undisputed83

Over the past couple months I've done a century a week, along with other shorter rides, and I can do 100 miles no problem.

On August 13th I'm doing a triple century for a local charity. This is what I have tenatatively planned for preparing for the triple.


On saturday I'm doing my normal 40ish mile group ride. Then on sunday I'm doing a 150 mile ride, which I've done before, but this will be the first time this year. I plan on taking monday off, and then doing some shorter rides each day through Friday. Group Ride saturday, then a regular century on Sunday the 10th.

After July 10th's century, I'm going to rest most of the week, and maybe do a 60ish mile ride that thursday. Then on Sunday July 17th I'm doing a double century.

I plan on spending most of the following week recovering, and will likely do group rides on saturdays, and maintain doing the regular centuries once a week leading up to the triple century.

I know I want to leave plenty of time in the four weeks between the double and triple centuries to taper. But what I'm wondering is if two weeks before I do the triple if I should do back to back to back centuries (Three in three days) and maybe that will help with the mental preparation as well?

Is this regimen adequate? What would you do different?

10 Wheels

Moving to Long Distance Forum.

DXchulo

That's almost a month between the double and the triple. Personally, I'd want to throw another long ride in there 2 weeks before the triple, especially if I felt like I was recovered from the double in a reasonable amount of time. Usually when I'm training for a double I like to do ~160 miles two weeks out. That's just one man's habits, so take it for what it's worth.

Doing 3 centuries in a row doesn't make sense to me. You want to train for one long ride, not 3 in a row. That would make more sense if you were training for a tour or something like that. I have a feeling that would wear you out pretty well, and if you plan on dishing out the pain why not make it for one long ride on a Saturday? That's more in line with what you're training for.

clasher

Check out how folks train for their 600k randos, that is way more than 300 miles but it'll give you a good look at how people train for similar distances.

DanteB

When I've done triples I usually do a double 3 weeks before. During the next 3 weeks I start tapering and don't do rides over 2 hours but with interval work during the rides. I never do over a century while training for a double usually 2 weeks out, sometimes one 4 weeks out and one 2 weeks out. You don't want to kill yourself before the triple. The biggest thing I've found about doing a triple is the mental aspect. At times it's hard to keep your mind in tune when your body is screaming "stop the pain".

unterhausen

a triple is probably harder than a 600k since almost everyone sleeps on a 600k. And 600k is only 370 miles. I always figured that a 400k was enough distance work to do a 600k. Similarly, a double should be enough distance training for a triple. My suggestion is to just work on speed and strength before the triple

undisputed83

Training for Speed? That's interesting because I'm really just training to be efficient. Like not wearing myself out, and using as little energy as possible to keep my legs strong for the later miles. I figure if I'm fairly strong at mile 200, I can at that point pick up the pace and finish strong.

downtube42

Your training plan sounds fine to me. It may or may not be perfect, but it's adequate. Just as important as the physical training are the things you'll learn as you increase the distance. Like how to manage your fluid and food intake to carry you past 150 miles, past 200 miles, all the way through the finish. And how to get through the rough spots when they come, and how to deal with little issues like chafing or hotfeet before they become big issues.

Richard Cranium

I don't think there is any such thing as "training" for a a triple.

The reality is that you "train" to be able to ride your bike for hours and hours at a time. Typically this is called "conditioning."

A better measure of preparation for a triple would be your YTD mileage. And more importantly the number of sub 6 or sub 7 hour centuries.

If you want to "pre-test" for a successful triple - simply attempt a 12-13 double century the week before. Assuming you are using the same type of road, route and resting areas you can be pretty well informed about how a triple would play out.

As others have noted - if you can take care of yourself - you can probably ride the triple. However, choosing a pace or resting strategy that stresses you early can make the last 100 miles seem insurmountable.

Homeyba

How long do you plan on being out there doing this triple? Training just to be "efficient" (not sure what that means) or as I take it, training at slow speeds means you will do the triple at slow speeds. If your goal is to just finish the triple then it really doesn't matter. If you want to go faster you need to train to be faster. Really, the goal of training at faster speeds is so that you are comfortable and out of the red zone at higher speeds. As an example, if you do your training rides at 20mph you will be more comfortable and able to ride in your comfort zone riding longer distances at 15-17mph. If you train at 14-15mph and try to ride 15-17mph you are already into the red zone and heading for failure. If you train at 14-15mph and plan on riding 10-13mph you should be fine. It doesn't really matter how "strong" you feel at mile 200 if you speed up and get yourself into the red zone riding at a speed you haven't been training for you are going to blow up and that can be pretty ugly that late in a ride. Hope that makes some sense. As RC said, if you can crank out a sub 12-13hr double one or two weeks before you should be fine.

