Have to say that these rides sound tough! Firstly, fair play for going back and getting beaten up. That in itself takes mental strength.
I’m going to come at this from a slightly different angle. How are you received in the group? Are you new to the group? Are you happy and able to communicate with the other riders?
If it’s a friendly bunch of strong riders, you could always mention this issue before the ride sets off. Unless this is slated as a no-stop, drop ride, I’d feel confident saying to the group that at points I struggle and could do with a 30 second ‘Mile Off’. If the group knows what’s happening when ‘Mile Off’ is called, people will be relaxed.
Communication is key and there’s no shame in admitting that right now, this is a step above where you’re at. You’ll earn the respect of the strongest riders by going back, getting stronger and communicating with them.
Is it a friendly group? You might be able to ask if you can just hang on for a ride. By now they know you will get dropped otherwise. Don’t do any turns, just sit at the back and see if you can make it round without getting dropped. Then start taking a few turns on the next ride, before seeing the rest of it out at the back etc.
Also, if you can, drive to the start. If not, go early and slowly, and get there in enough time for recovery and food.
This is a possible factor, I’m finding I have problems with the excess sugar in the supplements so have been trying to cut these back, on an endurance ride it causes no problems however on such an intense ride I have to reach for them again.
On this ride I had 2 gels, 2 bananas, 6 dates, 2 large pieces of flapjack, two bottles of weak carb mix drink, two bottles water and two cans of 7up type drink.
Had a look and my average power was 215, NP 252 for the group part until the droppage occurred, that includes a small bit of solo struggling to the cafe stop, it was 261NP before that.
I like your points and thoughts, I could definitley leave earlier and take an easier ride over, in fact I was compromised as one of the guys lives 1 mile from me and he was late, leaving us less time to ride to the meet point, so the initial 15 miles was at a higher pace than I would have liked.
We were doing 2min turns, so plenty of scope for reducing these i guess, funnily enough I felt quite good when on the front, looking back I just wasn’t getting enough from the 10mins of recovery.
Clothing wise this time of year is a pain, they always leave early when its cool, but it warmed up more than the weather forecasters said, so I ended up a bit hot at the end of the ride, this was only really an issue for the last 20miles or so.
Your comment about position in the group rings so true, I was behind the smallest guy and then had the strongest guy behind me, so my first 2 mins recovery was initially while he ramped the pace up again!
Ride time was just over 5 hrs, first 45 mins with 1 other to meet the group, then 2hrs with the group before stopping (First drop). About another 30 mins with the group before 2nd drop, then 1hr 45 mins to get home.
Appreciate your thoughts on not being fit enough, in fact one of the six was struggling after 16 miles such was the pace, he managed to battle on until the end though, unlike myself!
Thanks, this might link back to the fuelling strategy and perhaps I’m not eating enough. One thing I am aware of is that I eat more than the other guys, they tend to eat more during the cafe stop, I find if I eat a lot during a stop then its a sure way to get a stitch when I start riding again, so I tend not to do this.
This seems to suggest I had a fairly good result during the test, but I haven’t looked into this so don’t really know for sure how to compare it against anything.
Cheers, the group have said its OK to do less/shorter turns so there is some flexibility there. I try to be as smooth as I can when on the front, never surging but just maintaining the speed of the guy before and going a little easier on the climbs so not stringing the group out.
Thanks for that, maybe I should try some other products, I’ve been using SIS exclusively but after working with a nutritionist I was advised to ditch them where I could, I was suddenly able to lose the weight I wanted to and got rid of all the bloating I was suffering with, but perhaps I need more rocket fuel for these particular types of rides, I guess its adapting the fuelling dependant on the expected pace of the ride.
Cheers, I guess I don’t like to give up!
I’m well received in the group, but am fairly new to riding with them, some of the guys don’t work and ride 2-3 times a week over long distance and at fast pace, so they are well used to what they do. I’m happy enough communicating with them but so far this has been “I’m done, leave me to it”!
It’s certainly not a strict no stop, drop ride, but I think they would rather everyone could hold the pace until the end.
Thanks!
All good ideas I think, I would be intrigued to see how much the turns on the front deplete me, I could try half the ride without any turns and see if I can complete the second half?
Just looking at your ride image from above, your fitness score is 39 and you’re heavily in the minus for form. Could it be these rides are just a bit too much from what you had done prior to starting them?
Thanks, it’s going to be harder going back knowing that I’ve cooked myself on a couple of occasions, they are a good bunch though so I will stick at it unless it becomes apparent I’m not getting anywhere.
It’s quite possible, my stats on the day before the ride were fitness 33, fatigue 29 and form 4.
I’m not sure what sort of form scores I should be looking for before a ride like this? The ride was on a Saturday, on the Friday I did a Taku and that was after working the Wednesday and Thursday on nightshifts.
For a ride of that intensity, there’s not enough carbs by a long shot. I would try and train the gut to be able to take in sugar during your more intense days because if you can nail that you’ll have a lot more energy for those rides.
The advice i’d give myself in that same situation is to do everything easy maximise your chances of success: For instance, In previous years i’ve had 4.4W/Kg to play with but this year due to doing less riding and more running i’ve barely got 4W/kg. This means that i find it so much harder to keep up in races and everything is tougher. So i’ve tried to become an expert at being lazy: riding with smooth power, carrying speed through corners and up rises, finding the best draft, not doing hero pulls, and riding as aero as possible, nice and low reducing drag. Also having tons of carbs in my bottles, pockets and system (80g per hour). It’s still hard work but it makes a huge difference as the ride goes on that i am tiring less quickly than others and so still able to make it to the end.
You need to minimize your energy expenditure. Don’t pull. When it’s your turn, just kindly pull off like you would after your pull. The group should understand since you’ve been dropped before. They’d rather you not pull than have a worry that they dropped you in the middle of nowhere.
How did you end up addressing it - how much was changes to training vs changes to diet?
I’m in a similar boat - carb burner - but have limited flexibility to change my diet to more fats for health reasons (cholesterol). I’d be interested to know if training moved the needle for you much.
I’m also a high carb eater, but was told that fat burning / fat adaption has only little to do with diet. Fat adaption can be trained with low food rides. Also higher fitness means more fat contribution to the energy you use, so being generally fitter also helps spare your carb resources.
Always incorporate Z2 long work into your training. I never changed my diet at all.
With all the appropriate caveats about me not being an expert: if you do endurance work, your body burns fat for fuel. The more it burns fat for fuel, the better it becomes at burning fat for fuel.
When your working above threshold your fast twitch are throwing out lactate. If you have a well developed aerobic engine your slow twitch fibres are able to use most of that lactate as local fuel with reduced levels of the lactate even entering the blood. The better the engine the faster type 1 can take up the lactate to prevent it building up. Once you drop below threshold the type 1 fibres of a well developed engine will clear up the lactate pretty quickly, ready to go again.
A well developed engine also means LT1 isn’t that far below LT2. So you don’t have to drop that much below threshold to get back to a comfortable pace that mostly fat burning and not stressing your body.
As above the long Z2 rides to develop the engine.
This is what I’ve read I’m not a coach or physiologist
Thanks. For the past 6 mos or so, I’ve changed my training/riding to have more time in Z2, and less high intensity stuff. It will be interesting to see how my Silver Rush goes - a race I’ve done 3x before - so have something to compare.
