Crucible Fitness | Triathlon Training Articles

Long Bike Guidance

The Long Bike. If you're like most triathletes, this one training session can account for 25-30% of your weekly training volume. We often learn to ride, eat, drink, pace ourselves and, yes, suffer on the Long Ride. If you belong to at tri club or train with a group of training partners, likely your long ride is your happy hour, your time to socialize, catch up with friends you haven't seen in a few weeks and make new ones.

In short, we spend a LOT of time on our bikes on the weekends. I've compiled some thoughts and guidance below to bring you several thousand miles up the learning curve.

Key Thoughts:

Love the Bike: The most successful, consistent, strongest, craziest triathlon cyclists I know (me included) simply LOVE to ride the bike. Fast, slow, long, short, it doesnêt matter.
Create a vehicle for doing cool stuff. I don't really "train" anymore. I put big, long cool events on the calendar. I then schedule weekly, smaller cool events to guide me to the bigger events. But 90% of what I do is just fun for me. If it's fun AND good training, bonus!
The shorter the ride, the harder we ride.
If you want to ride the bike fast, you have to ride the bike fast. There is no easy way. Often, suffering is the only short cut.
Donêt be afraid to extend your perspective on what –far” is. 80 becomes 100 becomes 120 becomes 150+. Just do it.

Volume
The most valuable thing you can do for your endurance training is to schedule a weekly 2-4hr long ride from now until the end of time. Simply make this –what you do” every Saturday or Sunday morning.

Considering joining/forming a tri or cycling club to add a powerful social component to your long ride. Right now Iêm looking forward to my Sat and Sun rides, because I get to play on a bike with my friends. I donêt even think of it as training anymore.
For Sprint to Half athletes, regular ride should be 2-3 hours. Half and IM should be regular 3-4 hrs.
And I think everyone, regardless of distance, benefits from having a monthly 80-100 mile ride. If you belong to a club, become the guy who organizes this monthly ride for your club. Use your imagination and try to get family members involved. An epic two day ride with friends could become a family event, with families shuttling gear to the overnight destination, enjoying some unique time together in a cool location, etc.
If you are confined to a trainer, have no to very few volume goals. I think 1.5-2hrs is fine. In the winter we trade cycling volume for cycling intensity and running frequency. Read Limiter Season for more detailed thoughts.

Intensity
Very simple: the shorter the ride, the harder we ride. If you want to ride the bike fast, you have to ride the bike fast. There is no easy way. Often, suffering is the only short cut.

2.5-3hrs seems to be the sweet spot, a respectable volume that still allows for a good bit of intensity. Just as importantly, itês usually easy to fit this volume into your family schedule year round: on the bike at 7am, done by 10am and youêre not trashed for the rest of the day.
Always ride the first hour very easy. I want you guys to learn the value of riding easy in the first part of a ride so you have confidence in applying this strategy to your racing, especially Ironman. The pay off is a very strong finish.
Weight the intensity of the ride towards the second half, especially the last hour. I lead the local here on a weekly Saturday ride and we usually hook up with a roadie ride for the last 30-45ê. This becomes a TT effort most of us.
Within that second half guidance, insert informal low cadence work in there as well
If youêre solo, use the clock to help you find intensity. For example, 60ê Easy, then 2 x (40ê Steady, 20ê Mod-Hard)
When in doubt hammer on the flats or find a hill :-)
At lower intensities, use hr as primary, watts as secondary. As intensity increase, watts becomes primary.
Donêt afraid to ride at a volume and intensity thatês above your fitness. In other words, itês often ok to ride an 80 mile like its only 50 miles. You might implode but youêll be stronger the next week and youêll learn something. I call this Banzai Riding. Early season I pop on MANY rides, often struggling to finish. But I come back harder the next week.

Group Riding
As the locals can tell you, Iêm a huge believer in the value of group riding. Find those fast triathletes, that local roadie ride, etc, and learn how to ride with them. Read my Tri Group Riding series for more ideas.

Nutrition
Here is the super simple Team Crucible nutrition plan for races: 1-2 x feed bottles of Infinit nutrition (mixed as concentrated as you like). Half IM athletes use this bottle to get in about 200-250cal/hr, chasing with water. IM athletes shoot for 250-400/hr, chasing with water. You can begin to practice this during your long rides, experimenting with concentration, etc.

