Top Tips for Building Up the Long Ride for Ultra Distance Events like long audax, Paris-Brest-Paris or Bikepacking
Long endurance riding is key to training for an ultra endurance cycling event like a long audax, Paris-Brest-Paris or a Bikepacking event. If you have never ridden for more than a few hours this can be a daunting prospect so here are some tips to help you build up the distance in a manageable way.
Build up Gradually.
It really doesn't matter where you start from so long as you give yourself enough time to build up. As a general rule adding about half an hour to your longest ride week on week is a reasonable way of building time in the saddle.
A good routine is to aim to build like this for 2 to 3 weeks and then have a 'light week.' Following a 4 week rota where every 4th week is light it would then take you 12 weeks to go from 1 hour to 6 hours of riding.
Once you can regularly tolerate 5-6 hours of riding you can begin to plan your big weekend blocks/events every 4-6 weeks.
Weekend Training Blocks
Doing very long rides every weekend isn't always feasible and can create a lot of fatigue. It can be better to plan big weekend blocks of training with long (eventually back to back) days once every 4 to 6 weeks. This gives you time to taper and recover from the block and still get in some decent periods of regular training in between.
Get a Good Training Routine
Training frequently is better than doing long rides and then needing loads of rest. So establishing a base routine that you can handle for 2 to 3 weeks at a time including some shorter rides, perhaps some faster rides and some long endurance rides (3-6 hours) can be a good way to gradually build your base fitness and fatigue resistance. You can save the super long rides for you big weekend training blocks described above.
Back to Back Days
Another good way to build up fatigue resistance is doing back to back days. This can initially just be getting on the trainer for half an hour the day after a big weekend ride and building gradually from there. This again will get you used to getting back on the bike when you are tired and build up some fatigue resistance.
Keep it Easy
The trick to going long is to keep a sustainable pace. At first you might feel like you are going ridiculously slow, but don't worry you will get faster the more of this type or riding you do. You are aiming to ride in your zone 2 as per the table below, but if you don't want to do a test to find out your zones aiming to keep riding at a pace that you can hold a conversation at is a good rule of thumb.
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