Training Tips for Double Centuries
Short Biography of John Hughes
John started riding
double centuries in in the 1970s. In 1979 he rode his first Paris
to Brest to Paris, and has ridden P-B-P four times. John has
crossed the U.S.A. three times with Lon Haldeman's Pacific -
Atlantic - Cycling Tours (PAC Tours). He rode the Southern PAC
Tour in 1988, the Ridge of the Rockies in 1991, and the Northern
PAC Tour in 1993.
He has won Boston-Montreal-Boston and won Furnace Creek 508
twice. John has raced RAAM in 1994 and 1996 and plans to race
again in 2000 in the over-50 division. When he's not racing, he's
on the course crewing for a friend.
John is an active ultra cycling coach, coaching a dozen of
cyclists training for RAAM, Furnace Creek, PAC Tours and other
events. He is a USCF certified Sport Coach and a National
Strength and Conditioning Association certified Personal Trainer.
Effective January 1, 1998, John Hughes will lead the
Ultra-Marathon Cycling Association (UMCA) as Executive Director.
John Hughes' Pacific Crest Tour -- This Web Site has some great photos and
stories of the 1997 Pacific Crest Tour which John organized.
It also has a nice table of stats on the 1998 Pacific Crest
Tour. John has organized these tours every year since 1994.
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Training
for Doubles
by John Hughes
When I started riding in the 70s, I'd get in shape for the Davis
DC by just riding a lot of miles. Now, responsibilities limit my
time and age constrains my volume — I've had to learn how to
train effectively. In this article, I will discuss how I coach
others to prepare for a double century and in the second article
will discuss training for a fast double.
Training Principles
• Goal Setting: What are your key events for the year? Take
time to identify these and then plan your training so that you
peak for the event(s), rather than peaking a month early and then
arriving at the event over-trained. You probably can't set PRs at
doubles on successive weekends; decide which events are the most
important.
• Overload: when you do a hard ride, your body says
"Ouch, I'm not ready for this" and then, somewhat
reluctantly, gets stronger. If you want to improve, you have to
increase the stress on your body.
• Recovery: your body doesn't get stronger when you overload
it, but only when you allow time to recover. Listen to the
"Ouch" -- you rebuild tissue and gain strength only
during rest days.
• Progression: what hurt last month is now kind of fun; your
body is stimulated, but not overloaded. In order to continue
getting stronger, you have to progressively increase the
overload.
• Individual: we all have different bodies, psyches and
goals and our training programs should be individual. You should
not just do what the other riders are doing.
• Economy: the best training program is the one that
achieves your goals with only the minimum amount of effort. Only
do the miles you need to do in order to reach those goals.
• Specificity: Cross-training is great in the early season,
but as you approach your main season, ride your bike.
• Intensity: your legs have slow twitch muscles, good for
endurance, and fast twitch muscles for fast climbs The body's
different muscles and metabolic systems cannot all be trained at
the same cycling intensity. You need long, slow days and short,
fast days.
• Fun: Training and riding are primarily for fun: enjoying
the movement on the bike, looking at the scenery, talking to good
friends.
Training Phases:
Effective training is divided into phases, each with a different
purpose:
Building Your Base takes three to four months, during which you
build endurance for long rides.
Intensity, lasting two to three months, is when you develop your
speed for fast rides.
Peaking, four to six weeks, when your training becomes very event
specific through long, fast rides.
Tapering for one to three weeks, when you store energy for the
big event.
Racing, which may be one big event or last several months.
Off-Season, during which you recover mentally and physically.
You can use this framework -- progressive and increasingly
specific overload -- to plan an active season of centuries,
touring and doubles.
Building your base: endurance for long rides.
Over this three to four month period your volume gradually
increases. Increase your total weekly miles by 5 - 10% per week
and your long weekly ride by about the same factor. Ramping
faster risks injury. To ride a double in May or June, you need to
start training by February to avoid ramping too quickly.
You should do two endurance workouts each week; an endurance
workout should be at least two hours long at a moderate pace. Two
workouts will provide more overload and recovery than doing just
one long ride on the weekend. Early in the season, you'll improve
faster if you ride 50 to 70 miles on Saturday and 30 to 50 on
Sunday, rather than grinding out a century in one day. Later in
the phase, you'll ride better if you can ride 50 - 75 one day
mid-week, get some recovery, and then ride 100 - 125 miles on
Saturday.
In addition to the endurance workouts, you should do two or three
shorter rides during the week. Use these rides to work on your
form and technique: a smooth spin, a quiet upper body, a good
aerodynamic position, etc. As a rule of thumb, ride at least half
of your total miles during the week and less than half in one
long weekend ride.
