Faced with a long-distance race but aren\u2019t sure you have the fitness you need? You may be surprised to learn that you can tackle long-distance races (and rides) with all the fitness you need, and more, by simply training smart.<\/p>\n
The problem many athletes face is the limiting belief that they can\u2019t get faster with the little training time they have available in their busy lives. Take a breath, and take solace in the fact that you don\u2019t have to ride for inordinate amounts of time to be competitive for your long-distance events and rides. Even ultra-endurance athletes efficiently build their fitness under time constraints by integrating progressive, structured training into their training plans<\/a>.<\/p>\n Cycling endurance training has typically been thought of as long, gruelling hours on the bike. It seems obligatory to go out and train for the same distance that we\u2019ll face in our races. Simply put, you don\u2019t need to<\/span>. Sports science and enhanced understanding of physiology brings to light that high-intensity interval training elicits the same training stimulus necessary to prompt physiological adaptations in cyclists to get faster. TrainerRoad training plans<\/a> are built around these principle advancements in sports science. Let\u2019s see \u2026 grind out lower intensity miles for long durations, or train efficiently on a time budget with higher-intensity interval training?<\/p>\n High-intensity interval training isolates specific energy systems to prompt specific physiological responses. TrainerRoad\u2019s guided training<\/a> allows riders to target the right training impulses and see increased fitness, without having to do the longer duration rides that are normally associated with this sort of fitness gain. In a progressive approach to training, we can\u2019t continually task our bodies with event-distance training. Not only is it unnecessary, it has potential to be a detriment to your training progression in the long-run. So, what about the mental hurdles?<\/p>\n Every rider faces a mental barrier of conquering that first long ride; whether that\u2019s the first 50 miler, or even the first go at a 112 mile bike-leg at a Full-Distance triathlon<\/a>. It\u2019s intimidating, and our natural inclination is to train by taking to the road with something like 4 bottles and our pockets stuffed with food. We\u2019ve all been there, and maybe that\u2019s where we\u2019re at right now. That isn\u2019t the best approach.<\/strong><\/p>\n Another tendency is to doubt our training when we see there aren\u2019t any 50 mile or 112 mile efforts in our training plan. This is natural, intended in our training plan design, and also something we have an explanation for: Athletes can build the fitness necessary to be competitive at their events without having ever<\/em> done the distance that they\u2019ll compete at. Fitness isn\u2019t the concern, but for other reasons we do recommend getting out on the road as you approach your event(s).<\/p>\n Racing requires highly specific forms of fitness. The type of fitness we spend our entire training season building up towards. Training is specialized during what is known in the TrainerRoad training plan process<\/a> as the Specialty Phase of training. The final training phase that leads you to your event. Throughout this phase of training is a perfect time to experiment on the road with some longer<\/em> rides (not necessarily the same distance\/time of your event).<\/p>\n For more cycling training knowledge, listen to the Ask a Cycling Coach \u2014 the only podcast dedicated to making you a faster cyclist<\/a>. New episodes are released weekly.<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n Faced with a long-distance race but aren\u2019t sure you have the fitness you need? You may be surprised to learn that you can tackle long-distance races (and rides) with all the fitness you need, and more, by simply training smart. How the Time-Crunched Athlete Gets Faster The problem many athletes face is the limiting belief…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":28348,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[169,1341,239,1369,286,1302,521,1368,532,677,1370,736],"class_list":["post-28346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-racing","tag-cycling-training","tag-event","tag-fitness","tag-full-distance-triathlon","tag-high-intensity-interval-training","tag-hit","tag-race","tag-race-distance","tag-racing","tag-time-trial","tag-time-crunched","tag-triathlon"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trainerroad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trainerroad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trainerroad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trainerroad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trainerroad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.trainerroad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trainerroad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trainerroad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trainerroad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trainerroad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Why You Don\u2019t Need to Train for X Minutes to be able to Ride for X Minutes<\/h2>\n
Mental Barriers: How to Get Over Them<\/h2>\n
Reasons to Train Longer for a Long-Distance Event<\/h2>\n
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\nReferences<\/h3>\n
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