In 3 months.
With limited time.

Doing the dartmoor classic at the end of June (106m, 10,000ft of climbing). Just been out for a 25m loop on the moors with 2500ft of climbing and frankly I’m knackered.

What’s my best approach for the next three months considering only really get an hour here and there durIng the week and a longer ride on Sundays.

How long in time can your Sunday ride be?

2-3 hours at a push. 5 month old son means I’m short on time…

No easy answer I don’t think, if you can ride hard or do intervals in one weekly ride, keep one ride for fun, then make your Sunday ride as long as you can and hard too.

You only need to do the 106m once, and you’ll get stops…

Road bike !

Def road bike, way better training.

What time do you get up?
What time do you have to get to work?
How serious are you about getting fitter?

I started work at 7:30. I got up at 5:00 am and did an hour or an hour and a half three days a week on the way to work. Or a hour or two a couple of evenings a week.

You have to make time, not sit and wait for it to appear.

Good luck then 😆

No seriously, I guess the event is gonna take you the best part of 7 hrs so I guess all you can do is stick to the 3 hours on a Sunday and in the week do some interval stuff/hills.

I’m on a road bike.

Tend to do interval sessions on the turbo a couple of nights a week, one or two mtb rides with the dog and then a road ride on Sunday.

Felt fine on the imajor climb today (1500ft over 6 miles) early in the ride but then struggled on anything major after that.

What time do you get up?

When my son wakes, currently 3am & 6am

What time do you have to get to work?

7am

How serious are you about getting fitter?

At the moment, doing what I need to to finish. It’s for a charity close to my heart and I’ll finish in the dark if I have too…

You still have to make time to ride, I did it when my kids were little; you’re already shagged out from crap sleep, so you learn to ride while fatigued which is essentially what endurance is.

More miles, that’s the key.

Use the train if possible; get an early train on Sunday to 50-60-70 miles away from home and ride back is one option I tried.

Where are you in the country? For endurance I find that riding on the flat is better in terms of training; less grinding up stuff and freewheeling down, more head down getting on with it.

You’ll be OK, you’re used to riding and it’s 3 months away.

Sounds like what you are doing is good, keep some fun in there though or you may lose interest.

Dartmoor. Round here is hills or bigger hills…

You still have to make time to ride, I did it when my kids were little; you’re already shagged out from crap sleep, so you learn to ride while fatigued which is essentially what endurance is.

That is probably the worst thing you can do. Training when fatigued will either have little benefit, or push you into over training very rapidly.

Also endurance isn’t riding when you are fatigued, you train to ride for longer so you don’t get fatigued.

Nonsense.

Training when fatigued will teach you how to ride when fatigued, which, given that the OPs lifestyle is not going to change in 3 months, is exactly what he has to learn to do.

Overtraining on 4 or 5 hours a week? Give over.

…and endurance in cycling terms is the ability to ride when you are fatigued; you can train to put that fatigue off, but sooner or later, you have to be able ride when you are knackered.

Some people talk bollocks on here, you top the lot.

Where the **** do you get your information from?

Do me and him a favor and read about training when fatigued, then come back and give some decent advice.

Well skywalker, you certainly do know BS.

Like the advice you’ve offered?

I’m giving my advice, my opinion. If you have better advice, or a different opinion, let’s hear it.

If all you can manage is insults, why not go away and have a little word with yourself?

Alright ladies. Calm down.

crikey – Member

If all you can manage is insults

If? That’s Skywalker’s reason to exist.