Training Tips For The Marmotte 2010

cormpat

Hi all,

I just looking for a bit of training advise for the Marmotte next July.
I've a reasonable level of fitness; I've done a couple of sportives in the past, (about 120km distance with plenty of hills) & I did the Gael Force in about 4hr 50min last summer, but I'd love to do the Marmotte in under 10hrs and want to get the base miles in now.

With work and study commitments, my weekly training plan consists of 1 to 2, 1 hr turbo sessions in the evening doing interval and isolated leg spins and then a 100km/120km spin on a Sunday. At the moment I don't really have time to do more so I'm not sure how I can tweak this plan to get the most out of it. Any one got any pointers?

Thanks,

hunkymonkey

What kind of route do ya do for the 120k spin?

cormpat

It's pretty flat, there's not too many climbs round where I live. In the New Year I plan on incorporating a few climbs into my rides.

niceonetom

I'm planning on winning attempting the Marmotte too, and I think there are a few other posters here that have it on their itinerary too.

I haven't really started any serious training for it yet but in broad terms my plans are as follows:

now till Jan/Feb:
I plan on trying to get at least one 100km+ ride in a week including some climbing in Wicklow (weather will make this hard but I'm trying to HTFU) and to also do some shorter but reasonably intense rides during the week. Some turbo sessions too. Basically just build a good base.

then on:
Incrementally up the intensity and the mileage. There'll have to be some seriously long rides (maybe a 300 or two) for me to feel prepared for the endurance needed for the Marmotte so the world audax will feature.

Climbing. As much as I can stomach. Up and down Stocking Lane or wherever until I can take no more. I'd like to get over to Spain or somewhere in the early spring to do some BIG climbs and remind myself what it is to be faced with 1000m or more accent without respite. A really big climb is scary in a way that can't be replicated on this little island.

Racing. Just the club league. I haven't raced before and I don't expect to be any good at it, but I think I'll enjoy the cut and thrust of it, and it'll be an opportunity to really push myself to hang on to stronger riders and thereby spend some time in the pain cave. VO2 and all that.

When I get into the swing of it a bit more I'll focus on doing specific drills to build strength and hopefully up my threshold a bit.

Weight weenyism. Not the bike... Me. I don't see any reason why I shouldn't be able to get really scarily gaunt. I jest. But I do plan on being a thin as I can be without sacrificing too much power or losing the use of my immune system. It won't be a weight that I can sustain long term but for a few weeks in the summer I should be ok. In the short term that means making it to january without too much mince pie luggage around the mid section.

It's all still a bit nebulous now, but there's plenty of time and plans will have to change for the unforeseeable.

Any others out there already planning their regimes? Anything to add?

hunkymonkey

A few factors I would look at in no particular order;
I presume that your doing a 4hrs+ spin on a sunday, so a reasonable base. Try and improve in Jan to 5hrs+, Feb & March 6hrs+.
If not too many hills in your area it is v important that ya get out on the windy days, as this can 'slightly' make up for a lack of hills.
After March is plenty of time to start doing hills, although only if your living in the central counties is it still relatively flat.
Get down to a reaonable weight, although there should a C in front of my username so I'm in no position to tell anyone to lose weight :-)
Enter Tour of the Glens (usually first Sunday in May, then Wicklow200. These should be good markers on whether you've been training well.
Sort out your nutrition in training, its always amazing how many people go on a trip like W200 and rely ont he stuff being handed out at the aid stations when they are going by shops every 10miles or so and don't stop off. Getting this part right is one of the main factors for the day, its quite simple, eat early and often and keep hydrated.

Getting your pacing for this type of event is crucial, but all of this can done in the lead up to it in March-July. Essentially keeping plenty in the tank for the Galibier & Alpe.

As regards training specifically, Hike up the front wheel of your turbo by putting plenty of books underneath it, start off handy enough and make it harder.
twenty min easy , twenty min moderate, twenty min hard.
These would be just general ideas, if I think of anything else, I'll let ya know.

Raam

@Tom: just make sure to factor in enough rest. Last thing you want is to burn out and loose motivation a month before the event. Best of luck with it

sy

niceonetom wrote: »

...
Racing. Just the club league. I haven't raced before and I don't expect to be any good at it, but I think I'll enjoy the cut and thrust of it,......

