Adapting training plans for ultra-distance and randonneur cycling

Hi,
I have been with TrainerRoad a few years now and I enjoy it very much.
My A-events are multi-day ultra-distance (randonneuring and other unsupported rides) events.

I wonder what the latest advice is on how to build and adapt the training plans to better prepare for ultra-distance events. This topic and question has come up over the years (with the advice being of using the audax training plan) but TR has changed quite a bit in the past years under the hood so I would love to hear what the latest advice is on how best to adjust plans for ultra-distance.

In particular I would like to know the following:

  1. how should I add my events into the training plan? For instance, if I have a two day event with 400km on day 1 and 200km on day two should I add them as two A events on two consecutive days. Will TR understand this and know how to adjust the training plan leading up to and after the events?
  2. Are there sessions I would want to replace to better prepare me for the demands of ultra-distance cycling.
  3. A number of winter and spring rides will follow a heat adaptation protocol to prepare me for long rides in the heat so my heart rate will be unusually high on endurance rides. This may be a topic by itself but is there a way of telling TR that a session was part of a heat adaptation protocol?

Thank you!

2 Likes

I add my multi-day events as a ā€œStage Raceā€. For example, I have a 500-mile race coming up in a few months. Iā€™ve entered it as an A-Event two-day stage race, with 19-hours on Day 1 and 12 hours on Day 2

After entering events for the year, I let the software build & adapt a plan for me, but I manually add in long endurance rides (typically one per weekend, building over the training cycle but cutting back when the software calls for a recovery week) to the training plan in addition to the trainer workouts that get generated.

I donā€™t know of anything you can do to incorporate any sort of special allowance for heat adaptation into the plan.

3 Likes

I like long distance rides but I am not interested in events, long distance days are my goal in itself. From practical planning perspective it means there is no need to peak for specific date, plus can combine blocks as I like.

With this assumption, I abused Plan Builder:

  • during winter/indoor season, used General Base with 3 hard days + other days filled with 2-4h low intensity Z2 rides
  • when spring/outdoor season reached, continued with masterā€™s variant: 2 prescribed hard days + rest filled with continuously increasing duration Z2 rides (planned myself as TR doesnā€™t go above 5h)
  • and during summer went completely on my own:
    • 1x/week intense day, usually long supra-threshold 4x7 ā†’ 4x16 at 102-105% i.e. Z4/Z5 in one
    • 2x/week long Z2 in 8-12h range
    • other days filled with Z1/Z2 as much I could spend

This year planning same, except doing currently VO2max/anaerobic capacity block before jumping to General Base again.

4 Likes

I just went through this with support yesterday. The ā€œStage Raceā€ method is what they recommended for a 444 mile race spread over (up to) 44 hours. I just set it as 2 stages, each 20 hours.

2 Likes

Hey there and welcome to the TR community!

  1. Weā€™d recommend adding your events as a Stage Race, as other athletes have suggested. A races must be at least 8 weeks apart to be added to your TR Calendar, so adding two separate A races back to back wouldnā€™t work. Adding them as stages in one stage race, however, will do the trick!

  2. It could be useful to incorporate some longer-distance riding into your plan if/when you have the time available to do so. Longer rides can really help you dial in your bike fit and your nutrition plan for the race. They can also be good fitness boosters, but be mindful of how you fit those rides into your overall plan. Overdoing the long rides can lead to excess fatigue, which we ideally want to avoid, but occasional long sessions can be quite beneficial.

  3. There isnā€™t currently a way you can tell Adaptive Training that youā€™re heat training ā€“ you can use Training Notes for the sake of reminding yourself/looking back at your training in posterity, though.

Hope that helps you out ā€“ feel free to let us know if you have any additional questions!

2 Likes

Thank you. This is very helpful. Is there a limit in terms of hours per day and days for stage races. I have some 4 day, 10 days and 15 day events planned for later this year.

2 Likes

Whatā€™s the max hours or riding or days one can enter for stage races?

Thank you for the detailed response

1 Like

Hi @rando_iwan, I do randonneuring & very occasional random multi-[metric-]century adventures. Further to what Zack said on point #2, long rides are really good for telling you what hurts & what else otherwise needs attention. I almost guarantee you wonā€™t get that info in a 1Ā½ hour workout.

My favorite time to do these long training rides is on the last weekend of a loading cycle, i.e just before recovery week. Then thereā€™s no need to replace anything! Yes they can require multiple days for recovery, but youā€™re going into a recovery week. I like to think of it as a once-a-month check-in, & you can empty the tank with impunity.

