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Post by erictherat on Mar 6, 2016 8:23:34 GMT
... I mean, seriously, suggesting 1/2 hr rides and a 'take it easy' mind set will do it for a long hilly off road course - I need to flag that as an 'at your own risk' approach, we don't want newbs scouring the internet then thinking they'll just ride to work for a few months before tackling 200km of gravel trails, safe in the knowledge that erictherat on the BROC forum said it's going to be OK ! As with all my rambles here - it comes with a "i'm not an expert - this is my experience" label. No way on earth I can hold a fast pace, let alone your speed Radchenister (your 4.5 hrs for velothon is unimaginable for me!), but I maintain that 200k is manageable for most riders - if you ride gently, and fuel well. Yes you will feel tired, it wont be plain sailing, there will be some tough moments, but that is why we do these things.
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Post by Radchenister on Mar 6, 2016 8:49:19 GMT
I know where you're coming from, answering in the context of the OP's skills n ability / experience, reckon he's OK for getting round and the 'ride easy' advice is spot on for someone already at 100+ kms. I'd still be after say 150+ km a few weeks out though, just for piece of mind, I wouldn't be dabbling with fasted riding beyond 3 hrs easy, 2 hours harder. You yourself have a base of consistent rides over a few years, some longer ones when out in the warm season last year, pushing it out on longer road rides lately, your lead in to this gravel one would be about perfect, as you've been going on long ones every few weeks - you should do it . Just don't want the overall message on here to be taken too literally by someone stumbling across this thread. Think I can confidently state that rocking up to your first 200km ride, particularly a hilly off road one (at whatever pace you have in mind), having never pushed out your distance beyond the daily commute, is potentially not going to pan out well - it's going to be luck rather than judgement if someone got to the end, let alone enjoying it, the potential for a DNF would be high. ... but then people can do what they like, I could see say an already pretty fit / robust marathon runner managing just fine on a few months commuting and just winging it on the day - still think a 150+ km test run a few weeks out would be wise though.
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Post by r0b1et on Mar 6, 2016 10:58:22 GMT
I must start getting out fasted before work on occasion, try and up my fat burning, but in the winter, the motivation to get up at 6:30 and hit the cold isn't there.
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Post by Radchenister on Mar 6, 2016 11:07:13 GMT
It depends on your levels in system also, if you eat low carbs one day, or perhaps a series of days (if you can hack it, that in itself takes time to adapt), then eat last meal early evening the night before, then do morning spin class (not too hard sessions) before breakfast, you have the same sort of effect - no point for crits / tt but your Cambridge ride might benefit . Don't bother on hard interval days as you limit your ability to smash it. If you're already able to last out your event duration / intensity, then job done. I went full keto in January / Feb but am now onto carb moderation and refeeding carbs for workouts and strategically for distance. Big subject.
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Post by erictherat on Mar 6, 2016 11:17:40 GMT
I must start getting out fasted before work on occasion, try and up my fat burning, but in the winter, the motivation to get up at 6:30 and hit the cold isn't there. Same for me. Change at work means I'll be commuting in the am rather than midday twice a week, so plan to do that fasted. Also maybe a couple of gentle early morning rides when the mornings become more welcoming. It is currently snowing.
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Post by Radchenister on Mar 6, 2016 11:27:20 GMT
... although basic motivations are, avoid bonk through better fat metabolising efficiency to required distance / intensity, lose weight - otherwise, why do it? Can hamper ability to train. There are other convoluted issues but they're the main crux of it.
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Post by r0b1et on Mar 6, 2016 11:36:59 GMT
... although basic motivations are, avoid bonk through better fat metabolising efficiency to required distance / intensity, lose weight - otherwise, why do it? Can hamper ability to train. Use fat rather than glycogen when sat in a large group in a road race is certainly one reason - aiding weight loss (which really for me will be trying to maintain roughly where I am).
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duplo
Peloton Rider
Posts: 206
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Post by duplo on Mar 6, 2016 12:46:57 GMT
Fairly convinced the main issue I had at Ride London was lack of distance the last three or so weeks leading in ... but then I rode it hard at a 32 kmh average for 5 hours, if I was riding big at say 20kmh for 10+ I might be in agreement on not having trained to distance (perhaps consider doing it at least once on weekends at 2 to 3 weeks out but preferably asap to test your system) - seeing it as a series of short rides tagged between meals but it's not my cup of tea to spend all day ambling about, unless say 'site seeing'. Sounds to me like calling it a 'race' is the wrong approach, as I'd want to actually race, not amble along pretending the time at the end mattered - I'm assuming here that they're not going to kick you off the course of course . Well yes they are actually! Enforced cut offs at 60k and 130k
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duplo
Peloton Rider
Posts: 206
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Post by duplo on Mar 6, 2016 13:00:40 GMT
The bigges problem with training for any endurance event is being time poor, the curse of our modern lives I guess.
Grabbed a cheeky three hours first thing ( on Mother's Day!) and did 70k/1250m averaging 23kph. Had the cross bike fully loaded with all the mandatory event gear which is a PITA as it blows the weight out to 13kg.... Averaged zone 3 and avoided going into the red apart from the finally climb where I pushed on purpose. Again rode fasted and felt pretty fresh at the end.
Absolutely going to do longer rides with proper nutrition. 160k at least once a week from here on in. Just need to find the time.....
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Post by erictherat on Mar 6, 2016 13:09:36 GMT
... although basic motivations are, avoid bonk through better fat metabolising efficiency to required distance / intensity, lose weight - otherwise, why do it? Can hamper ability to train. There are other convoluted issues but they're the main crux of it. To avoid riding the sugar rush roller coaster.
