Fitness, does it improve over time?

[Storm Willett]

I have just started riding, been at it for couple of months now.
I have registered for the Rio Tinto Ride to Conquer Cancer next August and am hoping to be ready by then.
I am riding an hour and half five days a week and then a two hour ride on the weekend. I try and have one day off.
Will I be ready for the 250k ride next year?
Any advice is welcome, cheers.

 

[Martin318is]

Fitness does improve over time IF you keep adjusting your training to take advantage of those improvements. Rest is as important as time on the bike and taking time off to allow your body to adapt will assist your progress. Consider doing 3 weeks where each week is a little more kms than the week before and then in week 4 drop back to about 75% of that. Then start the next 4 week block from about where you were in the 2nd or 3rd week. What you should see is an up and down wave pattern of ride durations that climbs over time. Ideally you would want to end up doing some 4+ hour rides per month and be riding over 3hrs regularly. If you do the same pattern every single week then you will only really be training yourself to ride that distance per day. variation of effort and duration are both very important.

Some studies have shown that performance can be estimated from how many hours a week someone spends on the bike - this is different to how long they ride on the longest ride.

Something I read and have always remembered (but cant remember who said it) is: "Whatever distance you can regularly ride in a week, you can ride in one day." While that has limitations (pros often ride 1000km in a week for instance) for the average person this is true. If you can regularly ride 250-300km per week you will be able to endure a 250km ride. If you want to do it comfortably or with speed then you need to be doing some rides over 150km semi-regularly before the big day.

There are numerous training plans available on the internet. Some of the basic concepts I wrote here can be found in most of them.

 

[CoachFergie]

I have just started riding, been at it for couple of months now.
I have registered for the Rio Tinto Ride to Conquer Cancer next August and am hoping to be ready by then.
I am riding an hour and half five days a week and then a two hour ride on the weekend. I try and have one day off.
Will I be ready for the 250k ride next year?
Any advice is welcome, cheers.

How old are you and what is your riding background?

Most important things in designing a programme are...

Specificity: Building up to the times, distances and most importantly the intensities you will complete the ride at.

Progressive Overload: Every training programme has three components. A performance outcome, an assessment of where you are at and a plan to get you from where you are now to where you want to be. Any training session should challenge where you are at in a progressive fashion. This can be from increasing the frequency of rides (ie a hard ride every 5 days progressing to a hard ride every 2 days), the intensity of the ride or the intensity of efforts or sections of the ride, the time you ride for and the types of riding you do (if the goal event is hilly you might start with flat rides and progressively include more climbing).

Recovery: This is the other side of overload. Your should never train so hard or do so much work that you can maintain a decent intensity on your hard days.

Sounds like an EPIC ride, I last rode 250km in 1989 and it was very personally satisfying. Doing it for Cancer (close to my heart) makes it even better. Go well!

 

[DirtyWorks]

Fitness does improve over time IF you keep adjusting your training to take advantage of those improvements. Rest is as important as time on the bike and taking time off to allow your body to adapt will assist your progress. Consider doing 3 weeks where each week is a little more kms than the week before and then in week 4 drop back to about 75% of that. Then start the next 4 week block from about where you were in the 2nd or 3rd week. What you should see is an up and down wave pattern of ride durations that climbs over time. Ideally you would want to end up doing some 4+ hour rides per month and be riding over 3hrs regularly. If you do the same pattern every single week then you will only really be training yourself to ride that distance per day. variation of effort and duration are both very important.

The schedule being described is excellent advice. My version of it is a little different.

1: Figure out how many hours you actually will commit between now and the ride and still have fun the whole way along. Use that maximum hours per week as your largest block of time. The other three periods are shorter, but more intense. Volume goes up, intensity goes down. Don't try to increase both at once.

2. Once every 4 weeks do a 4+ hour ride. You will practice keeping yourself fed and watered on this ride so that when you do the big ride, you do not have food/water related issues. Try to set a tempo and a high cadence and keep it all the way through. The last hour should feel pretty bad.

3. There is no substitute for intense training efforts. The beauty of them is about 10-20 minutes is all that's needed on a ride. No cheating. Max efforts in bigger gears on a hill lasting about 2 minutes. Do the hill three times and you are done and you should FEEL done. Keep it fresh. change the hills, change gears, but keep the cadence low so you feel it in your muscles. Spin home. Intervals at various cadences are nice too. Less really is more here.

This is where Fergie and others have an apoplectic fit.
If weather does not permit a ride, the gym is great. 10 minute warm up at progressive intensity on one of the fancy exercise bikes with varying resistance. Followed by circuit training for the whole body including squats with free weights. Keep the heart rate up while working weights. 15-20 reps to failure.....

Every body is different. So, fashion it to work best for you. I've had great success in a very tight schedule using these methods. The rare long rides go just fine.

 

[usedtobefast]

the advice these guys give, will serve you well. enjoy the training and recover well. 250k is a good sized effort, but very doable with your good preparation.
diet,recovery, intensity and a good head about it will make it a good time.