StephenH

"A better measure of preparation for a triple would be your YTD mileage. And more importantly the number of sub 6 or sub 7 hour centuries."

That's an interesting comment. What I notice among the local riders is there are lots of people that are faster than me (on a 30-40 mile club ride) but then they all think it's just the height of absurdity to do anything over a 100 miles. So I'm sure they'll all run up to Wichita Falls and do the Hotter-n-Hell 100, and if they do it quicker than me, they'll be in the sub-7 hour category. Meanwhile, I've done a couple of 400k's and a few longer rides, but have never completed a sub-7 hour century that I know of. On the one hand, I'd say I was more prepared to FINISH a 300-mile ride than any of them, but possibly less prepared to RACE a 300-mile ride.

Now, on the original post, I might point out that there are very few organized triple-centuries that I'm aware of, nobody does that. on the other hand, there are quite a few 24-hour races around the country, and people that are any good at them will do 300+ miles. So looking for training on ultraracing or 24-hour racing may be more fruitful than looking for info on triple centuries.

I've done 3-600k's now, and they mainly involved plugging along till I was done, and included a few hours sleep. I think the 24-races would be closer to your event than a 600k brevet.

Carbonfiberboy 

^+ (of course!)
And a plus for that 12-13 hr. thing. Exactly right.
In particular, in the 3rd and 4th week out from the event, do at least two days each week of anerobic intervals, at least 3 minutes each interval, in sets of 3 or 4. Of course you have to have a certain level of conditioning to do those effectively, but that's the purpose of training for an event. I don't normally do rides of over 100 miles, and not many of those, getting ready for a 400k.

The 200k-300k-400k progression, along with some hard 80 mile rides and other training is pretty good. Watching other riders, it seems to me that training intensity is more of a predictor of a comfortable finish than is monthly mileage, in spite of the focus on numbers that one sees. On a "short" 80-100 mile ride, try to get so you can take every hill, start to finish, at full sustainable throttle, recovering between climbs. I define conditioning as the ability to repeat. Then when you throttle back to a 300 mile cruise, you don't get terribly tired. The biggest difference between a shorter and a really long ride is that on the long ride I don't power over the little bumps as much. I'll sit, gear down, and spin them out. And of course I put an upper limit on HR, which I don't on training rides.

Homeyba

Quote:

Originally Posted by StephenH

... I've done a couple of 400k's and a few longer rides, but have never completed a sub-7 hour century that I know of. On the one hand, I'd say I was more prepared to FINISH a 300-mile ride than any of them, but possibly less prepared to RACE a 300-mile ride.

People who are any good at 24hr events are doing 400+ miles, not 300miles. Stephen, how many 600ks have you done in less than 24hrs? I don't ask that to be mean but to point out that we are making assumptions about this "triple century" based on our own experiences and not on the requirements of whatever this particular event is. If it's really a "triple century" in the true sense of the words as the OP stated, it's a 24hr or less event. There may not be many out there but they are out there (there was one here in CA just a couple weeks ago). If it's a real "triple century" and the OP wants to finish in 24hrs he needs to be on a 7hr century or faster pace and nothing less. Plugging along on a real triple century will get you a DNF. Doesn't matter if you are racing it or not.

To eliminate a lot of needless bantoring the OP really needs to define the perameters surrounding the event



PS I have no idea why it split your quote into two. It won't let me change it...

Rowan

Homey, the OP is doing a triple century for a charity. I don't see in his first post about racing. And in particular, it's not a qualifier for the RAAM.

StephenH

Homeyba, if you'll re-read my last two sentences that you quoted up there, I don't think we're disagreeing.

Richard Cranium

Yeah - for sure there is diversity even among the idea of what it means to ride a "triple."

If you are talking (or posting) to a stranger - I guess you assume they just want to "do it."

And the safest, easiest way to do distance ride is to stick to your own pace and ignore all others on the ride that don't fit in exactly to your scheme.

I suspect there are a whole lot of the California crowd that squeak out a triple while riding pace lines. However, they probably felt a triple was so hard because they do their riding at high speeds with long breaks.

