Help with training plan for 315km event

Training
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Hello everyone,

First of all, sorry in advance if my English isn’t perfect I’m not a native speaker (i used ai to spellcheck and hopefully it made a good job).

I’m 48 years old. From age 6 to 19, I trained seriously in several sports: hockey, rowing, football, floorball, and swimming. After that, I suffered major knee injuries, which led to about 30 years of basically no exercise at all. During that time, I drank too much beer, ate unhealthily, and lived a very sedentary life.Last summer, I hit a peak weight of over 140 kg (at 183 cm tall). That was my wake-up call. I completely changed my lifestyle: better eating, consistent training(cycling), and no more alcohol. Today I’m down to 95 kg, and I’ve maintained that weight steadily for the last months Right now, I’m trying not to go into a strict diet while training hard instead, I’m focusing on good nutrition to fuel the sessions and support recovery.

I’m training for a 315 km “exercise race” (non-competitive ultra-distance event) in June. I’ve followed a very strict training plan and train 6 days a week. The plan is built around structured sessions (from TrainerRoad since December/January). Before that, I was just riding by feel.A normal week looks like this:

  • Monday: rest

  • Tuesday: 1h30 VO2 max

  • Wednesday: 30 min endurance

  • Thursday: 1h30 sweet spot

  • Friday: 30 min endurance

  • Saturday: 1h30 threshold

  • Sunday: 1h30–2h30 endurance

Every 4th week is a recovery week with lower volume:

  • Monday: rest

  • Tuesday: 1h30 endurance

  • Wednesday: 30 min endurance

  • Thursday: 1h30 endurance

  • Friday: rest

  • Saturday: 1h30 endurance

  • Sunday: 2h30 endurance

The cycle repeats until the event on June 12th.So far I’ve accumulated about 3,100 km on Zwift since last autumn. The hard days feel hard and the easy days feel easy, so the plan seems well-balanced in terms of intensity.My concern is that this is by far the longest ride I’ve ever attempted. With my current FTP (right now 233 aiftp, and predicted 243 on thursday) and fitness, I expect the event to take me 13–18 hours if I can finish it. I’ve spoken to several experienced cyclists who’ve done this event before, and they all strongly recommend doing at least one 100–150 km ride (or longer) in training to test if I can handle the duration, nutrition, pacing, mental side, etc.Now that the weather is improving and the sun is out, I really want to shift some training outdoors and try a proper longer ride.My main questions are:

  1. On which day(s) in my current plan would it make the most sense to replace or extend a session with a longer outdoor endurance ride (e.g., 4–6+ hours at easy pace)?

  2. How would adding one or more longer rides affect the overall plan – should I drop/reduce some intensity sessions, move rest days, or just add it as extra volume?

  3. Any general tips for someone in structured training preparing for their first ultra-distance event like this?

Thanks a lot for any advice, and if you need more info let me know

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315 km… June… sounds like you’ll do Vätternrundan. If I’m correct, my advise is to take it easy. Due to the sheer number of participants and the absence of real climbs, there are always people around you that can pull you along and the event is significanty less demanding than it looks on paper with its 315 km. Have fun and enjoy the Köttbullar :wink:

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There is plenty of advice on Unbound or audax length events to choose from in this forum. Just add some endurance to what TR has you doing. Get used to fueling.

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For endurance events like this and my typical M-F workweek - adding volume to weekend is always what makes sense to me.
With the Sunday endurance, that would be my 1st thought to change that to a ‘dynamic endurance’ in your Plan setup, raising it to 4 or 5hrs ‘max’. It will slowly build in length if it works properly. If not just add 15-30minutes each week or two.
This will then push off some recovery that was needed, add some fatigue, that will spill into Tuesday’s workout. So make sure Sunday is mostly low-middle zone2.

ALTERNATIVELY… could follow more of a ‘masters’ plan and set a 2 hard workouts a week. With Saturday as your dynamic endurance and Sunday as a shorter endurance day (45-60’). So more of a running training plan, that makes the 3rd workout of the week a ‘workout’ via duration not intensity.

