Long distance TTing/CTT certificate

Hi all,

I’m thinking of going for my CTT certificate next year. This is an award in the UK attached to a competition called the BBAR (British Best All Rounder) which is won by the rider with the fastest average speed over their quickest 50 mile, 100 mile and 12 hour TT. Any rider who averages over 22mph also gets the CTT certificate, and this is my goal.

With this in mind, I was wondering what training I should be doing to train for races from 2-12 hours long. 50- and 100-mile TTs happen all through the season, but the 12 hour I want to ride is at the end of July. So, I was thinking about different options:

  • Do a bit of traditional base before going into SSBMV in mid-November?

  • Mix up a full distance triathlon plan with SSBMV?

  • Do a full base/build/specialty using SSBMV, Sustained Power MV build, and 40k TT, then rebuild/re-specialise for end of July?

I have about 10 hours a week to train (at a real push).

Any advice/ideas much appreciated!

Thanks in advance,

James

I think ild look at the bike parts of the full distance triathlon plans.

Alternatively SSB, SPB, century speciality is an option.

What’s the disposition of the courses that are you likely to ride? Mostly flat? Long climbs? Short punchy stuff?

Also I’m not sure how much extra you would need to add on to allow for the 12.hour (presumably 200-250 miles) ride.

Thanks for the suggestions. The courses are generally flat(ish) with long draggy climbs at worst (but we’re only talking a 1-2% gradient). The 12 I’m looking at is certainly flat, although slower in other ways, such as rough road surface etc.

I’m not sure what sort of distance I’m going to target for the 12 as it all depends on the 50 and 100. The good thing about this competition is that each event has equal weighting in determining average speed, so a sub-2 hour 50 and 100 round 4 hours means there’s less distance to cover in the 12. I’d like to hit 250+ though!

Hadn’t considered the century plan but will definitely check it out - thanks for the suggestion :+1:

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Have a look in the Full Distance Triathlon plans, pull out the long steady state workouts (from memory things like Polar Bear, Gibraltar) these are really good to do to prepare you for longer distance events such as 50 miles upwards. Other than that if you can get outdoors, build up time on the bike, ideally you’d probably want at least a seven hour ride before you go to the 12hr, workouts on the trainer are great, but pedalling and handling a bike for many hours is a little different.

Another thing to consider if you don’t already is building up some core strength, holding a TT position for anything over an hour can get quite tough, don’t need to go crazy but better to address it than suffer back/hip/neck pain during a long event.

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