Fuel yourself enough before and during the ride to ensure a quality session.
A long ride is NOT a weight loss opportunity, ie, donêt starve yourself during the ride. By starving yourself during a ride you are NOT training your body to burn fat instead of glycogen. That is a myth.
Refuel yourself after the ride and then eat normally the rest of the day. Donêt use the ride as an excuse to chow down all day.
Train yourself to take in large volumes of fluid. This is a big one, especially for those riding in the cold, as it is easy to de-train ourselves over the winter. Shoot for taking in 2 bike bottles per hour.

More thoughts here in Training Nutrition.

Richês Marine Math
Here are the numbers I run through my head when ball-parking my nutrition before/during/after a ride:

I estimate my basal rate as 2200-2400 calories. I estimate I store 2000cals of glycogen. So I go to sleep with 2000 cals stored, wake up with 1200. Knowing my body (slow digestion, apparently) I wake up an hour early and take in about 600 calories. Iêm now –almost” topped off on glycogen. From training with watts I know I burn about 600-700cals per hour on a long ride, so I figure I can do a 2-3hr long ride without really eating anything (2000 cals glycogen À (3 x 600-700/hr). So Iêll often just have G-ade a Clifbar for a 3hr ride. If Iêm riding longer than Iêll get in more calories.

When I get home from a ride above, in which I havenêt eaten much at all, Iêll assume that my glycogen stores are almost empty. So Iêll eat a big lunch of about 1500 cals, as a good mix of carbs and protein. Then Iêll eat normally the rest of the day.

Now, I know myself very, very well. My body has also changed a good bit over the years, Iêm much more fuel efficient. I could do a century on water and about 500 cals. Not smart but I could do it. The result is that Dick is often lazy with hydration and nutrition because I know what I can and canêt do, am not afraid of bonking on accident. Donêt be a Dick, fuel yourself J. That said, Iêve also evolved away from training food. I ride on $.50 bagels, Snickers, cokes, Mtn Dew and coffee. I know what works for me in races so I donêt –need” to practice this stuff too much. Again, donêt be a Dick until youêre confident in your knowledge of you body.

Gear
What to carry, how to carry it, the tricks of the trade:

Cash, ID, credit card, medical insurance card, cell phone, every ride, always.
Tube(s), Co2, levers, tools, tire boot, $20 in the tool bag.
Drink powder in a Ziplock bag.
Donêt dress to be warm in the parking lot. If youêre shivering a bit waiting for the ride to start youêre probably dressed appropriately. I use a running t-shirt, armwarmers, leg warmers, glove liners, toe caps and maybe a wind shell. During the ride I can strip all that stuff off without stopping the bike, as the temperature changes through the day.

Technique
Youêre stuck on a bike for hours, might as well make use of the time.

If you have watts, learn to ride hills steady, with few to no power spikes. Use the tool to learn how you naturally want to ride (huge watts at the bottom of a hill, fade in the middle, shut it down at the top) and then train yourself to ride the smarter way (no spike, appropriate watts on the climb, follow through with those watts across the crest).
Learn to ride/stand out of the saddle efficiently. Power users, learn how to stand and ride at appropriate watts. Iêve identified a sweet spot in my out of the saddle climbing that allows to put out watts about 30 higher than my FT but at a lower heart rate. But above those watts I pop pretty quickly. Again, just experiment with body position, weight distribution, etc. Youêll learn a lot.
Bike handling: bunny hopping, cornering in aerobars, cornering faster, staying in the aerobars when eating and drinking, reaching for/racking bottles smoothly, aggressive braking, controlling a rear wheel slide, slow speed handling, track stands (not quite there yet), tight u-turns, etc. Just play on your bike!
Tracking: ride on the white line in your aerobars without looking at the line. Smooth movements, bike doesnêt move side to side. Look at your shadow, your upper body should be still.
Cadence: force yourself to ride several minutes at 100+ rpm, in the aerobars and out. Do the same with 50-65rpm. Build your comfort at a wide range of cadences.

This is the short list :-) I could go on and on with the things I've learned from my time in the saddle and through guiding hundreds of athletes through the process of becoming endurance machines. However, my simplest guidance is this:

Training becomes fun when you learn to love the bike!

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