QUESTION: During typical years when there’s racing, I like to ride 40 kilometer (24.8-mile) time trials and the occasional road race. How far should I ride in training? I’m wondering if long (4- or 5-hour) rides are necessary? — Patrick A.
RBR REPLIES: Good question. Early in the spring when you’re building endurance, longer rides are fine. But during the competitive season, conventional wisdom says not to ride significantly farther than your longest event.
So if you do 40K time trials and road races up to, say, 50 miles, your longest training rides don’t need to be longer than 40-60 miles.
Early-season long rides build aerobic conditioning. But once the season is underway, distance will detract from the power and speed you need to do well in your goal events. This is well-supported by research as well as the experience of riders.
That said, there’s an important psychological factor at work here, too. Many roadies like to do long rides in summer and into the fall even though they’re competing (or doing organized or group rides) at shorter distances.
Centuries, adventure rides and tours can fit into a recreational race schedule. After all, we’re into cycling to have fun, and variety keeps it that way. Just be sure to recover well and don’t ride over-distance too often or too close to an event.
And always remember: Long rides won’t make you faster!
I’m in my early 80’s and considered very fit. Endurance level is excellent by any metrics that I have been able to measure. I do Gran Fondo’s that run 65 to 95 miles. My ability to create muscle mass is low if non-existent. My training consists of 150 to 250 miles per week. In the past, software like Xert, Strava and Intervals suggests that I overtrained historically. This year, I tried to maintain the volume of riding but lowered the intensity to one or two high intensity rides a week paying close attention to fatigue levels being reported by the above-mentioned software and incorporating more recovery. On two occasions this year, I have had PR’s on courses raced with history. I strive to maximize results by monitoring my activities. My top end power is diminished based on historical recordings. By focusing on monitoring power efforts during the events, I strive for negative splits in power output. My discipline could use improvement, but power profiles suggest that I am making progress. I suspect this has been the most significant factor in my improved times. What can you suggest I modify to increase my power output for 1 minute to 10 minutes efforts?
1—you can and should for best performance train as much as you can recover from……..ALL the magic of adaption happens during recovery…….this means both long rides and fast shorter rides and these should be tailored to the distances you are racing……..more longer rides for longer race distances.
2—most of us, especially if working, do not have the available time required to train to our maximum so this becomes a juggling act dependent on available time, ones race distance and the number of weeks/months before your race
3—to get ones best training results most people will need to train hard (I include long aerobic days near maximum aerobic heart rate as hard days) only 2 or 3 days per week. some of us have the “recovery gene” and can train hard more frequently w/o compromising their hard days.
4—as one gets older the recovery time and/or the total volume of hard days tolerated by the athlete becomes less and this becomes another but longer term moving target.
5—some coaches when designing a program 1st list the days the athlete has social engagements which cannot be messed such as birthdays, thanksgving, christmas, graduations, etc. and then design the program including the number and type of hard and rest days around these important events