garethzbarker

Hi, I've never trained formally before. I do sports touring and playing around on my bikes. My longest ride is a 205k but it was a supported group ride and very flat and it took 100% out of me. I want to participate in some 2013 brevets and possibly a fleche in Korea. The problem is the fleche is march 30th and I'm not nearly ready. So I'm trying to find out if I have a enough preparation time for the event and also the best program for me to train for the spring distance events.

Here's what I've got: I have a couple of good fitting bikes perfect for those kinds of events and I know how to sit in a saddle for long periods of time from touring and group rides. I know how to pack and hydrate and all the other things you need. I spin pretty fast but could still use form practice. I have a little over an hour a day on weekdays to ride but it will have to be at the gym a lot as we have heavy snow (my gym does have a fairly decent stationary bike that I feel will work pretty well for training as it feels like my touring bike in a way), I can do maybe 3 longer weekend rides a month. I have a HR monitor with zone alarms.

What I need: a considerable amount of cardio endurance, to lose at least ten more kilos before the event, and at least a 10% increase in my long distance speed average. I don't know how to measure it but I need to be able to climb better to complete these events. I always burn myself out on climbs.

I recently bought Friel's book on heart rate training. I understand LT and the HR zones.

Is that enough training time and how should I proceed? My guess is I need to ride in zone2 everyday and build a strong cardio base but when should I introduce power training and is it possible to get a 10-15% increase in LDS be then? My current LDS is 20.1kmph last I checked (I think that was an 8 or 10 hour ride with one pannier) but back then I wasn't using a HR monitor so I don't know my HR at that speed. I kind of feel at such low speeds I could grow a lot with quality training. Any critical tips and advice are welcome. I will certainly sign up for the brevets but I need to decide if this is possible as I will be in a team for the fleche and don;t want to kill the team's chance at succeeding.

Gareth

ericm979

The classic L2-only base works if you have time to do the volume that it required. Your time is limited. Do intervals. I suggest longer ones, i.e. 20 min, to increase threshold power.

A few hours during the week and only three long rides a month isn't much volume. You need volume for endurance riding. You could improve a lot if you can find a way to get the volume in.

garethzbarker

thanks for an honest response I'm glad my guess on threshold intervals makes sense to someone else. So I'm new to this, how should I structure these? I did my first long interval last week; it required a lot of recovery. Honestly, I still felt not quite 100% even two days later (I did recovery rides two days in a row).

For future reference, how much volume does an L2 training plan require? I'm completely clueless what if I got up an hour earlier and doubled the weekday L2s? Would that be enough? It would certainly help with the weight lose.

Carbonfiberboy 

A fleche is usually quite a slow ride. 360k in 24 hours, with no break longer than 2 hours and a team to draft. The biggest challenge is not falling asleep on your bike, which does happen. Most teams design routes with some climbing, but not a terrible lot.

A brevet's difficulty will depend on just how sadistic the RBA is. I've done difficult 400k brevets on 150 miles/week training. I think it does take that much. Most folks ride more. So that's maybe 9 hours/week. Your long ride needs only 60-80 miles, but it needs to be hilly and ridden all out, and you need to do rides of that length and difficulty once a week for maybe 3 months before the first brevet of an ACP Super Randonneur series.

So ride as much as you can. Depends on how much trainer time you can stand. The good thing about a trainer is that you can target your zones precisely. For your situation, you probably couldn't do better than to read Chapple's Base Building for Cyclists.