That’s the one. And I am starting early with training to see how that evolves and then dial-in my goals later. Longer climbs is also what I thought, but hard to find any hill that remotely resembles the length of the Hotham climb anywhere close to where I live.
I think the horse is bolted that there are some “longer” rides needed in between, so I’ll work on when to add these in and and how long “long” should be. It’s still 9 months away and I’ve set myself a target to lock in goals about 5 months out from the event based on how fitness evolves in the next 4 months. Definitely more than “just finish”.
For clarity of discussion I think it’s important we define what a “long ride” is.
I believe this discussion on the importance, (or insignificance) of long endurance rides originated in another thread where a poster commented that no rides over 90 minutes (just an example, I don’t remember the actual number) was never prescribed in their TR training plan. This became a debate on if “long rides” are necessary. Since, dynamic endurance has been introduced and many are being prescribed 4-5 hour “long rides,” which for someone hitting 8-12 hours is a substantial amount of time on the bike.
Just my recollection, and I could be off here, but I don’t think many were saying to do monster 8-10 hour weekend rides every week. But rather a consistent 4-5 hour ride was the backbone of their training week.
So I guess the question is… when discussing “long endurance rides” are we talking about these 4-5 hour rides or these super long rides? Because they aren’t the same.
Good question. I consider anything >3h long because, for me, this is when fuelling and hydration strategy start to matter significantly. Below 3h I still consider training efforts. I may be way off here and people classify this differently, but this is how it goes in my head.
Re adaptation to longer workouts in TR, as opposed to long rides, my understanding is that TR will not increase your workout durations within a training plan unless you allocate more time to your plan. Jonathan mentioned that in one of the recent podcasts.
I’d suggest doing some big days to build mental fortitude and dial in bike fit + fueling. TR can help you build the fitness to make it through the watts required on the day, what it cant do is tell you that your lower back is going to hurt at hour 5 regardless of how low your RPE is from the actual energy output.
Bonus to do those big days solo, no drafting, always pedaling, able to stop when you need, and move at your own pace.
If anything, this helps ease some nerves on race day because you know you can do 80% of the time/distance and anybody can do another 20% of something 
A normal “long ride” for someone focused on non-ultra riding probably tops out at 4-6h. It could be shorter, and depends on their weekly volume and how long their interval sessions are. A long ride for someone on 4h a week could be 1.5-2h.
When you instead start talking about a target event that’s longer than IDK over 8-10h, then there’s a different type of long ride. One where the goal is just getting used to being on the bike that long - sorting out bike fit, nutrition, the mental game, etc. - and having one ride of comparable duration (say 70% or so) under your bodies belt in the past month or so. The randonneuring brevet length progression evolved for a reason.
I do a couple of 300-400 mile events (off-road) per year in my 40s and 50s, so my “data-driven” advice is life experience (i.e. I’ve done a lot of plans, and made a ton of mistakes 
).
- You can do low volume in the early phases. (This is opposite of the traditional, big miles in base - a somewhat reverse periodized approach works well for ultra training). Sticking to your plan right now is smart. Completing your structured intensity workouts is more important in these early phases of training.
- The goal right now is consistency and building a foundation - definitely no 8-10 hour rides. This also leaves space to focus on heavier strength training, which you need in all phases of training, but you’ll have to dial down (especially the leg work) when you’re pushing volume or building intensity.
- Right now, a “long ride” should be relative to what you’ve been doing, i.e. 3 hrs is long right now. Adding one long ride per week except rest weeks is a good idea. If you can’t recover well and complete your key structured interval training workouts, then adjust the long ride down - protect your intensity rides.
- Try Trainerroad’s dynamic endurance ride feature one day/week if you’re not already - extending up to the maximum it allows (5 hours I think?). It’s going to start you off pretty low. I assume your 230k road ride is a one very long day effort - so just 1 long ride is fine - no need for back-to-back long rides.
- Keep your weekly “long ride” on relatively easy terrain in the base phase, (I.e. it’s so much easier to recover from flat/gently rolling pavement than steep techy dirt, given same # of hours).
- Like Eddie says, 8 and 4 weeks out is a great time to plan in extra-long, 6h-12h simulation rides, challenging what you’re doing regularly. I would match the terrain to the goal event, but maybe not quite the time/distance. The primary goal is to rehearse your intended pacing/nutrition/bike/gear/setup, and decide if you need to make any small tweaks. (And to have fun, because those rides are exciting).
- You might want to give yourself 2 or even 3 days completely off after one of these event simulation rides.
- Closer to your event, especially when your long rides are the key workout for the week, you need to trust your own judgement calls and understand when it’s best to deviate from the generalized plan. Everyone tapers differently, for example.
- For recovery assessment, consider using a simple checklist, like Joe Friel’s “Morning Warnings” - your body and mind receive so much more high-quality data than any AI model or photoplethysmography sensor ever could.
Thanks @dirt_cruzer . That sounds solid. I hadn’t looked at the dynamic endurance feature, but will certainly do. I think the thread is converging nicely that long rides are a necessity in prep for such an event and I appreciate everyone’s thoughts on the details of and when and where to drop them into the training plan.
You are still 7 months out from your event. Your long ride has got to be relative to what you are doing now. If you are doing a 3 hour long ride at the moment, then progressive overload will see that grow nicely over several cycles over 7 months. The best day to do a long ride is the day after your key intensity day. Nail the intensity session, do your long ride, easier or recovery session or day off, go again etc. if you really push your weekly hours out, then make sure you are not doing more than two intensity days a week, but do them well as rested as you can be. Apply smart scheduling to how your weekly sessions look, to best match your curcumstances.
The usefulness of long rides comes from the deep glycogen depletion they can achieve, stimulating in increase of your stores.
But indeed, if your current training load is so low that a ride doing the above is more than 50% your weekly volume, than that´s a problem. With an obvious solution: First increase training load, then start with the long rides, once they stay below the 50% weekly load. Seems you still have the time.
Disagree that the usefulness is a result of glycogen depletion. Duration and not intensity is the primary driver of stimulus for long slow distance.
If you ride your long rides hard enough to meaningfully deplete glycogen, it negatively impacts recovery, which negatively impacts your interval days.
Hard days should be hard, easy days easy.
Curious what everyone thinks here… This whole 50% rule getting in my head as I’m peaking for my A race. I am doing the Marji Gesick 100 in mid-september. I am currently planning a long ride to sort out bike comfort, nutrition, etc… this weekend. This ride will be 3 weeks ahead of the race. I am currently planning a 6-7 hour ride at endurance pace, but on technical terrain.
my 6-week TSS average is around 440. a 6-7 hour ride would be probably ~70% of my 6week TSS. Is this a good idea? Thoughts as to what is going to be the most advantageous way to use this planned long ride?
I would use this as a general guideline rather than a hard rule. This ride will probably add some fatigue. Likely going to need an extra day or two before your next structured interval session. But as long as you plan for that, I think it would be ok.
Said another way, I am guessing that the comfort and nutrition learnings from this ride are going to be at least as valuable if not more as having one more interval day in your plan.
I am a big fan of not doing the race before the race. Not sure how long the ride is estimated to take you, but I think a ride that is 75-80% of the time and/or distance is enough to figure things out.
If you are set on the 6-7 hours just be sure to take the next day completely off and maybe a recovery week after. If things aren’t feeling great have the confidence to cut it short. The race is the most important thing here.
A missed single high intensity is not going to make any difference. There are learnings and benefits to the ling ride. You know what you want to do.