Hello everyone! Thanks for coming back and reading my post for this week. I've been sharing with many of you how excited I am on being selected to complete an upcoming ride from San Diego to Washington D.C. by bicycle in March and April. The overwhelming response is "that is crazy", "you're excited about that!?", "that sounds more like a punishment!?", and "how do you begin to prepare for that?" Well today I'm going to discuss how I am preparing for the ride from a training perspective and in a couple weeks I'll discuss more of the nutrition that goes into the preparation.
I have been biking for the past 3 and a half years now and running for the past 4 years and a half pretty much non-stop throughout each year which has allowed myself to build a decent base for my current training. Last year I logged nearly 3000 miles on the bike and over 1000 miles on foot running. I am expecting both to grow this year especially my biking miles which will easily be doubled. Now, when it comes to specifically training for my upcoming ride I am "officially" in week 13 of 22 of my buildup. I am taking a multi-disciplinary approach to preparing, primarily consisting of biking (of course), but I am also cross training with running and weights.
My cycling schedule is the most rigid and what I make sure of I complete every week. During this 22 week buildup I will log at least 1700 miles on my bike getting in 3-4 quality rides a week. The individual rides range from 20 to 90 miles and add up anywhere from 60 to 130+ miles per week. Most of these are steady, even paced rides with a few intervals mixed in, however most of my high intensity work comes from my running and weight training. Right now a lot of my miles are being logged indoors, attaching my bike to a trainer and pushing through miles while watching movies, football, or Thunder basketball with occasional rides outside when weather permits or there is actually sunlight still available when I leave the hospital. These outdoor rides will increase as the days lengthen, weather improves, and the ride gets closer.
My running regiment is a little more relaxed as it supplements my cycling. I run about 3 times a week with the goal of around 20 miles but only when feeling good on my feet. I do more high intensity and lots of intervals but hold back and skip or shorten some runs when needing to recover from longer rides. I love running and definitely need this to in my week to feel balanced. I signed up for 3 shorter races in the next month, a 5K that I ran today, and also a 8K and 10K I'll complete next month. I'll post a race report for the 5K on another blog I'm starting soon if you are interested in running and want a few of my tips.
Finally, my weight room workout is comprised of CrossFit that I complete 5-6 days a week. These are all short but intense workouts that range from 5-40 mins and still leave me sore daily. These workouts are really helping me build up strength in my legs and core which will aid tremendously with the mountain climbs on the ride that are difficult to simulate here in Oklahoma.
And that's pretty much it. It may look like a lot but I average only about 12-14 hours a week training or less than 2 hours a day. I post most of my workouts onto Daily Mile if you are interested in seeing more details about individual workouts. Also, I am still looking for more individual sponsors, if you would like to donate please visit my fundraising page or ask me for further instructions. Finally if you would like to know more of the basics about my ride, why I am participating, and what it's all about please ready my 1st blog from last week. Let me know if you have any questions about my ride or this post and leave any comments about anything you may want to learn about from myself in the upcoming weeks.
Loving the blog so far buddy! Looks like you have a great training plan set up!
ReplyDeleteI love that you're incorporating some strength work(I may be a little biased on that subject). Not only will it help with climbing, but it will also help with recovery between rides and injury prevention.
Due to my clinical schedule/lack of daylight and weather I've been on my trainer a bit more lately as well. We have the same model so I figured I share a few tips and tricks that I've figured out lately.
1)when turning the resistance/cam lever just enough to make solid contact with the wheel; any more increases the resistance
2) make sure your rear wheel is inflated well
3)if you use a garmin w/ a speed and cadence sensor, make sure you set the correct wheel size on the garmin or the speed reading will be off
4)for the climbing block, there really is a height difference based on how you set it up, although it doesn’t specify. I used a tape measure and compared the height of a specific part on the handlebars to figure out 3 different heights.
Do you have any recovery days worked into your training plan? I spread 11 training days over a 14 day periods w/ 3 recovery days mixed in. They consist of total body foam rolling and trigger point work, followed by an easy 15-30 min spin on the bike to get blood flowing and then either some intensive stretching or yoga.
Thanks for the tips. It took me a couple workouts of smashing to figure out the proper way to set the resistance. I haven't checked the wheel size setting though so need to do that. My speed is about 2 mph off compared to my road speed so I've just been adjusting. So any guess on the % grade for the blocks? I was wanting to know but don't even know how to begin figuring out.
DeleteI start everyday with 5-10 minutes of stretching and foam roll in the evenings for 5-10 minutes when I'm actually home (2-3 nights a week). Then as far as recovery days I have 1 day every 2 weeks off for cardio and usually use one of my run days as easy active recovery. Also, my weight program is 3 days on 1 day off cycle.
Thanks again for the tips and help! Excited to continue following your training up to your IM.
I have no clue about the % grade for the blocks. I just use the lowest level for most rides. The middle and highest ones I'll use when I'm trying to simulate hill repeats. Even though it's indoors, I'll see if my garmin shows a difference in grade.
ReplyDeleteI've noticed about 1-1.5 mph off as well; on the roads around here I normally average around 20 mph w/ a cadence around 90. When I try to ride 20 mph on my trainer my cadence is around 85. Conversely, when I ride at a cadence of 90, my speed normally tops out between 18.5-19. That being said, when I'm doing speed or power interval my main focus is speed(regardless of cadence). I know that if I'm going 20 mph w/ a cadence of 85 due to the resistance of the trainer than I must be putting up some damn good watts(most likely more than what I'd do out on the road). Conversely,when I want to ride steady my goal is simply cadence. If I maintain a cadence close to 90, even at a speed of 18.5-19 mph, I know the wattage is probably the same, if not greater, than what i do on the road.