What workouts for a 175km race with 70km of climb?

Hi,
Im training for 'the marmotte' a 175km race that has three principal climbs:
Croix de fer
Telegraphe-Galibier
Alpe d'huez
Thats a total of +-70km of uphill. You can check the profile at:
http://www.sportcommunication.com/ne...d=128&langue=2

I want to achieve 7:30-8h, my previous times have been 10h and 9h.

How should I train for it? I've read about the 2x20s...should I be doing 3x20s as 3 are the major climbs, and then increase interval time up to an hour?
I know that the most important abilities for this race are muscular endurance and force, I have long descents after the climbs and I have plenty of time to recover, so I plan to climb a bit under my LT power, is this the right strategy?
Thanks,
Gonzalo

Good luck.
You might want to start with 2x15 before building up to 2x30 before 3x15 before 3x20. The reason you should limit your intervals to 20ish minutes is that if you extend them you will end up riding at a lower intenisty and not getting the desired effect. Aim to ride as hard as you can for the whole interval (similar to a 10 mile TT for 15 to 20 minute intervals).
I guess by force, you mean strength, which if you read the weight lifting thread will realise its not often a limiting factor in endurance cycling. Similarly, muscular endurance isn't a very well defined term so its difficult to decide it you have it or not. The limiting factor to this ride as you suggest will be LT and nutrition/dehydration as you suggest. When climbing you could use ride at quite a high intensity, just below the intervals you do. However you would need to make sure that you are properly recovered!

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cool, but the race is only 75km, the rest is downhill!!

Thats my kind of race!

Do you have to ride the course in reverse to get back to the car? Thats 100 km up hill and only 75 km downhill!

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No, you just have to descend alpe d'huez to arrive to the start point.
Between Croix de Fer and Galibier there is a little bit of flat maybe 10 km, and the descents are not 100% descents sometimes there is a ramp..etc ;-)

I'll offer a perspective having recently tried for a PB on 200km route with 3900m vertical (mostly on grades of 5-6%, nothing approaching A d'H steepness).

Lacking the time to train for 300km+ / 10-15 hrs per week, I concentrated on "2*25" type intervals (1-2 sets per week), 60 - 80km of commuting, and tried to get in one 3 - 4 hr ride per week with 1000 - 1500m vertical for the climbing part.

What I found in the event (as in previous years with less training) was that after the 5hr mark I just seemed to run out of leg strength and was reduced to very slow pace up the last couple of climbs.

My conclusion was that you simply can't train optimally for an 8hr ride principally focussing on "intense" workouts. Sure they help you for the first few climbs, but I think you can't escape the need to do sufficient "endurance" (longer, slower) training to keep the body working effectively for a whole day in the saddle. Note that this has nothing to do with hydration or nutrition on the ride itself since I felt I had no problems on those scores.

Good luck with the Marmotte!

I perfectly agree. I'm interested too in extreme endurance events like the Marmotte, and I usually ride 10-15 events of this kind every year. Due to badweather and lack of time in the last 2 months I only could train a very few times on the road, and tried intervals on the rollers thinking I could be able to keep the same amount of fitness for remaining on the bike for the whole day. Actually on last saturday I went out for a 130k ride with 1500m vertical and I found I went easily through the first 100km, after that I felt as if I had no more strenght in my legs. I thought it was due to low temperature and maybe to an incorrect nutritional strategy... but I'm sure that the main thing is the lack of long endurance training on the bike

Bye to all

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"Cycling is to dare the un-dareable"

So I'm going to show my lack of cycling knowledge again and ask how steep Alpe D'huez's gradient is and what 2x20/3x20s are

You can find Alpe d'huez profile at www.salite.ch

2x20's are 2 intervals of 20' at Lactate Threshold intensity, this workout is intended to raise your LT.
Hope this helps :-)
Gonzalo

The average grade of alpe d'Huez is something like 7.9 or 8.1%

Just to clarify, the 20-min intervals are *NOT* done at LT, which is a quite low intensity, but completed at the effort (power) you ride a 1-hr TT at (or approaching that power).

Ric

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Sorry, I meant LT of Andy Coggan's levels: wich is the avg power of a 40km or 1h time trial...is this right?

Yes and no! Whether you're refering to Andy's or my zone 4 (http://www.cyclingnews.com/fitness/?id=powerstern both virtually the same), neither of them are are at LT, which is defined in the scientific literature, usually as a workload that elicits a 1 mmol/L increase in lactate or at a fixed 2.5 mmol/L. There's other ways of defining LT, which was recently discussed at cyclingnews.com, although, again, these aren't always strictly LT, and are still (usually) under the power of a TT.

Andy, refers to this 1-hr time trial intensity as Functional Threshold, whereas i refer to it as TTpower. Within the scientific literature, there's no specific term that covers the intensity at which a 1-hr TT is completed.

Ric

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Yes, I did refer to AC zone 4 .... I thought everyone refered to this zone (z4) as LT ... thanks for the acclaration!

Great link, thanks!

I've just returned to Oz after riding la marmotte. Tremendous experience, very hard ride but I'd go again tommorrow if the opportunity arose.
As for training beforehand - I can strongly recommend lots of long endurance rides 7 - 8 hrs at a time. Sure the climbs are long and hard but you will be on your bike for a very long time and the best way to prepare for that is long endurance rides.

Enjoy the experience