From the few times we met I know you will love it and excel at it.

Regarding the Mamotte was hoping to do it myself but suffering from a long term knee injury which I am getting hard to shake, so at the moment its all up in the air:(.
Sounds like a good plan of action and some good advice (also from hunkymokey) but as Raam said don't forget the rest periods.

niceonetom

Well, I've been reading a little about 'periodisation' so 3 weeks hard, 1 week easy, should give me enough of a break to prevent burnout. This whole plan is only in its infancy and is subject to wholesale change at no notice, so if what I laid out above seems a bit excessive you can content yourselves with the knowledge that I probably won't put all of it into action. Because it's hard and I am not. I will HTFU. I will HTFU. I will HTFU.

sy - your post reminds me of a very important component of my training that I'd omitted: Don't get injured. It's a hard one. I hope you get your knee sorted out and can get back on the bike. It would be great to see you tackle the alps.

ROK ON

With the amount of people here having a goal for next year being Marmotte, Etape, Raid etc. Would anyone be interested in say a training weekend cor boardsies around say Paddy day.

Just throwing suggestion. Could pick somewhere in Ireland and do say 3 tough 150k rides. Mini boards tour and or head abroad for a reasonably priced camp.

Goal for all is similar, build big endurance.
Open to feedback etc.

blorg

Dropping the weight is a big one, especially if you are reasonably fit already. Makes a big difference on those climbs. To take an example- honkjelly did the Marmotte significantly faster than me while I did the Boards 40km TT significantly faster than him. I imagine the difference there is the weight, certainly all day endurance has never been a problem for me.

For me this means trying to keep to my summer weight over this winter, NOT putting on 6.5kg like last year If I manage to keep to my summer weight (so far, so good) but still lose around the same amount as I did Mar-Jun last year as the season got underway this could see me under 70kg on the start line next year.

Other than that practice and prior experience of some of these climbs.

There will be a re-run of the Lumpy 200 audax event in January, could be worthwhile if the weather is good (I would not do this if it is raining, too much risk or injury/illness.) The Lumpy 200 is reputed to be a bit worse than the Wicklow 200 in terms of difficulty.

I will be aiming to go away somewhere warm for a week in February if possible. March is possibly getting a little late.

Marmotte was certainly the hardest day I have ever had on a bike.

Lumen

Speaking from ignorance since I haven't climbed a mountain for many years...

If training should be specific, then what specifically are you training for? I'd suggest that the key aspect is climbing long steep hills when knackered, or alternatively climbing long steep hills at endurance pace, perhaps 70% MHR/threshold power.

From personal experience I can sustain 80% for 3 hours (e.g. Tour of Louth), but then I'm done, so 70% sounds about right for a longer effort (my stats from longer sportives are unreliable due to stoppages). ISTR Ryan Sherlock posting that he'd managed something closer to threshold for four hours, so presumably these percentages can be shifted up by training/superhumanism.

I don't know whether you've planned your gearing yet, but 34/27 @ 60RPM gives 9.5kph. Not sure what your threshold is now, but if you train towards achieving a 300W threshold by the Marmotte, 70% of that is 210W, which might give you a little under 9kph @ 70kg @ 10% incline.

Point being, if the Marmotte includes extended climbing at 10%, you'd better be able to grind away without going near your threshold.

So, I'd include some training based on time, heart rate and cadence. Four hours, 60RPM, 140bpm, that sort of thing. The main adaption will be extended efforts at low cadence.

Also train to push your threshold power up, obviously. You may not want to attempt both training in the same period.

I'm sure Blorg, honkjelly et al can pull apart this theoretical nonsense - I admit that this may be a really bad plan.

TinyExplosions

niceonetom wrote: »

sy - your post reminds me of a very important component of my training that I'd omitted: Don't get injured. It's a hard one. I hope you get your knee sorted out and can get back on the bike. It would be great to see you tackle the alps.

It's the most important thing -a niggling injury on the run up to the Marmotte will ruin your year... it did mine

blorg

On the event itself I think you possibly need to hold back on the initial climb too and try to conserve as much energy as possible on the flat bits, getting into a group and resisting the temptation to push the pace. This means you will be going MUCH slower than you feel capable of.