Another piece of advice I saw on the local audax facebook group a week ago regarding long training rides was, once the ride takes more than 15 hours it risks disturbing your sleep schedule, so at that point consider splitting it into two rides on consecutive days. That way you accumulate the fatigue in a relatively short time but it doesnā€™t have to upset your sleep. Guaranteed you are not going to be fresh the second day! :laughing:

Something else, if you suffer from a sore back on long rides: YMMV but doing back/hip extension exercises in the gym really helped me. Itā€™s like a sit-up in reverse. I loaded the exercise with a plate, gradually working up to 25kg. 3 sets of 8 reps, twice a week. Thereafter, no sore back on any rides, everā€¦ even after 18 hours on the bike.

5 Likes

No problem!

You should be able to add as many stages as youā€™d like, and each stage can be up to 23 hours and 59 minutes long (jeez, that would be a heck of a stage race).

The main hangup might be that it can become a little tedious to add in the details for each individual stage, especially if you have some 10 and 15-day events planned.

If you donā€™t mind adding in that info for each individual stage, then no problem! If youā€™d prefer not to, you could also consider adding your event(s) as a single-day race, and then using Training Notes to mark out the remaining days of your event. It may not be as ā€œidealā€ in that it wonā€™t say itā€™s a ā€œraceā€ on your TR Calendar, but it could be a quicker way to get your events on there.

From Adaptive Trainingā€™s perspective, either approach should work. :slight_smile:

Hello
Interesting discussions. Even if I do not do Ultra, once or twice in a year I do a 3 day event (around 500km in total, 10000m climb, moderate pace). Based on this post, I will build a program with a stage race as a goal. But I have an additional question : when weather will become warmer here in the Alps in France, I will do long rides with friends (80-120km with around 2000m-2500m climb, so 4-5 Hours), done at moderate pace. I usually plug these rides as Category C grand fondo race at moderate pace. Is there a better way to do this? Iā€™m afraid that if I enter it as a ā€˜raceā€™ Trainer Road will put too much ā€˜rest daysā€™ before and after theseā€™ racesā€™ which are not really races. As Iā€™m what you call a ā€˜Masterā€™, I already feel that TR puts too much boring endurance rides in the plans, and Iā€™m afraid it will be worse with these fake races. Another solution could be to have the plan builder ignore these long ridesā€¦ not sure what is the best solution

Hi Pierre,

To force your plan out of the ā€œMasterā€ mode, go to your plan on the computer, click edit, and then tall it to have three hard sessions and/or that you ride six days a week. Then you can skip a day or do all the sessions.

I have questions about how TrainerRoad handles age. Perhaps data becomes thinner for older riders. It is also possible that there is not a lot of research in general about training for older riders (by which I mean over 50 when a lot of us are starting to go through transitions and bigger health episodes). Since TrainerRoad now relies on AI there is also the question of whether TR tinkers with it and how. Some new research shows how tinkering by experts with AI can make its performance worse (here is an example of it for medical diagnostics https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2825395).

Here is what I think: within reason, the best training plan is the one you stick with. Skipping rides is probably worse than not doing a boring ride.

For boring rides I recommend the nice youtube channel Bike the World with gorgeous POV bike ride videos:

https://www.youtube.com/@BiketheWorld

rando_iwan

Thanks for your advices. I have moved to 4 sessions a week with 3 hard ones (six would be too much for me). I also prefer to stick to the plan, so I also do the endurance rides. I will look at the you tube channel you proposed. As Iā€™m also a biathlon fan, I try to do the ā€˜boringā€™ rides on sundays and I watch world cup races :slight_smile:
I also wonder how age is really handled by TR. I have the impression that they are too cautious with old guys like me (Iā€™m 59), but that could because they have to consider a wide range of health conditions, and for ā€˜mastersā€™ as they call it they prefer to be on the safe sideā€¦

I think reasoning for 2 (masters) vs 3 (general) hard days per week is not about health directly but more about individual recovery pace so you can be fresh enough for efficient harder intervals, otherwise you simply add fatigue without beneficial adaptations.

For example, I am 50y. During winter, I can do 3 hard intervals with relatively little Z2 between them but during outdoor season, I do 1-2 hard days, just because big volume of Z2 doesnā€™t support high quality intervals. And this is ok, my goal is not increasing FTP at that time but increasing endurance.

1 Like