Don't worry about pace or intensity during this phase. Your goal
is to build endurance.
You should do specific training to strengthen the core muscles in
your abdomen, back and upper body that support and stabilize you
on the bike. Do strength training to rebuild the muscle fibers in
your legs. Complement your strength training with stretching and
high cadence riding to maintain suppleness.
If you've put on a few pounds over the off-season, now is the
time to trim down to your riding weight. It is hard to control
your appetite once you start intensity training.
Intensity: speed for fast rides
During this phase you'll build the total volume very slowly (only
5 - 10% per month) while progressively increasing the intensity
of your riding. Significantly increasing both the volume and the
intensity risks over-training. When you were building your base,
you were putting miles in the bank; intensity training starts to
draw down your reserves a bit. This phase is usually two months
or less.
Continue doing your long weekend and mid-week rides, to maintain
your endurance. Increase the longest ride until you're riding
about 150 miles. Riding just centuries in training and then
jumping to a double is a sure way to a slow, painful second half
of the double! During this phase, your training should become
more specific. Ride on terrain and in conditions that are similar
to your most important doubles.
Do a tempo ride each week; go out for a multi-hour ride with your
pulse at the intensity you plan to ride during the event or
events. Each week increase the length of the tempo rids.
Once a week you should do speed work with your pulse near your
anaerobic threshold (AT). Warm up thoroughly, then climb a hill,
do a time trial, or ride long intervals. (The second article will
explain this in detail.) The other days should be easy or rest
days to allow adequate recovery. Once a month, ride a time trial
over the same course to gauge your fitness.
Peaking: long, fast rides
By the end of your intensity training you've built up your
endurance until you have the stamina to ride a double century
without too much suffering and you've developed aerobic speed
over shorter distances. During your peaking phase you maintain
the endurance and develop that speed over longer rides.
This phase is usually short, a month or so to sharpen you for the
key double(s) in your season. Keep the weekly mileage the same,
or even slightly less, than during your intensity training. Every
other weekend, do an endurance ride of 135 to 150 miles. Try to
maintain a steady pace and concentrate on minimizing off-the-bike
time. On the alternate weekends, ride fast centuries. Ride these
faster than you plan to ride the big double(s). During the week,
continue to do an AT ride, a tempo ride of several hours, and a
couple of recovery rides.
Tapering: storing energy for the big event.
Just before your big double, you should taper down your mileage.
It's too late to train effectively; don't risk coming into the
event(s) tired. The week before a big event, go out for short,
easy rides; stay loose. Eat plenty of carbohydrates and hydrate
fully so that your body is ready.
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Training for Fast Double Centuries
by John
Hughes
Speed hurts! How fast do you want to go?
In the first article, I described how to train for a one-day
event: the general principles and the training phases. What if
you want to set a PR? Let's look at how to train for a fast
double.
Energy Systems
When we do a long ride, we use three different energy systems and
we have to train each energy system differently. The systems are:
• fat-burning: at low to moderate intensities, we burn
primarily stored body fat for fuel. Our endurance depends on how
much body fat we have (usually not a problem!), our supply of the
enzymes necessary to metabolize the fat, and our supply of
mitochondria - where the enzymes metabolize the fat -within our
muscles. We develop enzymes and mitochondria through long, slower
rides.
• glycogen-burning: at a moderate, conversational pace,
we're riding aerobically and metabolizing both body fat and
glycogen from stores in our muscles and liver. A well-conditioned
rider can store roughly 400 - 500 grams (1,600 to 2,000 calories)
of glycogen. His or her endurance is limited by this store of
fuel as well as the supply of the specific enzymes necessary to
metabolize glycogen aerobically. The supply of enzymes can be
increased through aerobic training and, of course, the store of
glycogen can be replenished by consuming carbohydrates while
riding.
• anaerobic glycogen-burning: at high intensities, when we
are breathing hard, we aren't taking in enough oxygen to
metabolize fat and glycogen aerobically. The fat-burning
metabolism shuts down and we shift to anaerobic metabolism of
glycogen. This produces lactic acid as a by-product - we all know
that lactic burn in our legs.
We use a different mix of the energy systems depending on the
length of the event and the pace at which we ride the event:
During high-intensity road-races and time-trials we use a mix of
aerobic and anaerobic metabolism of glycogen.
During fast doubles we use primarily aerobic metabolism of
glycogen supplemented with metabolism of stored body fat.
During slower tours we rely primarily on metabolism of body fat,
supplemented with aerobic metabolism of glycogen on the climbs
and when riding fast.
