4 weeks to train for a 200 mile ride

Training
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Hi, currently on a LV base building plan after having a few months off the bike. My fitness isn’t where it used to be but for reference I’ve completed an Everest last year which was 192 miles so I know I have the fitness in me somewhere (miles wise) albeit maybe not at the moment…

I have a 200 mile group ride I want to do next month but I’m conscious that my fitness is way off. With this in mind what’s the best way to train for this with the limited time I have?

Should I stick to my 3 TR workouts with a 4-5 hr endurance ride added on every week or perhaps skip 1 of the TR workouts and add on 2 endurance rides? What would you all do?

Thanks all

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Hmm, I’d probably drop one of the scheduled rides and add 2 endurance rides. Just be careful with it because, even though you’ve got those miles in your legs from past years, your more recent training volume may have a tough time supporting it. But I’d lean more toward the endurance rides without going overboard.

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Endurance rides tend to deliver their benefits over timescales of many months / years. The main benefit will be getting used to long periods in the saddle, given how close your 200 mile ride is. If you do some VO2 work that delivers improvements in about 4-8 weeks. Maybe see if you can get in a 130-140 mile ride in near end of May to see where you are at. Have you been doing any endurance rides over the past few months at all?

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4

I ride a few audax, recently I’ve done a 300km and 400km. I’d go for one intense session such as VO2 to lift the roof so to speak, and one tempo session (sweetspot counts) but aim to extend the interval length rather than increasing intensity, so progress the TiZ , then your other rides should ideally be low intensity endurance, again if you can progress the time a little each time that would be good. You really don’t want too much intensity if you are also increasing volume, and increasing the number of intense sessions per week has diminishing returns, where as increasing endurance time pays dividends.

There’s another thread on the forum that has some good information about sweetspot progression, it is surprising how fast you can increase the interval length if you pay attention to how you schedule your sessions and how much you recover.

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