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After musing over the idea of joining Monksie on his London to Manchester epic in July I went out and did 100 miles (well 97.2 according to google earth when I got in, but I reckon I could have done another lap of the high street if I'd wanted to) with ~2000m of climbing. I was out for 9 hours, of which about an hour was spent drinking coffee and eating cake, so averaged about 13mph. Slower than I'd hoped, but then again I thought I'd give up at about 80 miles and get a lift but didn't so some success, some failiure. Think the speed was better in the first half so possibly need to work on fueling.
The shortest route London to Manchester is 185miles and 2000m of climbing, but the last 40miles or so looks to be mostly downhill, unfortunately that means that arround 140miles in theres a mahooosive (well, by England standards) hill! So I reckon the longest ride I need to do is about 150miles and hope for a tail wind on the way down into Manchester?
I reckon I can get out twice in the week for an off-road ride on the singlespeed for 90-120minutes with some big-ish steep hills. That should be enough for strength/intervals/fast pedaling training and up my speed on the road bike? Depending on the weather I can extend this by another big-ish hill and 4 miles of dissued railway each way fro home to get the hours in.
At the weekend I can ride for a morning or afternoon without being anti-social which means about 6 to 8 hours, possibly based arround a club run and an hour riding to/from the start or combine it with a journey and do it twice (80 miles on friday afternoon and the same back on sunday afternoon).
Whilst doing all that riding the plan is also to lose about 10kg which should make the hill easier.
What do the 12/24hour racers on here do? Do you replicate a 12 hour race in training, or is there any point riding for more than half that as long as it's done regulalry?
6 hours or 100k once a week and at least two 1-2 hours spins in a week. doing a 12hour training spin isnt really practical if you have any life off the bike.are you based in london ?
As said above really, typical week when training for the longer races would involve 2 interval sessions during the week (usually Tuesday evening and Thursday morning) and a 3 hour ride on Wednesday and a recovery spin Friday. Saturday would be my long ride of 6 hours and then a recovery spin of 2 hours with some cake on Sunday.
No hard and fast rules but one long ride a week with some harder intervals/hills mixed in should see you do it easily enough. Important thing though is to not stop pedalling on the long ride and to keep the effort consistent. Cake stops only at the end 🙂
doing a 12hour training spin isnt really practical if you have any life off the bike.are you based in london ?
Nahh, I'm working away from home during the week, hence theoreticaly unlimited weekday evening riding, but limiting it to 2 days a week means I get some recovery between rides which is probably goign to be important. The problem is the weekends back home have to be efficient with regards to time as its the only time I get with the missus so if I don't need to be riding 150mile/10hour rides then I'd rather not. Thankfully there are quite a few friends/family at an almost 100 mile radius which makes "shall we go to XXXYYYZZZ" for the weekend a realistic option.
What do the 12/24hour racers on here do? Do you replicate a 12 hour race in training, or is there any point riding for more than half that as long as it's done regulalry?
once a summer close (1-2 weeks before) to the race i am focussing on.*
*nb i am not a successful racer.
Another Q, what do people eat before/during/after
I reckon I've got after nailed with 1g/kg maltodextrin/fructose mix and 0.3g/kg whey protein seems to leave me feeling OK.
But 'energy' products seem to give me stomach cramps, I'm OK with drinks made upto about 8-10% carbs, but gells/sweets dont agree with me. Sandwiches and fruit seem a bit bulky to carry 10 hours worth though, flapjack a good option for eating on the bike? Works Ok on the MTB but that tends to be stop-eat-rest-start not a continuous effort.
What do the 12/24hour racers on here do? Do you replicate a 12 hour race in training, or is there any point riding for more than half that as long as it's done regulalry?
No, diminishing returns. Eat real food. Avoid fatty things unless your body craves them a long way in. I would consult molegrips and the southern forum addict. They're national level athletes, I think, and know everything there is to know about anything. Based on what iDave has told them. Good luck.
ps: just a very slow bimbler. I'm genuinely humbled by how much faster than me real solo racers are, follow someone like Matt Page for a while and it's a proper eye-opener.
That's a minefield really and quite a range out there as to what people eat, if your having issues with the manufactured drinks I moved onto using fruit juice of the tropicana type, add enough to get 40g of carbs from it and then add enough whey protein to get 10g of protein and you've got some 4:1 drink with some fructose added in. That would be in one bottle and then plain water with some electrolyte (I use elete) in the other bottle. This works quite nicely for me and I enjoy drinking it and don't get any issues. I make up my own flapjack type bars with apricots and nuts in them for solid food, got a recipe somewhere if interested which is based off the cliff bar nutition info.
But as said everyone is different and I know people who are happy with the powdered drink mix stuff and gels.
The drink I seem fine with on it's own, I've bought bulk packets of maltodextrin, fructose, electrolyte powder and make it up with squash so I've just about got the maximum concnetration thats paletable for me through trial end error, it's the gells I struggle with, even eating gells and drinking water seems to cramp me up.
For eating, I use a mix of gels and solids like nuts/rasins + nutrigrain elevenses bars (loads of carbs, low fat, tasty) or soreen malt loaf (again carbs, low fat, small).
Interesting about making your own drinks. I haven't done it yet but know i could save a small fortune doing it.
It's easy enough, just buy the maltodextrin and fructose off myprotein.com and mix in a 2:1 ratio and add your prefered squash. The 4:1 stuff just add unflavoured whey protein to the mixture (or flavoured if you want the milkshake flavours rather than sqush flavours).
Enter Referral Code: MP200391 at the checkout for some money off, its a referal code so yes I get some money off too so I'd better say that in the interest of fairness.
try cliff shot blocs, I found them far nicer than gels.