Seattle to Portland Questions

Hey guys, love the show, 5 stars! I started training seriously just over a year ago. At the time I had hired a local coach and I was 235lbs and around 1.7ishw/kg. I let my coach go last fall to save some money and switched to TrainerRoad and I’m now I’m 180lbs at 3.29w/kg as of my last FTP test! 5 stars! I’m turning 40 in April, and my present is my “A” event this year. Seattle to Portland in one day. I’m currently in low volume sustained power build, headed for low volume century specialty. I’ve ridden several 100 mile days in the past and finished them without too much difficulty, but my concern is that I’m not going to get enough “endurance” rides to make a 200+ mile day possible. My plan is to continue the TR workouts I’ve been doing, but to add some long zone 2 endurance rides out on the road in between just to get used to long hours in the saddle. What are your thoughts on this and how much zone 2 time do you think is appropriate given my event. Thank you for the great product and the help it’s given me in getting where I am!

Following! I’m also doing STP this year, and it was my inspiration to join TrainerRoad. Looking forward to seeing another TR guy out there!

1 Like

For that kind of daily mileage, as much as you can do within reason. You don’t need to go out and bust a double century or even a 150 miler, but you better get several in the 70-100 (maybe even 120?) range in the time 4-6 weeks before.

You can likely tough out most anything, but if you want to be “more prepared”, you will want as much saddle time as practical to be ready.

I did it in 2012 with my wife, in 2 days. We followed the Cascade club’s own training at the time (pure mileage based stuff that we rode entirely in Z2 for all of our prep). We stuck to their plan for all but a few missed rides and we were pretty well prepared. We knocked out 137 miles the first day and finished the next. Our longest prep on a single day before that was around 75 miles. So you can easily bump up, but be prepared to pay a bit for it depending on your time to that point.

1 Like

I’ve done it twice in one day, without that much prep. It would be a good idea, to avoid having to dig too deep to do some long saddle time rides before.

3 Likes