Ok - I’ve scheduled a “climbing camp” for myself - 5 days (M-F) in the Appalachian/Alleghany mountains in Virginia, but I’m not sure how to structure the week. Here’s some background:
Training for IM Wisconsin - will be 7 weeks out from race Live in Northern Indiana (FLAT AS HELL), in other words, I suck at climbing My rides during the week are 1-2 hours of Zone 2-4, each (usually 2-3 of them), weekend long ride is now up to 5 hours at zone 1-2 (ALL FLAT) Will be doing a bike training camp on the Wisconsin course also in mid August (3-4 days of riding the course) How far and how often should I ride each day? I want to focus on climbing, so all of my routes are up and down mountains. The only support I will have are small country stores along the way, so I won’t have access to much more than water, sugar sticks, and maple candy (YUMM!!!). Should I do any transition running, and if yes, how much to keep my legs “OK” for the next days ride?
Day One: Climb like a mofo
Day Two: Climb like a mofo
Day Three: Climb like a mofo
Day Four: Climb like a mofo
Day Five: Climb like a mofo
.
Thanks for the obvious!
Any mileage recommendations?
Just go out and explore. Have fun with it and just try and bag as many climbs as you can.
You could also drive a few hours on weekends for one day rides in southern Indiana. I live in Bloomington, its very hilly. I did Lake Placid in 99, and I didn’t feel like the hills there were too much too handle. They were longer than hills I have here, but not any steeper, maybe less so. We have tons of great riding down here.
Do you really expect to make a material fitness improvement in a week? I’d be more concerned about a massive flame-out, with an overcooked week requiring more recovery than it’s worth.
See Gordo’s/Friel’s thoughts on “crash weeks”.
For that reason, I’d just enjoy and JFR.
No, I don’t, and it’s a good point. Fitness wise, I could do the race this weekend and still finish fine. But I need exposure to hills, and lots of it. I’m not looking to kill myself doing this, but I do want to push myself and combine both volume with climbing exposure.
What I find humorous is if I had posted “I’m doing these rides, and I’m not going to care about how far or hard and JFR”, I would get flamed for being too lackadaisical about the plan. So when I’m actually looking for a very methodical plan, i.e. someone in the “know” saying, “Do 50 miles Monday AM, and 25 Monday PM easy”, "75 Tuesday, " etc., instead I get “JFR” and “Just enjoy it”. Classic ST!
Plan or no plan - I will be enjoying it, but I’m not going to just “wing it” on race day, and don’t plan to in my training either.
I run a camp in June in Osoyoos thats all about riding and more specifically climbing. We ususally get in between 90 and 150 km a day with 3-4 big climbs. Sometimes it is a longer day (6-7 hours) as we loop around to meet back up and some of the climbs are long and slow but we try to spend about 70% of our time going uphill. No real transition runs, etc and maybe a little swimming but basically riding, eating and sleeping and taking care of the legs. We can run and swim when we get home but we go there for the riding. We go the Oliver Half and then spend the next 6-7 days riding every day.
Well, you could always alternate days between slow and steady and short and steep. But here’s a goal for you…
Ride w/ a Garmin and try and log 29,029 FT (Mt Everest’s height) of climbing. 5 days at around 6k feet per day. And do it without blowing up.
it’s a great idea, when i was training for IMFL i had to go to Maine (near the NH border) for a week. i rode the ‘Kang’ almost every day. it was 90mi round trip, i think about 20 miles up the hill. the last few miles are 9%. the training was excellent even for IMFL. you don’t realize how different it is to ride hills. it’s really a whole different kind of ride.
i would recommend you plan 2 days, maybe the second and last, to do real hard climbs. like smallest gear - trying not to go less then 6mph hard. if you can, find 10 or 20 miles of that (not all of it that bad as hills tend to flatten and start up again every so often) and incorporate that in an 80+mile ride. 90-100 if you think you are that strong.
then the other days look for rollers. just hours and hours of up/down, up/down. on these, really focus on shifting. there is a special technique to shifting that we flatlanders just don’t get. in florida one of my favorite 80 milers was done in 2 gears, one going out with the wind - one coming back against the wind. anyway, you need to practice timing your shifts. real important. also, decide if you will do some standing. yes, everyone says it is inefficient but some people just like to do it once in a while. change of position and all that… so, if you plan to do that a bit, practice it. sometimes you have good momentum on a short hill and just don’t want to give it up. so you stand for 20 or 30 revolutions and bing - you’re over the hill and have good momentum into the down hill, time to relax and let the HR drop.
so, on day 1 do a good 50 miles of that and see how it feels. then on days 3 and 4 try to do 60-80 and throw in a 2-4 mile run after. in case you don’t know what that feels like already.
also, there is technique to going over hills. so often i see people easing up just as they get near the top. just as the road starts to level out. they loose what little momentum they had. push over the top, don’t ease up. keep pushing until you are over the top, on the way down and starting to spin out of the gear you went up in. then shift and take a breather.
just some thoughts
good luck
I like alternating easy hard easy hard stuff. Difficulty defined by recovery required. I’d plan on doing something like the following, but it all depends on your fitness and recovery rate.
Day1 - 56 hills, + pm swim + run
Day2 - 100+ including hills
Day3 - easy 25 mile bike 4 mile run brick + pm swim
Day4 - 45 hills, pm swim
Day5 - 100+ mile including hills, 4 mile run off the bike 