Well its that time of year again.

A brutal edition of the ToS kicks off in a couple of weeks, so plenty of time to sign up.

Details here:
http://www.thesufferfest.com/tour-sufferlandria-2015/

But its essentially 9 consecutive days of training, starting on the 24th January, for a total of around 12.5 hours of training and a TSS of just over a 1000!

It can be done on TrainerRoad if you don’t have the films, or most of them are available via Strava Premium, or you could just buy them.

Schedule:
Saturday, Jan 24th
Elements of Style and The Long Scream
00:38 – 33, 00:35 – 58

Sunday, Jan 25th
Blender
01:44 – 148

Monday, Jan 26th
Fight Club
01:00 – 88

Tuesday, Jan 27th
Nine Hammers
01:00 – 83

Wednesday, Jan 28th
Angels
00:56 – 82

Thursday, Jan 29th
Local Hero
01:26 – 123

Friday, Jan 30st
The Rookie
00:54 – 75

Saturday, Jan 31st
Revolver and Violator and Half is Easy
00:45 – 87, 01:08 – 129, 00:38 – 52

Sunday, Feb 1st
It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time
01:56 – 106

I’m in. I did it in 2013 but missed* last year.

* Didn’t miss.

As a side issue Strava Premium does not have “most” films but the same three for the last nine months, one of the reasons Ill be cancelling.

😥

but have just signed up for trainerroad 😯

I quite fancy this too but does anyone know how much the videos will cost?

As a side issue Strava Premium does not have “most” films but the same three for the last nine months, one of the reasons Ill be cancelling.

OK, odd, I thought that more were available after reading the FAQ here:

I’ve subscribed to the App. Can I use that for the Tour? Yes. Sort of. If you subscribe to our app, then you’ll have access to nearly all the videos – only Nine Hammers and Elements of Style won’t be available and you’ll need to purchase those.

I assumed that the App was Strava Premium.

know how much the videos will cost?

They work out at around $10 each I think, so in total about a years worth of TrainerRoad subscriptions.

Love the idea of it but clashes with other stuff, maybe next time…

You could do it without the videos I guess. I don’t know about TR but I use GoldenCheetah – you can import Sufferfest workouts from the spreadsheet here, so by using your FTP, the target watts of the intervals are synced with the video. I suppose they’d work with TR too.

I have a few SF videos but sometimes just do the workout without the video as an alternative to the usual under overs, pyramids and whatnot.

TR has all the Sufferfest sessions in so you can just select the one you want and off you go, with YouTube or whatever streaming the latest CX race/film of choice. So there is no actual need to purchase the films.

Like the idea of it but too brutal for me for the time of year.

It is brutal, especially getting up early to get one in, straight out of bed and onto the turbo is horrible 🙁

Didn’t realize you could do Sufferfest workouts on Trainerroad without the videos, I wasn’t going to bother as I’m missing roughly half of the ones I’d need but now I might give it a go.

I’m still a relative novice to all this turbo malarkey but been doing the base training plan on trainerroad so will have a look at how the sufferfest stuff compares (I.e. How hard it’s going to be) but I kinda fancy a challenge and I’m off on hols at the time so timing works for me.

Im in it for the first time, using trainer road without the videos, probably watching emmerdale or something 😀

probably watching emmerdale

Hmmm motivational! 😯

That looks f’in hard, the last two days in particular. Might have to reduce the intensity a little for those. Definitely harder than last year.

A handy tip I found out last year is that you can ‘time shift’ yourself – I had a couple of work trips a couple of days apart, which meant that I couldn’t be at home for any of the 50 hour period which you get to complete the workout, however if you take your PC off the internet, change the clock to the time needed to start the workout, do the workout and then boot up a few hours later change the clock back to the correct time (make sure it’s not before your start time), then go back on line and upload your workout. I had a couple of extra hard days by having to do two in a day, but I got my badge!

I’m in.. haven’t been on the road bike for ages so not expecting much, but a good motivator to get back on it! And excuse to buy another video or two..

Just gotten into the whole TR thing so liked the look of this – but if named men are saying it’s brutal then might be a bit much at this point in time for me. Also would like to do it with the vids, but only have the strava premium stuff.
I read you could stream them from sufferfest for not too much – like subscribe for a month or something like that.

You can stream them from sufferfest but you won’t be able to use them with trainerroad that way

but you won’t be able to use them with trainerroad that way

meaning that they won’t be perfectly in sync? then yes that seems logical, but you should be able to just watching them and use TR at the same time.

Hadn’t quite realised how tough the penultimate day will be.

Everyone’s doing the multi-vid stages back to back, right?

Yeah back to back, might need to change shorts though to a dry pair!

Brutal, the rest of it seems doable, albeit, hard. From Thursday onwards is going to be real fun.

Going to give this a go, just signed up to stream the videos as not got them all and can’t afford to buy them all now so streaming seems a brilliant idea. Looks tough!

GO GO GO!

First stage down.. that hurt!

Well done sir!

The beauty of a 50 hour day window!

I’ll kick it off tomorrow morning.

I am strongly considering this but am not sure I can cope with two and a half hours on the turbo in one day…

Try it, if you get as far as next Saturday then you’ll already have done well!

Well I’ve done elements of style…

Looked at Elements of Style having never done it before and thought that and The Long Scream would be a piece of cake. Turns out it wasn’t and I’m now dreading Stage 8 which I think might actually kill me to death.

I’d not done The Long Scream before.. was feeling ok after Elements Of Style and then.. boom!

Hopefully 7 consecutive days of training will stand me in good stead for Stage 8! 😆

First day complete, both stages at FTP, not sure long how long I’ll be able to keep up that intensity though.

Even got round to buying a fan, hmmm marginal gains 😀

having not done the long scream before I was looking forward to being eased into the tour. Oh how wrong I was! I’m not looking forward to Tuesday, downloaded 9 Hammers and had a flick through to see what it was like, I’m a bit scared now! Stage 8 is giving me nightmares already!

Yeah the Long Scream is very aptly named.

Not done, or even seen Nine Hammers or The Rookie, so they’ll be fun doing then blind as it were.

Thinking it will be manageable up to end of play Wednesday, then Local Hero onwards will take some serious suffering to complete

Last time I finished revolver I was total spent with nothing left, violator actually broke me and I couldn’t finish it and I haven’t tried half is easy yet, next Saturday isn’t looking good for me! It won’t help that I will have to Friday’s stage in the evening as Im going to be on a work trip.

The long scream was a bit of a bugger, I hadn’t expected it to be so tough and was really considering sacking it off!

I’ve not done Blender before and I’m really not sure I have the mental capacity for nearly 2 hours on the turbo…

Does Trainer road work on an android phone? I’d be interested in getting it but my turbo is set up in the cellar, well away from computers.

Think its just iOS at the moment

Blender – done. It’s quite a long session when you’ve not got the video so it’s just you and your power readouts!

Blender done as well, after the long scream it wasn’t so bad. Fight club tomorrow!

Nice work guys, Blender completed for breakfast too.

How did the pain shakes go down?