Training
Training wise, I’m not a fan of long slow rides. They have their place, mostly on recovery
days, but for us non-professionals with actual non-cycling day jobs, they are
waste of time. Assuming you only have 5-12
hours a week to train, you need to make the most of it. I’m
going to advocate two intervals a week and 1-2 long sessions of riding on the
weekend. I’m also a fan of 1-2 recovery
rides during the week.
A standard week goes something like this. Monday completely off or 1 hour of very
low-intensity riding (zone 1). Tuesday
3x10 or 4x10 threshold intervals. Wed –
1 hour recovery or Interval session 2 depending on how I feel. Thursday – 1 hour recovery or interval session
(depending on what I did Wed) 2 – 4x12 sweet spot, 4x10 over-under, or
similar. Friday recovery ride or off
day. Saturday a 2-4 hour ride out doors
for fun – ride however you want – spirited group ride, ride at the trails, or
solid solo ride.) Sunday 2+ hours of
easy zone2 riding or take the day off.
I advocate intervals during the week because these will
bring up your physical conditioning and start building your legs and mind. More on this later.
I use the trainer, computrainer for my intervals. I’m apparently a sick person as most can’t
stand to ride indoors. I personally see
my trainer as the gym – when I’m on it, it’s workout time. It’s not for fun, it’s not for dead
miles. Each ride on it has a
purpose. Also, I hate getting dressed to
go outside. With the trainer I can get
in to a routine and I can get a very quality workout in a short period of
time. This is important to me because I
work 9 hours a day Mon – Fri and I don’t have a lot of time to ride. Getting on the trainer saves me 20-50min of
prep time and ride out time (time I ride to get to a spot to do my workouts.)
Whether you do your week rides on the trainer or outdoors,
it’s your world. I’m just explaining how
and why I did what I do. I have a helacious “laboratory” setup where I
train including a computrainer, dedicated trainer bike, dedicated computer, 50”
tv/monitor, and several thousand dollars of cycle training software.
If you choose to go outside just hold yourself accountable
to doing what you’re there to do.
I like intervals during the week since time is usually
limited. Intervals give you more bang
for your buck (timewise.) Many people
think that interval training is only for racing short distance races and since
Leadville is a 9+ hour endurance race, they aren’t necessary. Truth is, you’ll be climbing for 30minutes to
1:30 at a stretch and while climbing you will be using an intensity above
normal endurance race intensities. You
need to be able to climb at these intensities (zone3 and 4) and be able to
recover. IMO you can’t do this by riding
at an endurance pace for all of your training times. Intervals will help you and your body cope
with these climbing intensities.
In addition, to helping you cope with the climbing,
intervals will bring your fitness up quickly.
Not only will your ability to go hard increase but your endurance ride
intensity will also go up. More on this
another time.
Rest
You need rest. Rest
is very important. If you notice in the
workouts above, there are lots of recovery rides. Training smartly with intervals and doing
them properly will stress your body and legs.
Your body needs recovery. Build
it up, recovery, build it up, and recover.
This is how you get stronger.
Recovery is just as important as training.
Most people do too much training and never recover. This is a normal thing for most who train and
thus they struggle with getting better/stronger. Build in enough recovery in to your plan and
you’ll get the results you are looking for.
Recovery means doing nothing or riding very easy. When I say easy, imagine a ride with
intensity of about 10mph on a road bike.
These kinds of rides seem pointless but they do wonders for helping your
body recover.
Nutrition
You need to start dialing in your nutrition early on. Do you want to eat normal food, gels, liquids
or a combo of all the above? You need to
start experimenting now. If it were me,
I’d start experimenting with a lot of different items. On race day, at altitude, and with the
intensity needed to race Leadville, you may find that what you like is suddenly
un-palatable during the race. You will
need to eat something, you’re going to burn upwards of 5,000 calories and ride
at various intensities. It will be
impossible to ride without some kind of nutritional aid.
I went with portables. Midway through the race I couldn’t tolerate
them anymore. I forced myself to eat
them but only because I knew I couldn’t go without. I started eating GU’s because they were giving
them away for free. I hate GU but for
whatever reason I was able to eat them that day.
My point is make sure your body can run on different
fuels. Find what you like and what works
for you but also have a backup plan.
Understand you will HAVE to eat something several times throughout the
race.
Another thing to be aware of is how you eat. It’s one thing to eat something when you’re
heartrate and breathing is relatively low (120-135bpm), it’s another when your
HR is up in the 150+ zone. When you’re
HR is elevated (as when you climb, or race shorter distances) it becomes
difficult to chew, breath, and swallow. The
higher your heartrate and breathing, the harder it is to eat solid food. You need to practice eating at higher
intensities. This sounds like a joke but
at the rattler (a shorter race) and while climbing at Leadville, it’s a HUGE
deal and could prevent you from being able to eat.
Weight
Getting your fitness to its highest is key but an equally
important thing is to go to Leadville as light as possible. This means being as lean as possible. You’ll be spending a lot of time climbing and
gravity is not a friend of weight. I
didn’t understand this, being from Texas, I never really understood gravity’s
effect on climbing. It’s real, and real
bad for those of us who are heavier. I
went to Leadville at 225lbs. My buddy
Zack when at 200lbs. We were equally
fit, I may have been a little stronger.
He beat me by 40min during the race because of the weight
difference.
While you train, especially in July, you need to start
trying to drop as much weight as you can.
You need to hit Leadville as lean and light as possible.
There’s a fine line between training and losing your
weight. Losing weight and training may
seem to be one of the same but they are not.
If you’re training hard you will burn calories and lightly lose weight. With that said, if you try to lose weight
while training, you could cause your body to have a difficult time to recover
from your workouts. If you can’t recover
you won’t recover and your training will stall.
I caution you to be very careful, you can’t train with intensity or long
duration if you are also trying to lose weight.
Rattler
The rattler is very important and this should be considered your
A-race. You want to do as well as
possible here. The better you do the
further you move up in corrals at Leadville.
This is a huge deal. You’ll be up
front the better you do which means you won’t be stuck behind people on the
first climb or on Columbine. This will
save you 30+ minutes of time and it’s huge.
As the riders get tired you’ll be stuck behind them. The further up in corrals you start, the
faster riders you’ll be with. If you
start in the back corrals, you’ll be surrounded by riders who are slower and
thus you will be at their mercy on the single track climbs. This will add minutes to your time.
Do well at the rattler (under 4:30) and you’ll have a good
place to start from.
