Training (with power) for an Ultra Event

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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?
Looking at your blog and how you recently handled the gaps, I would guess that you will do fine with the 6 Gap, but when you mention finish strong are you intending on trying to hang with those who will be trying to break personal records or just finish strong based on your own pace?

Looking at your blog and how you recently handled the gaps, I would guess that you will do fine with the 6 Gap, but when you mention finish strong are you intending on trying to hang with those who will be trying to break personal records or just finish strong based on your own pace?Thanks for looking:) I'm kinda new to the blog thing but I enjoy it. Hopefully I can improve the design of it soon. Your blog is nice as well.

When I say finish strong I guess I am referring to finishing strong based on my own pace. I haven't done the ride before and while I enjoy climbing I must admit that the ride intimidates me a little bit:eek:

I did the 3 State 3 Mountain in May, as you did. That was my first century in almost two years and the first one with significant climbing. I did OK, finishing with 6:06 ride time and an avg speed of 16.8 but Burkhalter Gap was tough. I haven't done the back gaps yet (that is on my list to do w/in the next month) so I don't know what to expect from them, especially Hogpen.

I guess I just want to make sure I am as prepared as possible given the time I have.

Thanks for looking:) I'm kinda new to the blog thing but I enjoy it. Hopefully I can improve the design of it soon. Your blog is nice as well.

When I say finish strong I guess I am referring to finishing strong based on my own pace. I haven't done the ride before and while I enjoy climbing I must admit that the ride intimidates me a little bit:eek:

I did the 3 State 3 Mountain in May, as you did. That was my first century in almost two years and the first one with significant climbing. I did OK, finishing with 6:06 ride time and an avg speed of 16.8 but Burkhalter Gap was tough. I haven't done the back gaps yet (that is on my list to do w/in the next month) so I don't know what to expect from them, especially Hogpen.

I guess I just want to make sure I am as prepared as possible given the time I have.
I will leave the comments for the veterans here on your training load, but from what I have read on your blog and here about finishing times and such, you are comparable to some of the stronger riders in my group that do 6 gap each season.

We normally tackle Hogpen first coming out of Helen and I can't imagine climbing it later in a ride. It is one of the toughest climbs that I have done to this point. If you like climbing you need to get up there and do Hogpen soon.

This link (http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/invitation/dashboard.mb?episodePk.pkValue=5807411) has a good route starting in Helen and heading straight to Hogpen. Not much of a warm up, but it is a good route to get Hogpen done in the cooler part of the day. It then goes to Neels to Jacks to Unicoi and back into Helen.

Thanks LTI and Watoni. So, to maybe put it another way, the way to go might be to focus on building CTL with some increasing weekly SST and TSS volume, while not worrying too much about IF. At the same time, mixing in some racing to get some relatively high IF days in the mix occasionally is probably a good idea too.

LTI, I'm really impressed with your MC finish in the heat we have had... you have extreme mental toughness dude!

Watoni, the Devil Mountain sounds like an awesome ride. Thanks for your take on my question. Let me know how you solve the shoes problem. I have had the same issues with my shoes, even though I have changed shoes and moved cleat position all kinds of ways to no avail.

Hey ruleof72... I'd bet you can get that century done pretty well at your training load. If you have some more time for some additional SST work, I would guess that would help. I would read up on some of DaveRyanWyoming posts on SST and L4 work and using limited training time... I think they have been excellent posts and they really saved me over the past winter. They helped me actually increase fitness on very limited training time. I probably had the best spring ever.

DaveRW... Any input on my question for the Lotoja perspective? You did so well in it last year! Very well done! I'm still not too confident that my hovering 75 CTL is going to be up to the task in the Masters 45+ licensed 1-4 category.

Hey ruleof72... I'd bet you can get that century done pretty well at your training load. If you have some more time for some additional SST work, I would guess that would help. I would read up on some of DaveRyanWyoming posts on SST and L4 work and using limited training time... I think they have been excellent posts and they really saved me over the past winter. They helped me actually increase fitness on very limited training time. I probably had the best spring ever.Yeah, I think I can finish it OK but I'd like to have some extra fuel in the tank when I get done. I think you are right regarding doing extra SST work. I spent some time last night planning out the next three months, trying to mix in some good climbing workouts with some trainer/SST workouts, all within my max repeatable (based on time available) weekly TSS of 500-600. I think if I can do one day a week in dedicated SST along with one long ride, a couple of shorter solo rides and a group ride I should be fine. Toss in three or four dedicated mountain rides to keep my climbing legs and the Six Gap will be a piece of cake:rolleyes:

One thing is or sure, the Powertap is invaluable when climbing or doing any longer event. It really helps me stay in the "hard but not too hard" range. I can push where I need to without blowing up.

....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.....You should be able to do quite well on 8-12 hours per week if you use them well. I know a CTL of 80 doesn't sound high enough but it still represents a fair amount of accumulated training. FWIW, my CTL took a big hit last August when I started a new job and was down to 79.6 the day before LOTOJA (and bounced up more than 10 points with that one ride).

Stay focused on core aerobic work with a heavy diet of SST/L4 and try to get at least one long Tempo ride in each week. Avoid padding your week with junk miles, if you get on the bike try to ride Tempo or maybe high L2 or better. Sure, if you can, try to get in a few longer rides between now and September but ride them with focus and don't beat yourself up if you can't get a regular diet of 5 hour rides.

That and figure out how to feed yourself for a fast 10 hour event. Remember you can't replace all the calories or water you'll burn in real time (I know several local riders that have tried in LOTOJA only to suffer really bad GI distress late in the day). The Hammer Nutrition website has some good info for really long events.

I got in again and will be riding that same race. My mileage isn't much higher than last season but I have been doing one day a week of long Tempo where I go out for basically as long as I can with the condition that it doesn't degrade into slow touring. I started these at around 50 miles a few months ago and my longest long solo Tempo day was 108 miles a couple of Sundays ago. It's still not the foundation of my training but these long steady Tempo rides do build some CTL and leave me feeling pretty good.

Frankly if I'm going to do better than last year I doubt it'll be based on pure endurance. Power to stay with the leaders or a good chase group on the major climbs is key. The crux sections are Strawberry pass just over an hour into the ride, Geneva pass a couple of hours later and Salt River pass which is still in the first two thirds of the ride. Make it over those with a good group and you'll do fine.

Look me up on race day(Orange Fitzgerald's team kit, blue Orbea)

Good luck,
-Dave

Thanks once again for the great advice Dave! I hope I can get there. If I do, I will owe you a pull between Logan and Preston. After that, you will be ahead of me and I will be trying to settle in with the fastest group I can hang with over Strawberry. Good luck to you too... I hope you can even top the outstanding race you had last year.