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Post by Radchenister on Mar 6, 2016 13:17:27 GMT
Yep, I find it's not just ride time, it's energy n motivation after a working week. Was invited to a 3.5 hr rides starting 7am this morning but an hour's drive away - supposed to be an easy week and as I've been working 14 hr days at meetings n late night Cad work, thought no thanks. Mother's day n a family birthday do as well, so plenty of reasons why not. Hopefully bright mornings and better weather will help soon but I've got until end of May to prep for mine, did the more serious fasted stuff back in Jan and Feb when doing base building easier riding, not nasty V02 Max blaster sessions like I'm on now . 70kms fasted easy pace n 160kms fueled properly would balance out nicely though, about as far as sensible given time constraints - good dry run, should work fine.
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Post by Radchenister on Mar 6, 2016 13:26:05 GMT
... and the sugar rush roller coaster is exactly why I say go easy on the horrible sweet slush, carb regulate strategically on and off bike, fuel intelligently in training (low) and events (higher), therefore not getting on it in the first place (as mentioned on the other thread) !
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Post by Radchenister on Mar 6, 2016 14:14:34 GMT
... although basic motivations are, avoid bonk through better fat metabolising efficiency to required distance / intensity, lose weight - otherwise, why do it? Can hamper ability to train. Use fat rather than glycogen when sat in a large group in a road race is certainly one reason - aiding weight loss (which really for me will be trying to maintain roughly where I am). If you can't hang onto your glycogen stores for a 2 hour crit when popping gels, after all the training you've been doing, then you've got issues! ... but as I said, the Cambridge one might benefit, the 4 to 6 hour mid range duration events are still doable with moderate levels of adaptation. Got to remember that the people I'm talking to about fasted training, are inducing ketosis for much of the time when off the bike. They are using the technique to do IronMan (more like the duration of the OPs and Audax events), road 'race' cyclists don't really need quite the same staying power as the IronMan competitors and might suffer with lack of punch if they over do the fasted stuff in the build phase of training, as it knocks back the ability to train hard. Arguably, this might make you unable to stick with surges and breakaways etc. A criticism of keto dieting for endurance is that those purporting to be on it, are also not always mentioning that they carb load (sometimes called doing 're-feeds') to actually compete. They're (IronMan competitors) also not using the same fluctuating intensities as road cyclists when competing, it's more steady state stuff, you have to stick with all manner of variations in a proper race when cycling. Re fasted training, if you're rocking up to the gym to do morning V02 max intervals in a fasted state, perhaps from 2 or 3 days of low or near zilch carb eating, to deplete your on board stores, then it's counter productive, as you can't perform the drills to your potential. Similarly, if you're rocking up at 6am having had a pasta dinner at 8pm the night before and 300 grams of carbs daily for a few days leading up to that, you're probably still full of glycogen from the days / night before, so you're not really training fasted at all - you've just skipped breakfast and whilst you may have shifted the emphasis slightly to fat burn, you may not have shifted it that far - without the ability to test your own blood you'll never know if it's helping. If you're doing 'Sweet Spot' intervals one day (possible to manage these kinda OK when depleted if not too long) and V02 Max the next (not so doable), then it's getting almost impossible to find the balance of fueling low to train at an intensity that's inducing decent fat adaptations, while also swinging back up to higher glycogen / sugar fueling for moderate long and harder training intensities. ... which is refering back to the off season 'periodisation' thing I mentioned a week or two back - fasted stuff works better at the base building time when intensities are less but it's not so great elsewhere; looking at the diet macros you popped up recently, it'd be near impossible to find a point in your week where you were truly fasted with properly depleted glycogen stores - the best you can muster when out of base laying phase and into build phase, is a half way house of carb regulation to dip the levels a little towards the depleted state and then up them a bit for harder efforts (this is a fine strategy for occasional 4 to 6 hour event riders though IME). Similarly with our OP, if not regulating carbs in the everyday diet, then riding for 3 hours easy when supposedly 'fasted', this may well help a little but it isn't as full on as the IronMan guys are doing with keto diets and then training easy / long popped in on top of the dieting. If your off the bike diet is carb laden, you're still in theory training with half a tank of fuel on board when you do train, so whilst the body won't prioritise carbs so much, it's still running on a good base of glycogen from inner reserves. The typical carbed up diet we've seen on here recently, when I requested a look, was eating circa 200 - 300+ grams of carbs daily. I'd expect to see a couple of days eating below 70 - 80 grams for low carb state of depletion (perhaps up to 150 for active folk but not a lot more). I don't know what the OP does when off the bike of course but I throw these points in for consideration, as it's part of the jigsaw on this topic. As I said, it's a big subject - people need to dabble with it over time to find what works for them.
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duplo
Peloton Rider
Posts: 206
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Post by duplo on Mar 6, 2016 14:38:49 GMT
This is getting way too complicated! I can see how if would be beneficial to take it to a higher level but I just want to give myself a buffer on a long self supported ride. Won't be pushing to hard unless a mechanical holds me back, but I do have a personal goal set so it won't be a lazy ride
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Post by Paulinblack on Mar 6, 2016 14:54:45 GMT
Take yourself a drink; take a banana and something like bit of maltloaf or wine gums just in case. Also, take Β£20 in the back of your mobile phone case 'just in case' you hit a problem (mechanical or fuel). Job's a good un !
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