My average HR for the Marmotte for what it's worth was 155 over 8h38 moving which is 78% of my max. I was stopped for around 45 minutes total. Obviously HR was much lower on the descents so this meant 168, 167, 156, 158 for the four climbs, in other words 84%, 84%, 78%, 79%. Note big drop-off from the first two to the second two. I think I might go faster overall if I reigned in the effort on the first two (and indeed the flat/gentle rise between the bottom of the Glandon and start of the Telegraph, I was at 156 there and jumping forward between groups.)

Most of the climbs are under 10%, 7% probably more typical, although there are a few steep sections at 10% or just over.

niceonetom

blorg wrote: »

On the event itself I think you possibly need to hold back on the initial climb too and try to conserve as much energy as possible on the flat bits, getting into a group and resisting the temptation to push the pace. This means you will be going MUCH slower than you feel capable of.

My average HR for the Marmotte for what it's worth was 155 over 8h38 moving which is 78% of my max. I was stopped for around 45 minutes total. Obviously HR was much lower on the descents so this meant 168, 167, 156, 158 for the four climbs, in other words 84%, 84%, 78%, 79%. Note big drop-off from the first two to the second two. I think I might go faster overall if I reigned in the effort on the first two (and indeed the flat/gentle rise between the bottom of the Glandon and start of the Telegraph, I was at 156 there and jumping forward between groups.)

Most of the climbs are under 10%, 7% probably more typical, although there are a few steep sections at 10% or just over.

Cheers blorg. That's exactly the kind of insight I appreciate.

Lumen

blorg wrote: »

168, 167, 156, 158 for the four climbs, in other words 84%, 84%, 78%, 79%....

Do you have a record of how much time you spent on those climbs?

blorg wrote: »

Most of the climbs are under 10%, 7% probably more typical, although there are a few steep sections at 10% or just over.

This says 5k ascent over 82k, which is 6% average. Averages mean little, obviously.

edit: apologies for my unqualified rambling, I may be interested in doing this too. When is entry?

niceonetom

Certainly avg gradients mean very little over climbs of that length. I couple of km of 13% doesn't bump the average enough to really sound scary but it's enough to cause to serious soul searching. Certainly that was my experience. It's not the heat it's the humidity; it's not the gradient it's the length.

6% after an hour of unrelenting climb feels like 15%+ anyway.

I think my training is going to have to involve some efforts of 1hr or more at 80%+. No breaks. We don't have the climbs to allow me to do that uphill so I can see some 40k timetrial kind of things being useful. Maybe deliberately overgearing during those efforts too to bring the cadence down...

That won't be for a while though. Base. Base. Base.

cormpat

Cheers Lads, thanks for all the advise, it's good to know. I do plan on upping the ante in the New Year with the Sunday spin, getting out for longer and increasing the km's. I'm training unscientific at the moment as the bike computer packed in and I'm waiting for my new Garmin 705 to come in the post, but I'm getting the one with the heart monitor and cadence sensor so at least now I'll have some KPI's to judge myself over the next couple of months to see if I'm improving.

I'm definitely going to ride the Wicklow200 in prep and hopefully a couple of other sportives before hand, but as I mentioned I'm studying part time and I will have exams around April/May so obviously around then the amount of time I can put in on the bike around then will suffer, so I just have to take it as it comes.

Raam

@Tom, perhaps you already have done this...
it is definitely worth coming up with a structured program for each week, on paper. Determine what each workout should consist of and stick to it.

Put the schedule in an obvious place where you will see it every day. Having something structured certainly helped me.

niceonetom

I haven't done that yet, but it's coming together in my mind before it goes on a chart. Still at the planning for planning stage, and trying to do a bit of research (like this at the moment). A lot of what I read is contradictory though, and I haven't enough experience to know what works for me. There will be a bit of trial and error and feeling my way in the dark; it's inevitable.

I don't think I really need to worry too much about having a really defined plan until the new year though. Then I can break it down into specific and defined phases. At the moment it's just about getting some miles in and enjoying it, and preparing to take it more seriously.

You did some very structured training last early season and it paid dividends, so I know that it's the way to go. A wall chart and highlighter pens. I'll be unstoppable.

