I've been training now for 8 weeks, and there are 11 more to go before l'Etape.
I've been trying to progressively get longer and longer rides under my belt which culminated in a 100 mile ride last Sunday. It's really hard to cycle on your own around the Isle of Wight and clock up the ton, so I feel that I'm doing reasonably well to date. Of course, the event itself is 125 miles and it also involves 5 mountain climbs of between 4 and 12 miles. So, while I may be getting close to reaching the distance in terms of mileage, it's impossible to find Pyrennean-esque mountain climbs on which to train.
Climbing mountains means sustaining high power pedalling at a steady rate. The way to train for this is to find flattish routes of between 10 to 25 miles during which I need to basically go as fast as I can, without totally blowing up, at a steady speed. The other trick is to deliberately use a bigger gear than I would normally choose, to try and develop thunder thighs (as opposed to the current matchstick thighs). Ideally I should also borrow the wife's heart rate monitor (HRM) and read the manual. Once I have it set up and know how to use it, on these power sessions I should be trying to keep the heart rate at about 80 to 85% of my maximum. I don't want to get too obsessive and become Chris Boardman, but HRM training techniques are based on sound scientific principles and it would be churlish to ignore a device which may help me achieve my aim. Especially when we've already got one in the house (somewhere? under the bed?)
The other thing I've realised is the importance of good eating, and plenty of rest. Late night guitar sessions have got to stop. The last 6 days I have been feeling really tired. I think I underestimated how much the century took it out of me, and then playing footy on Tuesday was a bit too much. I ran my socks off on a big hard sloping pitch in Freshwater. Scored though.
So, next week I'm going to aim for one longish ride of between 50 to 70-ish miles and fit in two or maybe three hard speed sessions. I'll try and read the manual about the HRM, and see if its worth the hassle. I don't like the look of the strap which you have to wear around your chest. I was going to do the IOW Randonee next Sunday but I'm going to pass on that one. Riptide are gigging at the Over The Edge bike rally that night so it will be too much, plus we'll have to sound check in the afternoon and get the gear sorted. Check out the wacky website http://www.overtheedgerally.co.uk/ Stan the organiser is not your typical hairy bloke biker. Should be fun.
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