Riding a Fast Double
To ride a fast double, you need to:
1. maximize the amount of time you spend riding in your threshold
aerobic zone - the zone before you go anaerobic. Be careful not
to go anaerobic - you'll have to recover and that will slow you
down - and don't drop into the easy aerobic pace where you're
burning body fat. You need to learn to ride in a fairly narrow
zone of intensity. (Because you're primarily burning glycogen,
you also need to eat a lot of carbohydrates during the event.)
2. maximize the amount of sustainable power you can produce
without going anaerobic.
You can train to maximize both the time you spend in the
threshold zone and your power output in that zone. How? By
specific training based on your anaerobic threshold.
Your anaerobic threshold (AT) is the point at which your body
switches from a primarily aerobic metabolism to a primarily
anaerobic metabolism. You start to breath hard and your legs
burn. You can estimate your AT by riding a time trial (either
flat or a hill climb) that takes about 30 minutes to complete.
Wear your pulse monitor, ride absolutely as hard as you can, and
note your average pulse. Your average pulse for the time trial
will be very close to your AT. (If you test yourself in a
competitive time trial, rather than one in training, your average
pulse will be about 5% above your AT.)
Now that you know your AT, you can pay attention to which energy
systems you are using during rides and, thus, to which energy
system you are training:
• Fat burning: heart rate less than 75% of your AT. Recovery
rides and the easy portion of longer rides.
• Aerobic: heart rate between 75 and 90% of your AT. To ride
a fast one-day event, you should keep your pulse in this zone,
maximizing the amount of time in the upper part of the zone.
• Anaerobic: heart rate more than 95% of your AT
(If your HR is 90 - 95% of your AT, you are starting to go
anaerobic and starting to shut down the aerobic metabolism, but
not riding hard enough to get the benefits of anaerobic training.
Learn to slow down or speed up, depending on your training goals
for that ride.)
Even if you plan to ride primarily in the aerobic zone, you need
to train in all three zones. Training in your fat-burning zone
will increase the mitochondria and the blood supply to your
muscles. Training anaerobically will increase your oxygen uptake
and raise your anaerobic threshold so that you can go faster
without going anaerobic.
Progressive Speed Workouts
To develop sustainable power and speed for a one-day event, you
can do three different types of workouts. All of these workouts
are stressful. The majority of your riding time each week should
be in endurance rides and recovery rides in the lower aerobic and
fat-burning zones. After you have built a good base of early
season miles, mix in two days a week of:
Threshold workouts at 85-90% of your AT. These workouts will
increase your muscle endurance, your ability to sustain a high
pace for hours. Early in the season, start with two or three
cruise intervals of 10 to 20 minutes in this zone, with full
recovery between each interval. Gradually increase the number and
duration of the intervals. Later in the season, go for tempo
rides of two to three hours in this zone, building up to a
century or more at this pace.
Sub-anaerobic workouts at 95-100% of your AT. These workouts will
increase your AT, i.e., allow you to go faster without going
anaerobic. If you could sustain 150 bpm for 30 minutes, after
several months of this training, your AT could increase to 155 or
160 bpm. After at least a month of threshold workouts (85-90% of
AT), you are ready to do extensive intervals. Begin with two
intervals of 8 to 10 minutes at 95 - 100% of your AT, with full
recovery in between each interval. Gradually increase the
duration and number of the intervals. Time trials are another
excellent type of sub-AT training.
Super-anaerobic workouts at more than 100% of your AT. After
several months of sub-AT training, you'll stop improving. The
extensive intervals won't overload your body. Move on to more
pain: intensive intervals at 100 - 105% of your AT. These
intervals are shorter, 3 to 5 minutes are typical, and are done
in sets of three or more without full recovery between intervals.
Generally, the recovery period is half the work interval, e.g., 4
minutes hard with 2 minutes recovery.
These workouts help you prepare for that fast double in two ways.
The threshold workouts increase your specific muscle endurance,
the power that you can sustain for hours. The sub- and
super-anaerobic workouts increase your anaerobic threshold, so
that you can produce more power without going anaerobic. If you
are training for a specific event, you should do these workouts
in similar conditions and terrain to that event.
Your training should culminate with race pace training. If you
plan to ride a 12 hour double century, then practice riding 6
hour centuries. Learn what that pace feels like and learn to
sustain it, not going slower or faster.
When you go for the PR, discipline yourself. If you go anaerobic
on the first big climb, you'll have to slow down later to
recover. Try to stay below 90% of your AT as much as possible . .
. but not much below there!