If you haven’t heard this saying before and you have a race coming up within the next two or three weeks, I want you tape this sentence on your bike and read it before every ride.
Most people are procrastinators. Whether you are preparing for an important presentation or training for a big ride, most people will wait until the last few weeks before they start to get serious. When it comes to mental projects, your brain is very malleable and you can quickly cram it with all the information you need. But your body doesn’t work that way. It takes months to build a training base and many more months to build speed and power, on top of that base.
All this information shouldn’t be new to you, but I’m reminding you again because, with less than a month left in the season, what you do now can make or break your entire season.
If you haven’t completed your long rides over the last few months and have been skipping your intensity workouts, I’m sorry but cramming in extra rides during the last few weeks will do you more harm than good.
The purpose of training is to break the body down gently, allow it to recover and grow stronger. Trying to speed up this process means that you will miss the recovery and getting stronger part. On Fondo day, you will arrive feeling burnt out, tired and possibly injured.
Instead of throwing in the towel, you can still salvage the ride with less than optimal training if you follow these five tips:
1. Get lots of sleep and recovery time so you arrive on race day feeling refreshed and mentally ready for a hard ride day.
2. For the two weeks leading up to race or ride don’t add in any extra training sessions in addition to what is on your training program. Or talk to your coach about foregoing the taper to continue training up until the event.
3. During the ride, take it easy and don’t try to race the event. Keep your heart rate low and take as many breaks as you need at the rest stops. If your body isn’t accustomed to riding the distance you will fatigue simply from being on the bike for this extended amount of time.
4. Readjust your expectation. Possibly use the event as a training ride to prepare you for the next one.
5. Have fun and enjoy the day. Remember that any day on the bike is a good day.
2. For the two weeks leading up to race or ride don’t add in any extra training sessions on top of what is on your training program. Talk to your coach about discuss how to skip the taper and continue training until the event.
3. During the ride, take it easy and don’t try to race the event. Keep your heart rate low and take as many breaks as you need at the rest stops. If your body isn’t accustomed to riding the distance you will fatigue simply from being on the bike for this extended amount of time.
4. Use the event as a training ride to prepare you for the next one.
5. Have fun and enjoy the day. Remember that any day on the bike – is a good day.
Some of you are moving away from being casual riders to cyclists training for an event. One of the most important things you will need to learn, practice, and eventually master is the art of eating during long rides and during your event. I’m not talking about eating while pedalling, although eventually you may be ready for that, I’m talking about eating at regular times during your ride to keep up your energy throughout your event.
When you are riding, your muscles use sugar and fat to do the work. The process of converting fat into energy is more difficult and time consuming so the majority of your energy will come from sugar or glycogen. Your body will use most of your available glycogen stores within the first hour. Unfortunately your brain only survives on sugar. So when you feel dizzy, light headed, confused, short tempered or faint this is because you don’t have enough sugar going to your brain. You may have already experienced this on a ride but if you haven’t you never want to get to this point. Once you are there, it is extremely hard to reverse.
You want to stay one step ahead of what our body needs which is why I teach all my athletes to eat on a schedule – whether they feel like eating or not. Normally in life you are counting calories so that you don’t over eat. Now I’m teaching you to count calories so that you eat enough. The timing of when you eat and the amount of calories you eat at each interval are the keys to having a great ride.
Use the following guideline to start with and then add or subtract calories as your stomach insists or your energy demands require.
Breakfast one hour before your ride of mainly carbohydrates with only a little bit of fat and protein as these both take too much time to digest (2-3 hours).
examples: toast with pb and banana, yogurt with granola and fruit, fruit smoothie, oatmeal
drink one glass of water and an extra glass of water for every cup of coffee so you are well hydrated
First snack at 45minutes into the ride: 200-250 calories for women, 300-350 calories for men of mainly simple SUGARS (very little fat or protein)
NOTE: The range of calories are a guideline for you to start with and through experience you will know if you need more or less.
examples: fruit bars, gels, white potatoes, bananas, fig newtons, sesame snaps, shot bloks, cliff bars, sharkies or a drink with calories in it like Vega Sport, Gatorade, Eload, etc
Bring a wide range of food choices as you may not “feel” like eating something but you MUST.
Drink 3/4 to a full water bottle or water with electrolytes in it if you are a heavy sweater.
If your ride is less than 2 hours, then you don’t necessarily need to eat again on the ride but you MUST eat another 250-350 calories as soon as you get home to replace the lost sugar during the last hour. If you miss this 30min window after exercise, your glycogen stores will have a difficult time rebuilding which means that your next ride is going to hurt. AFTER you eat your post ride snack, eat a regular healthy lunch/meal complete with carbs, fat and protein to repair your muscles.
If you are riding for longer, you will repeat the above schedule EVERY 45 minutes. Set your watch to an alarm if you have to. The same “after ride eating schedule” applies to the long ride.
Riding for a cause helps you stay motivated to train and will boost your spirits when things get tough.
Jackie, Tamsin and Carolyn were still smiling after 240km! These three girls have many reasons to still be smiling after riding for two full days in torrential rain in the Ride to Conquer Cancer on June 16 and 17th. They were a part of something big on some many different levels.
On a pure physical level, each of them dedicated three months to train their bodies to be able to handle 120km on back to back days. Not only did they enjoy the ride, but they were exhilarated by the feeling of strength they had during the ride and being able to ride with faster groups.
Socially, they met a ton of new people who will touch their lives in many different ways and created a greater bond of friendship between the three of them.
Personally, they can all feel proud of themselves for making a huge difference in someone else’s life that they may never meet. Cancer affects all of us, whether it is someone we know who has been diagnosed or ourselves – finding new ways to conquer the disease is always a cause that is worth supporting.
Training for a cause greater than your own is a huge motivator. It becomes pretty tough to skip out on a ride when you know someone else can’t skip out on Chemotherapy. Those of us who are healthy, have a great opportunity to help people who are less fortunate and I congratulate everyone who takes this challenge seriously. You are our heros!
If you haven’t changed a flat yet, now is the time to add learning and practicing it into your training schedule this week! And yes there will be a test but it will be on the road when you least expect it.