Lots of ways to adapt it - with time if you slowly go to 2:45… then 3:00… then 3:10…etc on sunday, maybe your vo2 workouts on Tuesday won’t be too bothered. Also for this long event build up, sacrificing a little vo2max progression level work might not too horrible.

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I’ve done a few 300+km rides, and I would strongly recommend building up to 200km at least. You need to know you can sit on the bike for that long! The things that will fail you aren’t your legs: it will be your neck, shoulders, lower back, your a$$, etc.

I would pencil these progressively (much) longer rides on the sunday before you rest weeks, but still extending your regular sundays rides with the dynamic endurance function as someone mentioned.

I’m sure you have researched the nutrition side, but build up to taking in specific amounts of carbs per hour. Start low and steadily build this ability up - I normally need to do 80g/hour for rides that long, but I’m much smaller at 64kg, but have an FTP of 300w. Good luck!

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Your plan looks solid and quite similar to what I’m doing for a 312 km event in April.

I’d agree with what’s already been said, focus on gradually increasing the time spent in the saddle for your Sunday ride. I wouldn’t jump straight from 1.5–2.5 hours to 4–6 hours. Build that duration up week by week and you’ll get there by May, that way it won’t be such a shock to the system. Use the long rides as a good chance to practice your race nutrition.

TrainerRoad should adjust your interval sessions as your overall volume increases, but it may still come down to some trial and error to find what volume you can handle and more importantly, recover from.

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In all of your training, absolutely you should be focusing on your gut. You HAVE to be able to consume a huge amount of food on the bike, even 9+ hours in. If you stop eating, you will stop pedaling, simple as that. Do not overlook this.

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Hey, you’ve made great progress and picked a huge event to do. Property preparation will make sure you finish it. I’ve used TR to do my own (315 Km) event for the last 3 years. Here’s what I’ve learned to dial in for my success. Question 1: Use TR’s dynamic workout to gradually increase your Sunday rides to up to 5 hours. Question 2: Just increasing the length of 1 Sunday ride a week and letting TR adjust the other rides would be my recommendation (as long as you are still gettting adaquate rest and recovery (hard days hard, easy days, easy). 45 days out from my A race (the 315km) I had a 160 km “B” event, and a 238 km “B” event 2-3 weeks before the A race. This helps with making sure that my nutrition plan, equipment, and body are all syncing together and I can adapt before the A race. Question 3: If you are going to be eating food/drinks from the aid stations, then you need to be eating/drinking it during training to get your body used to that fuel. Otherwise if you are supporting yourself during the race then use what you will take for race day. A long event like this is going to cause you to need much more calories than you have had in training, so getting that nutrition dialed in is a huge deal. I use the “Eat My Ride” app to help calculate my calorie needs based upon the products I’m using. You can upload the course, provide your details (speed, weight, FTP, Power, etc) and it can provide you with a feeding plan based on your goals. It’s a handy App and I’m not being paid to advertise it. Good luck, and keep the rubber side down and the pedals turning.

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Thanks everyone for the replies. I will start to gradually increase the Sunday ride and really focus more on the nutrition. I have a “weak” stomach the thing that has worked for me so far is sugar water and normal food. I’ll try to increase the amount of carbs, especially on Sunday’s longer ride. Thanks again for all the tips!

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One thing to keep in mind for Vätternrundan is that it can get damned hot. I struggled with dehydration last year as temperatures were close to 30c. I made the mistake of loading all my bottles with carbs mixed with water, when I really just wanted pure water. I won’t make that mistake again this year.

I don’t know where you’re located in Sweden, but I live down in Hultsfred kommun and work currently between Norrköping and Nyköping. It’s always nice to ride with new people and I’m happy to meet you for a longer ride and run through some of my experiences. I can’t remember my exact times the first two years I did it (best described as: 2023: fika runda (cafe tour), 2024: faster, solo effort) but last year I was with an organised team and we did 7:46. I’m gunning for 7:15-7:20 this year.

