My longest ride ever has been about 60. Wondering what a long ride or 2 would do for my cycling in short events like a sprint, oly, or 20k TT?
A longer ride will increase your endurance, but unless you are also working in intervals, that seems like a waste of time for shorter races.
IMO No… for several reasons… there are many other better things you can be doing with your time (training wise) then that extra ride, and i find the recovery from long rides can compromise training the next day or two… personally my longest rides for olympic training is 100-110 k group ride i do with some roadies, or a 100 k ride with some serious race pace work in it… everything else is 45-60km. I think that most olympic racer would be far better served doing more intervals on the bike (I bike 3-4 times/wk and essentially every single one of those rides has some intensity in it, very little “base riding, zone 2 riding or whatever”… or using that bike time (100 miles - 60 miles) to work on their run and swim more… I’ve been focusing more on a intensity oriented program for the past year… training 10-12h/wk but almost every session has some intensity in it, and it has made a huge difference in my speed/strength, I’m not racing anything longer than olympic, so the “endurance” part of the equation is taken care of by simply training 12h/wk.
I don’t think a 100 mile ride would do much to improve your performance in races <1 hr, but c’mon, as a cyclist don’t you have the urge to ride Bsoton to P-town and take the ferry back just because…
You can always benefit from doing a 100 mile ride.
I just think that long rides benefit you as a human being. i say do it. i’m not saying that it’ll make you faster on your oly. just that it’s fun.
No benfit for oly, and very, very limited benefit for IM. Spend your time on several shorter rides with higher intensity instead.
I would not worry too much and go for it…
Fred.
…very, very limited benefit for IM.
Agree with this - good for a base, but in training for my first IM, I never rode more than 85 miles (though they were hilly and it took 4.5 hours). But I did that a few times. I have two IMs this year and will likely not ride a century before either of them (though have a few long days set at 5 hours - its hilly here, so will get close, but likely not over, that 100 mile mark). But then again, I’m extremely focused (wife says too much so), and I ride mostly indoors to control the entire workout. My total volume sits around 14 hours on a heavy week, and it gets me under 11 hours for the IM distance (I’m not focused on qualifying for Kona either, FWIW). The workouts do get me sub-5s in HIMs though.
I would have to agree with a lot of guys and say that you could benefit much more for sprint/oly/TTs by using the 4.5 hrs that a 100miler takes in different ways.
C’mon…you know you want to do it…
good for your mental toughness. go for it.
I say that there is benefit. But that comes from my bike racing days where my crit and short racing came into form after doing rides like that. Of course they were also mainly group rides with a lot of “racing” thrown into middle.