Completed 1 day STP (330km) Ride on the TR Adaptive Training Plan

Results
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Finished up the STP this weekend. I completed a full cycle of TR training, Base, Build, Speciality with STP as the A event target.

Here’s my activity on Garmin.

There was a slight technical difficulty about 250’sh km in, so I had to merge two activities and there’s a 10km gap or so.

So TR had me do no more than about 3 to 3.5h for my “long rides”. Though I had a few solo rides that were a lazy 6-7h at the bike park (e.g. had lots of breaks) and I did a 5.5h sustained effort trainer ride. During the course of the training, I started at 217 FTP, my first FTP effort it went up to 246. Lot of that was probably previous training too as I hadn’t taken it in a while. Got a smart trainer later on and AI FTP kicked in the middle of Specialty for 249 FTP.

I felt prepared and good for the entire ride overall. So I don’t think there was any volume problems in the training.

Short stats:

32km/h average time
10h18m ride time
13h total time with stops (more details on that below)
136 Avg HR

I didn’t have power on this bike, unfortunately.

I think nutrition was fine, but in the last 75km or so it got REAL hot and it was all on highway. The first 250km or so, I only stopped around 2x to refill water and grab a bite of solid food. No more than like 10m or so. But that last 75km. . . was stopped multiple times to refill and my stops were looking longer. One was like 35m+ as I waited for a group I was riding with and the time crept up on me.

What that breaks down to is like 30m of stop time the first 75% of the ride and 2.5h the last 25% for a total of 13h start to finish.

Reflecting on how I felt…that heat and probably not hydrating as much as I should have really killed me the last leg. My average ride time was not changed much, but my “punchiness” was hurting and I was drinking and eating at the stops a lot more. I think if I’d kept on top of hydration more and had two more water bottles, I could have kept this in the 11h total time range.

But, in general I felt good throughout the ride and never felt like I bonked. The TR training gave me a lot of confidence in how hard I could go for how long and how long I’d need to back off to recover. And I think the avg HR shows that.

Been resting up the last few days, probably spin out a very light ride today and start thinking what to target next.

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Nice work! I did STP two years ago and thoroughly enjoyed the experience (https://www.strava.com/activities/9458309316).

Similarly the heat in the last couple of hours really got to me. The temperature got as high as 39C, which is way too warm for my Canadian blood! I remember filling one of my bottles with ice at one of the rest stops and I swear the ice turned to warm water in a matter of minutes. I had to pull over with like 2Km left to sit in the shade for a few minutes just to collect myself.

I don’t remember the details of the TR plan I was using at the time, but I did do one 5 hour trainer ride to get used to that kind of time in the saddle.

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Yeah, my Seattle area self is NOT used to that kind of grueling heat on pavement.

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Nice work! Finishing that type of ride is an accomplishment all on its own.. :sweat_smile:

I’m sure it felt like a bit of a bummer to have to stop so often in the last bit, but it sounds like the heat was a bit part of the issue.

I am curious… ..what did your fueling strategy look like? How much carbohydrates were you consuming, and how much water/sodium were you drinking each hour?

In these types of looonnng hot events, I feel like water and salt are usually one of the most important parts of the puzzle.

I’ve wondered before if many athletes’ calculated sweat rates can be skewed if they weren’t sweating as much as they would have been in a really hot climate late into a ride.. :thinking:

Regardless, I’m sure you’ll learn something from this to take to your next big adventure. :raising_hands:

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I was taking in about 40g of carb every 30-45m. But I’d also do something like grab a cookie/muffin/fruit/salty chips at the stops now and then if my stomach felt like it needed something more solid. I think I got slack with consistent feeding towards the end, shifting more to eating at the stop and less gel/gummies on the ride.

I also had two water bottles. One with just water and one with Skratch, 2h worth. I went through about 5h of these.

So my nutrition wasn’t totally dialed in, but I never felt hungry or like I was running out of fuel.

I had Garmin smart nutrition/drinking prompts on to nudge me. In that hot part of the ride, I swear it was prompting me to drink 100ml every 5/10m lol.

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Congrats - I completed my first STP on Saturday as well! Actually it sounds like we had very similar days: Same speed, same saddle time. Similar FTP as well. Unfortunately my ride partner had to drop out a few weeks ago, so I was freelancing it, forming groups where I could and riding alone for some significant chunks. I also made it to Spanaway for my first stop and then Centralia College for the next, with more frequent stops in the second half, including a longer stop where my wife met me in Castle Rock. Fueling for me was good - 6x 90g carb bottles plus food at the stops. I also proactively took some salt capsules a few times just to augment and a caffeine tab at a mini stop around mile 165. No cramping or bonking and hydration felt good. Saddle comfort and position was good throughout, with a bit of hand soreness at the end being the most notable issue.

I haven’t been following a specific TR program - kind of self-coaching using the TR platform. Obviously the STP was my longest ride YTD, but I did a century a couple months ago and a climby 86-miler last month. Definitely lived the TR mantra that you don’t need to do a 10hr ride to be fit enough for a 10hr ride. lol

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The group I was with fell a couple of hours behind my pace. So I was doing the same. Jumping on the wheel of pickups and solo’ing it.

I totally did a gas station stop at the last 20 and chugged a 20oz of coke. :stuck_out_tongue:

My hands, too, were the most noticeable. I thought I had blisters, but they were just really sore.

Considering how many repeat faces I saw along the way riding at the same pace, I’d put money on us crossing paths.

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Very possible - I try to wear a noticeable jersey in big events like this. DM me if you’re interested in connecting on Strava.

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