You need to focus more on hours and less on the miles, though mileage is also important. At this point in the year, you could be putting in 10-12 hours per week. Two sessions on the trainer or running – three sessions in the weight room – then one long ride on Saturday and one short ride on Sunday. As the season progresses, you will increase the length of your weekend rides, replace your cross training with interval training on the bike, and reduce weight training from three days to two days then one. Your interval training should focus on speed and power. The do not need to be long — 60 -90 minutes. But you need to work on your ability to climb, so hill repeats. And speed intervals on the flats. You are right about the 200K – it is the the key building block. You might plan to be doing a 200K every saturday 8 weeks before your 1200 (or 1000), and then taper those last two weeks.
… one more thing – should have mentioned that your hours will increase to the point where your weekly training time will be maxing out at about 22-24 hours.
I hear you
After working all day the last thing I want to do is go to the gym and its hard to get up in the morning and get going also. But we have a goal and its going to be so cool to ride through the french country side.
I’m off to the gym tonight to do Yoga – don’t forget to work on your flexibility and weight training to build those core muscles.
I think you need to shoot for 1 200-mi. ride. Is that outrageous? And I think you need to be riding at least 3x/week now, but I like the idea of weight training (always beneficial) and trainer rides, which I find tremendously helpful in building bike-specific leg strength. I’ve never undertaken a bike event of this magnitude so I’m speaking theoretically about your volumes. Given how training went last time, is it necessary to have weeks where no single ride is monstrously long but your weekly mileage is really up there?
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You need to focus more on hours and less on the miles, though mileage is also important. At this point in the year, you could be putting in 10-12 hours per week. Two sessions on the trainer or running – three sessions in the weight room – then one long ride on Saturday and one short ride on Sunday. As the season progresses, you will increase the length of your weekend rides, replace your cross training with interval training on the bike, and reduce weight training from three days to two days then one. Your interval training should focus on speed and power. The do not need to be long — 60 -90 minutes. But you need to work on your ability to climb, so hill repeats. And speed intervals on the flats. You are right about the 200K – it is the the key building block. You might plan to be doing a 200K every saturday 8 weeks before your 1200 (or 1000), and then taper those last two weeks.
Best of luck -
dr
… one more thing – should have mentioned that your hours will increase to the point where your weekly training time will be maxing out at about 22-24 hours.
-dr
I hear you
After working all day the last thing I want to do is go to the gym and its hard to get up in the morning and get going also. But we have a goal and its going to be so cool to ride through the french country side.
I’m off to the gym tonight to do Yoga – don’t forget to work on your flexibility and weight training to build those core muscles.
I think you need to shoot for 1 200-mi. ride. Is that outrageous? And I think you need to be riding at least 3x/week now, but I like the idea of weight training (always beneficial) and trainer rides, which I find tremendously helpful in building bike-specific leg strength. I’ve never undertaken a bike event of this magnitude so I’m speaking theoretically about your volumes. Given how training went last time, is it necessary to have weeks where no single ride is monstrously long but your weekly mileage is really up there?