I really hope to do a triple later this month. But I have no stomach for riding hard. I fully expect at least 19 hours of saddle time. (and I hope it seems easy)

Homeyba

I understand that, that’s why I said there needs to be some clarification as to exactly what the op is doing. When I read "triple century" I understand that to be a standard 24hr triple century. Whether you race it or not you still have only 24 hrs to do them in. When I see "charity ride" it leads me to believe we're not really talking about a triple century but a multi-day 300 mile ride. They are apples and oranges.

Stephen, my apologies. That was poorly worded.

Rowan

I'm sorry, but where does this definition of a triple century being in 24 hours come from. It's like saying a century has to be done in 8 hours or it doesn't count for anything. There is an unusual element of elitism in the way you are going about this.

Homeyba

Read my post again Rowan. "When I read "triple century" I understand that to be a standard 24hr triple century." I wasn't trying to define it. That's just what they are around here. I was trying to make the point that the OP needs to clarify what he/she is doing. People are coming at this from all different points of view. You are going to train for a 24hr event very differently than a multi day event. Also, just because it's a charity event doesn't mean it's not a straight through triple century. I personally, wouldn't call a three day three hundred mile ride a triple century. I'd call that a tour...

c.miller64

Maybe I'm wrong, but it's always been my understanding that rides described as a "Century's" have to be completed in less than 24hrs.

Richard Cranium

Woah - "when is a triple century not a triple century?"

No matter however you define anything - if you try and give nick names to any object AND the nickname is defined as a singular noun such as "triple-century" then any meaning with respect to that object is "one." Therefore the passing of a day's time - or simply stopping and sleeping could be inferred to mean several rides.

But I've never heard of anyone "splitting hairs" or making a distinction over the difference of anything based strictly on 24hours.

In other words - If you define Century as a single bicycle ride - then have to define a Triple-Century as a single bicycle ride as well.

You can have all the triple and quad-bicycle rides you want - but you can't have Triple or Quad-Centuries unless you ride them non-stop OR in less than 24 hours.

You can't use the word "Century" unless you mean it.........

StephenH

I sort of assumed a triple-century would be a continous ride, not necessarily in 24 hours, but not broken up like long brevets, either.

FYI, here in Texas, I've never heard of a triple century being done, and the only double-century I'm aware of is the "Pedernales Double Century", which is just a 300k randonneuring ride. But I'm not aware of anything resembling the 100-mile or 100k charity rides that are very common around here. The double century seems to be very much a California thing. The various rando clubs here have 300k rides, but they're done solely by the normal rando people, not distinguished in any way from 200k or 400k rides, and normally aren't referred to as double centuries. There's not any Seattle-to-Portland stuff.

For what it's worth, a 300-mile rando ride would allow 32.2 hours.

I did google triple centuries in Maine, and found one discussion of an individual planning a personal triple-century for charity, have no idea if it relates to this post or not, but anyway, that discussion also specified 24 hours.

Rowan

"Around here" in California does not mean the rest of the world.

Homeyba

Geez, Rowan...you're entirely missing the point...

Machka 

Just to clarify for everyone ...

A century, double century, triple century, etc. need to be completed as all-at-once as possible ... with relatively short breaks. That may fall within 24 hours ... or it may not. Most of us can likely complete a nice summer century in under 24-hours, but those doing the Susitna may not. We wouldn't tell anyone that completed a Susitna, "Oh sorry ... you can't say you rode a century because you took 25 hours to complete your event"

As the rides get longer (double century, triple century, etc.) there is an increased chance that riders will not complete them within 24 hours ... and that's OK! Centuries, double centuries, triple centuries, etc. are not usually races ... they are rides, and riders can take as long as they want to complete them, within reason of course (and "within reason" can sometimes be a bit of a gray area). Unless the centuries happen to be organised events with time limits.

As further clarification ... if a cyclist rides a century, then goes home, showers, eats, sleeps the night, and gets up the next day to ride a century, that's called a "back-to-back century", not a "double century".


For the purposes of this thread, I suspect that the OP might possibly be involved in this:
https://www.meetup.com/Portland-Bike-...read/10302862/

I'm not quite sure if the OP is thinking he will cover 300 miles in 24-hours ... or if he will do a few 33 mile segments. But nevertheless, because it is not a race or organised event, it wouldn't matter if he took longer than 24 hours.