decent form through a double century with plenty of climbing? I know it might be just a guess, but I'd be interested in your opinion. Thanks.

Nice job with the MC. The heat has been brutal lately and I'm sure that was a big factor. Solvang at 4.75 is really nice too. Thanks for letting us know your training set up and how it went. Do you think that training and a build to that CTL would have carried you in decent form through a double century with plenty of climbing? I know it might be just a guess, but I'd be interested in your opinion. Thanks.Thanks KOM. The heat WAS brutal that day, and I think I had a near-death experience in the last 2 hours of the MC.

I think building on that CTL, and at the same time lowering IF for a double, would allow me to get through a it w lots of climbing. I also think adding a one or two rides prior to the double thatt approximate roughly 75% of the TSS I would experience wouldn't hurt, especially psychologically.

The above is just a guesss, and certainly you would be better served getting real insight from others that have done doubles.

Nice job with the MC. The heat has been brutal lately and I'm sure that was a big factor. Solvang at 4.75 is really nice too. Thanks for letting us know your training set up and how it went. Do you think that training and a build to that CTL would have carried you in decent form through a double century with plenty of climbing? I know it might be just a guess, but I'd be interested in your opinion. Thanks.


I think that would have worked just fine.
My first century/double century was Devil Mountain (Norcal) in 2002. I was skinny and did a lot of SST-like climbing but had never ridden more than 100 miles and finished just fine.

To finish very strong some good CTL is very helpful. DCs are major endurance events and the most important thing is being a fit rider who has the ability to sit and replenish for that long.

Long story short, I rode the first half of the Terrible Two yesterday, a ride I have finished three times and never sagged into before. It was well over 100 for most of the ride, but what killed me was my shoes. I had new custom shoes this year, but I still ended up with excruciating pain and having to take the shoes off a few times in the first 109 miles. I finished last year but with taking off the shoes every hour for 10 minutes during the second half, and that just sucked and obviously kills your time.

With a CTL of about 45 I rode the first 109 miles (with about 7,000 feet of climbing) in 6.5 hours of riding (the remaining 50 minutes were taken up with two flats on brand new tires and shoe issues :mad:), and finished very strong in 2005 with just a steady diet of SST.

Now off for new shoe solutions (sports medicine clinic, Esoles, mid arch cleat placement, whatever)

This thread has been a good read. I am very interested in training for longer events and am wondering if I can get some feedback on my situation.

I am planning on doing the Six Gap Century at the end of September. For those of you not familiar with the ride it is 100 miles in the N. Georgia Mtns with 11k of climbing. I have about 6-8 hours a week to train and I am currently at a CTL of 69 and weekly TSS has been hovering around 500-600. I have been riding 5 days/week with Sunday being the long ride of 60+ miles at the high L2-low L3 range. The other rides are about an hour in length and I try to mix it up by doing hills hard, etc. I am doing a century this coming week and plan on doing at least 1 more this Summer. I live w/in an hour of "the gaps" and plan on getting up there once or twice a month to do some of the climbs.

I have 3 months until the ride and I want to get some feedback on useful changes, if any, that I can make to the routine in order to improve my odds of finishing this ride strong. Is my CTL high enough or should I try to raise it a bit? What else can I do to help?