OK.. so it’s been a while since the last BLOG and the
pressure to post has become infinite – or is that supposed to be infinitesimal?
So this week I will talk a little bit about developing a training schedule that
I will be using to prepare for the RAGBRAI ride.
So… how do you train for riding 462 miles over seven days?
How the heck do I know, the only thing I have done for several days in a row is that I’ve driven a car for 5 days in a row and that was damn near exhausting, so I can’t imagine what riding a bike for seven days averaging 66 miles a day will be like. Think about it… I’ve ridden 62 miles in one day three times now and each of those was torturous. The last time was about two weeks ago and I’m quite certain that I was the last person to finish after riding for nearly 4 hours! (Look on the bright side: I supposedly burned 4,600 calories on that day and made enough ‘room’ for many, many St Patrick’s Day beers!). |
| The Route of My Last 62 Mile Ride around Lumberton, NC |
So I figured I
had better think about a training schedule and try and figure out what the
important aspects of training will be, so here goes.
I started by looking at the usual forums for bicycling and
also talking with a few friends who have done similar things such as running in
a marathon. They all had good and valuable input that I poured into my mind and
tried to note for future use. One dominant theme of all that research was that
most training schedules never make you actually carry out the length of
whatever it is that you are training for. In other words they get you
comfortable with about 75% of the total length and then expect adrenaline and
inner drive to carry you the rest of the way. “Good concept that I can live
with” I thought – after all, what’s better for a lazy person like me than NOT doing
anything close to what my goal is? Another thing that I also thought about was
trying to figure out just what the most difficult thing will be about the ride for
me. After several hard minutes of internal contemplation I came to the
conclusion that at about day 4 or 5 I will be sick and tired of putting my sore
butt back on to my bike seat for another hot, humid and miserable day riding
through cornfields. (Dramatic emphasis intended). You’ve probably seen the
seats on these bikes and they are not comfortable at all. The riders depend upon
using padded shorts to lessen the pain and they do help a lot but even with
them I still get sore tail bones every now and then. So I need to focus on
developing a training plan that will take the ‘damn my butt hurts’ excuse into
account.
 |
| The Seat on My Specialized Roubaix Bike - Ouch! |
While flipping through the InterWebs I found a few charts
that show a progressive training plan that starts with just a couple rides a
week with about 100 total miles each week and then slowly works up to four
rides a week for a total of about 200 miles each week. It’s amazing that these
charts stop way short of the 462 miles in a week so I’m still in the process of
trying to tweak them up. BUT the major tweaking I am going to do is to figure
out how to get more days on a bike each week, I don’t think I will be well
served with peaking out at three or four days a week so I’m going to set my
schedule up to top out at a couple of six days a week rides, even if a few of
them are only for 20 or fewer miles or on my trainer. As I said, I think my
biggest issue will be figuratively and literally throwing my leg over my bike
every day for that many days so I’m going to design my program to get me to
that point at about 3 to 4 weeks before the ride and then slack off on total
miles in the last two weeks but still try to get on a bike at least 5 days a
week. How’s that sound to you? I am really interested in hearing from those of
you who have run marathons or mega-marathons or ridden in multiple day rides –
how did you train?