And great work on the lifestyle and fitness transformation. Vätternrundan is a great goal to help push you on your journey :slightly_smiling_face:

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I would recommend 2 soft flask with a really high concentration of sugar in each one (basically a massive gel). I did that during a 300km grand fondo last year and it worked really well.

That way you can decouple your nutrition and hydration. I think those two flasks accounted for about 80% of my fuel on the day.

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  1. Replace a hard workout
  2. Forget the event, focus on the athlete. TR’s assessment will advise the volume that will make you fitter. More riding may well make you weaker.
  3. Sleep, nutrition and confidence in you equipment.

Hope you have a great race!

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Hej :slight_smile:

Yes, the heat is definitely a worrying factor. My start time is 22:00 in the evening, so at least the first few hours should be more manageable temperature wise, I hope. I’m planning to bring two large water bottles, a CamelBak for extra just water, and one (or maybe two, as someone suggested) concentrated sugar flasks.

I live near Borås, so it’s a bit too far to take you up on the offer but thank you so much anyway. I’d really appreciate any tips you’re willing to share. I’m going to try to finish as quickly as possible, but times under 8–9–10 hours feel completely out of reach for me with my ftp and experience. I’m a very goal-oriented person, so having a clear target really helps keep my motivation up.What do you think of the bottle/energy setup?

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I’d echo getting outside when I did the Mallorca 312 as a 39 year old, in the 6months beforehand I had 8 rides > 160km (215 being the longest) and few other 100km+ rides weaved into a schedule of something like:

Mon - rest/ light weights/stretches

Tue - Indoors HIIT

Wed - Indoors Endurance

Thus - Indoors HIIT

Fri - Rest

Sat - Fast group ride (circa 88km)

Sun - More Relaxed group ride (circa 64km)

My HIIT Indoor Trainer sessions though were around an hour at most.

Good luck :four_leaf_clover:

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I like riding north and west of Borås - there is some fantastic gravel and hill climbing around there.

I wouldn’t stress about taking too much water with you. There are rest stops every 40-50km, and you’ll be able to tank up there. The issue we had was that we weren’t using the normal rest stops (as they can sometimes be a little slow - you can lose a few minutes if it’s busy) and the only water we had access to was the water we packed ourselves.

You’ve got 12 weeks or so before VR, so I would really just focus on longer rides now. Don’t worry about sweet spot or VO2 max at all - you won’t be anywhere near those zones during the event. What you want to do is build up your endurance though lots of time in the saddle and getting used to fueling on the bike.

You won’t want to go nuts on carbs as your FTP isn’t high enough to need lots. 40-50g an hour on the bike and eat something at the rest stops and you’ll do well. If you overload the carbs, it can create issues by itself with gut distress and it can even worsen dehydration.

I’m aiming to do about 65% of my FTP (but closer to 75% normalised, as it’ll be most likely something like 250w when not on the front and 400-450w when on the front, which will be about 5% of the time). Due to your ride taking a bit longer, you won’t be able to push 65% for that duration. Perhaps 50% is a reasonable goal. That sounds low, but it’s a bloody long way and a long time in the saddle too.

The power calculator I use gives you a speed of about 25kph for 120w, and a ride time of about 12.5hrs. Allowing maybe 90 minutes for stops on the way round, 14hrs seems pretty likely.

Find a group to ride with too as you’ll save loads of power. Spend as little time on the front as you can, but do take your turn if the group is rotating through.

I am sure you’ll love it, and the sense of accomplishment at the end is wonderful.

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And just to add onto what I said about longer rides - I am working on my endurance too just now, so I’m really only riding every other day, but doing between 2.5 and 3.5hrs on each of those rides, for a total of about 12hrs a week. You need to be doing those longer rides to develop your energy systems for endurance riding.

Definitely ditch the 30 minute endurance ride as you won’t build any endurance in half an hour. Doing 8 hours a week, I’d look to do at least 2 rides of 2-3hrs (or more) and then a couple of shorter rides if you want to.

Vätternrundan is all about building your diesel engine. You just need to be able to keep going and going and going……

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Thanks for all the help and advice. :grinning_face: