That will teach me to not scroll up. It does really play to the idea that for self supported we may be able to start with a good plan and be well stocked, but there’s going to be a point where we’re at the mercy of a local gas station. I’m just worried that I won’t find one before my brain starts to fade and make poor choices when it comes to the trash I choose…
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With un supported, locating potential resupply points, their opening times, and food options is part of the pre planning. This is particularly key for the stages you are likely or it may be possible you’ll ride overnight.
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I use table sugar in my bottles all the time, especially in multi-day ultras. I used to spend the money on Skratch but its not worth it. I bring a ziplock bag full of it. And it can be found in conveniences stores etc. When I resupply I refill bottles with apple juice or something similar, diluted. The sugar then is used when I am refilling from creeks etc. Drinking straight water is something I try to avoid while on an ultra as it is a great opportunity to slip in additional calories.
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I feel somewhat qualified to offer a bit of my insights/opinions after several successful Ultra-Distance races this year, including winning the “self-supported” category in this years SilverState508 that was mentioned in the original post, and narrowly missing the course record( ~33hrs, 17.9mph/avg). The other was the Pacific Coast Bike Race(1500miles along the coast from Portland to San Diego, 8 Days). My main advice boils down to not overthinking it during the event, but at the same time, have a plan, even if its fairly loose.
By this I mean that you need to have details of options and logistics ahead of time. If you’re looking at a 12 hour stretch without re-supply, plan on carrying what you need for 14 hours. If that re-supply has business hours that are at all “tight” to your ETA, carry even more. While I’ll admit to having carried a few bars throughout my entire SS508 only to go uneaten, knowing their there(or perhaps even not knowing if they’re hidden in a frame bag or something), is worth the weight penalty in exchange for the lack of mental stress and energy you’ll spend worrying about running out. For longer events I make a spreadsheet with mileages to towns/stores/water, and will put a few notes with business hours, and even go so far as to read recent reviews on Yelp or Google to confirm that the business is still open. This is obviously only needed on Multi-day races.
During the actual event just eat, and drink. You’re not going to feel hungry, and you should’t let yourself get to the point of feeling hungry. If you have, you’re probably a bit behind the eight ball. Your body is going to want to just keep performing, and turning over the pedals, not thinking about what the next X amount of hours look like, and won’t bother to plan on the calories it may need. So with that, you need to give it the fuel that it doesn’t know it’ll need. Just eat often, and more than you want to. I shoot for 300 calories per hour, with this being largely carb heavy. A 100g carb drink mixed into a bottle is just easier to stay on top of, so liquid fuel is a huge part of my routine. I’ll go so far as to carry extra packets of carb mix, and mix a bottle every few hours for shorter distances(SS508) and carry a few with me during longer events but use them almost like a “bail out” rather than relying on them. For the PCBR 1500 I think I started with 12 packets of carb mix, and would mix one up every morning to start the day with a bit of fuel going in, as I’m not a morning eater typically. Then if I found myself dragging in the middle of a long stretch without re-supply, I’d mix a bottle up as a little boost.
While the liquid calories are a huge tool, I go into it almost thinking of them as “bonus calories/carbs” and will still try to eat solid food every hour. Some hours this will look like a gas station burrito, cookie, soda, and nuts all at once. Other hours it will just be a handful of crushed up chips. Just keep putting food in, it really boils down to that. Your body won’t be picky, and you’ll never be able to keep up with the needs. Honestly I bet there was no more than 40 minutes during the SS508 that I wasn’t eating something. This would usually be during a long sustained climb, but I’d go into it ahead of time knowing I wouldn’t want to eat during it, so I’d eat ahead of it, and at the top as well.
Hope this helps a bit.
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Hannah JUST talked about this on last week’s pod cast. Not feeling hungry & pallet fatigue shouldn’t stop you from fueling. IMHO once you have your base, hydration and fuel are the hardest things to do on the bike because your body isn’t thirsty or hungry, so it’s the mental aspect of knowing you need to do both despite not getting the natural signals from your body. If you’re riding too fast to safely eat when you need to, then you don’t deserve to be riding that fast. Slow down and fuel.
Granted she’s talking about Leadville in this case, but 100% eating on the bike is still very much an intellectual decision. What you choose to fuel with is just another variable in your own personal equation.
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So it’s been a month and a half since entering my first ultra and I’ve almost finished 2 polarised lv 6 week base blocks alongside extra z2 works both inside and outside.
I’ve seen improvement in my 60min power (strive.ai is pretty cool for seeing this but 60 mins is their longest graph - graphs like this would be brilliant if TrainerRoad would add somewhere) but aren’t sure what build to follow up with.
I’m loving the polarised plans for ease of compliance but wondering as the winter really kicks in I’ll have less outside pre work rides so wondering I should go for a standard sustained power build plan.
Other option was another 6 weeks of base but I don’t think that is preferable, maybe after a build block to consolidate it.
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Depends how mild you winters are. In the UK it rarely gets cold enough you can’t keep riding outside most days in winter. You just need lights.
Not too cold down in the southwest but by God it’s wet right now!
Hi, I’m a 56 year old who’s been cycling about 2 years. I’m 6’, weigh 170lb and have an FTP of c300-310. I cycle ultra-endurance: 200mile one day events and multi-day events such as the Pan-Celtic. My question is about training for ultra. I’ve had a couple of coaches who have both set me on the slightly boiler-plate approach of training all the zones to increase FTP on the basis that “if my FTP is higher then you’ll be able to sustain a lower power for longer”…in other words “train the top in order to train the bottom”.
Now, I understand the need to train the bottom in order to train the top but I’m really not a strong believer in the other way around as they have been trying to tell me.
My gut feel is that I should focus nearly all my time on long, long miles at low intensity and really not bother at all about doing interval work at Z4/5/6/7.
What are your thoughts?
Zones 7 and maybe 6 won’t be useful but unless you live in Holland or have very low bottom gears you’re going to get into zones 4 and 5 going uphill.
I’d like to be able to go upwards without killing myself too much.
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I would just do as much z2 and sweet spot as you can conceivably manage. Maybe if you are at the pointy end of a very competitive race like unbound you would want the sharp stuff, but if this is mostly solo pedaling volume is going to be almost everything.
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Need more information about your goals and results in these events - are you new to these and goal is just to finish? Have you finished a few and looking to get faster?
But in general - unless just finishing is biggest challenge, I would tend to side with your coaches. But of course you would want a plan that skews towards endurance. I think there is some great advice/outline of plan in the second post on this thread here: Ultra-endurance training - #2 by Samus
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My gut feeling would have been the same before I started structured training and I’d now agree with coaches. It took me a long time to come to that thinking though.
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Mirroring others here: do not neglect more intense intervals. If you ride always sub-threshold, you can stretch your existing power very long i.e. time to exhaustion at endurance pace. But to increase power, you need to push your ceiling as well
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IMHO, Increase your CTL to as high as you can get it (volume!). If it were me, I’d want to be north of 100 CTL at minimum.
Don’t loose sight of your muscle endurance (tempo/SS/threshold) as you’ll likely use a lot of this come race day. All the other training (mico cycles) are marginal differences and probably any reasonable training approach will obtain about the same results. So just make sure you enjoy and believe it your training.
VOLUME is king!
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I’m not quite sure what your training is looking like… but yes, trying to increase FTP is a primary goal for ultra events. The higher your aerobic capacity… the faster you are… even after 16 hours.
For context, when training for PBP last year most of what I was doing was trying to raise FTP, and then ride as much volume as possible.
Having your all-day z2 power being 230-250w is wayyyy better than having it be 180w.
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@Daniellipson
I can totally understand your mentality, and it’s not “wrong”… But the issue is that time is finite, and for most people, the amount of time they have to train is limited… In a perfect world, the ideal training for a multi-day event might be to simply ride zone 2 for 6 hours a day. Surely your power would increase across all ranges from that kind of volume(30+ hours a week) alone. However, you can attain pretty similar power increases by “hacking” the system, and training at a higher intensity with less volume. Its simply a tradeoff and time management issue. I’d love to up my volume to 15-20 hours a week, but its tough for me to swing that, and I honestly prefer quite a bit of intensity in my week, and it has proven to carry over to longer durations, despite not “practicing” those durations.
seeing as its been 18 months since my last post on this thread and its been brought back from the dead, an update… I raced four ultras last year, all off-road, and ranging from 250-370 miles, with times from 36 to 53 hours… Won two of them, and a third and fourth in the other two… Outside of those races, I did exactly one ride longer than 5 hours… With over half of my rides during the year taking place indoors…
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I used shorter VO2 and threshold sessions as a core part of me LEL training as I always do. Plus trying to get a longer outdoor ride at the weekend (and a few target much longer rides, just to give you confidence and try out all your gear etc). I think I averaged about 10-12hr per week in the buildup.
Is the same basis I have used to train for a multiday trail run I am doing in a few weeks.
I would say that frequency and consistency is more important - i.e., you’re be better doing 4x1hr rides in a week than 1x4hr ride (although that is overly simplistic as that’s not normally the choice you have to make exactly)
I do everything from the long low intensity, tempo, threshold, VO2. I don’t do sprints. I guess that covers Z2-Z5. With recovery rides having some Z1. The long endurance ride is a stable each week, but so also is the VO2 etc. It’s easy to think all you need to do is the long low intensity rides. But in my experience, that gives you great endurance but low all day and night cruising speed, and a low top end. You can go a long way but not particularly quickly, and you’ll struggle during the hillier sections of an ultra event.
I’m not that focused on an FTP number as it’s my all day and night power and fatigue resistance that interest me. But that doesn’t mean you should not be working your threshold and VO2 and put in those fish breathing out of water workouts.
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If you’re already put in the hours getting your endurance gains up, you should focus more on the top end. Endurance gains stick around for a long time. FTP tanks dramatically if you take time off of it. There are a lot of ultra endurance athletes who don’t even go for long rides outside of their races and bikepacking. If you’re already reached a point where a Z2 imperial century feels like a walk in the park, I’d strongly suggest focusing on the top end primarily.
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