Raam

I started structured training last Sunday. I've already skipped a session

AstraMonti

Marmotte is my target as well for this year. I am planning to take it really gently till christmas and build some core strength and flexibility, then start building up miles. I am actually reading two books for training at the moment, but i have no clue how can i structure my plan yet.

blorg

Very roughly:

1h30 on the Glandon
30 mins descending
45 mins "flat"/gentle rise to the base of the Telegraph
1h02 on the Telegraphe
very short fast descent to valloire, 6 minutes
1h43 on the Galibier
1h13 descent to Bourg
1h24 on the Alpe

This is HR by distance (note there is 5km of flat missing from the start before the Glandon, which was covered at a pretty fast pace, around 40km/h):



Another thing I did was sprint for all the peaks. I think I'd save that for the Alpe next year, feels good but probably counterproductive.

Low points were half-way up the Galibier and the start of the Alpe.

Caroline_ie

Thanks for that blorg ... i think i will only provide bidons assistance on that one
Seriously though - I hope I can do that in a few of years when i become a climber

Lumen

@Blorg: so lets call it 5:45 at 160bpm, plus some recovery.

ISTR you did the WW200 in 7 hours this year.

So maybe it's 80% MHR for 80% of WW200 time.

In my case, climbing at 155bpm for 7 hours. Easy peasy :pac:

I will be faster next year

blorg

Same graph for the WW200 in case it is of any interest for comparison. Both climbs and descents are shorter so it is a bit more consistent but average HR was very similar, 156 (78%). The spike to 220 at the start is a anomaly, my HR was not that high. I'd say the subsequent spikes to ~190 are right though. Removing the first spike doesn't seem to affect the average.



6:53 moving time. I was trying to do the WW200 as fast as possible. The Marmotte is a lot harder though, subjectively. I would have been in a bit better shape for it too I reckon.

I think doing it again I would try to keep it at/below maybe 165 (83%) on the climbs, particularly the initial ones. Keeping it below that would mean the average would be lower still, the 168 average on the Glandon included two or three short descents in the middle.

If you go into it feeling quite strong I think it's easy enough to use up too much in the initial stages, it is a long day. I think I made the same mistake on my first time trial, pacing is very important.

Caroline_ie

am i reading this right and your HR went up to 220bpm at the start .... and you lived?

bbosco

Sprint at the end?

blorg

Caroline_ie wrote: »

am i reading this right and your HR went up to 220bpm at the start .... and you lived?

Haha no, that was just the Garmin being Garmin. It sometimes happens at the start especially if there is a bit of wind, once it settles down it is accurate enough though I reckon (in terms of how it relates to perceived effort.)

There was a bit of a sprint at the end, I know the traffic light sequence well for the last bit so was trying to get through smoothly

Ryaner

Nice reading the reports of those doing this last year.

Myself and a mate have agreed to do this next year and are off in Spain during March for a week to see some of these hills. Every Tuesday morning, we are also found on 3 Rock getting in the hills.

I've also taken on Ryan Sherlock to "train" me and due to the CRC sale that has begun, I'll be picking up a power meter today.

What was mentioned about the weight is very true. I've knocked off about 15kg this year and it makes some difference on the climbs. Looking to drop another 10kg before the event in July too not including the 4-5kg I'll drop off my bike.

Lumen

Ryaner wrote: »

I've also taken on Ryan Sherlock to "train" me

Brilliant, nominative determinacy at its best. I'll be changing my boards name to Bradleyer right away.

LeoD

hunkymonkey wrote: »

I presume that your doing a 4hrs+ spin on a sunday, so a reasonable base. Try and improve in Jan to 5hrs+, Feb & March 6hrs+.

Is that 6hrs in a week or in one day??

I'm glad I never read anything on this website before I decided to do the Etape 12 months ago. The training regimes some of you are going through are off the scale and would scare anyone new to cycling from ever taking part in something like the Marmotte or the Etape. I don't want to sound like I know it all but I started training in Feb, doing flat 60km spins once a week if possible (I went for 2 or 3 test-the-water rides prior to Xmas and bonked on a flat 60km spin). I did my first 100km ride on Paddy's Day (flat again). I went to Kenmare for 3 days the weekend after Easter and had to get off the bike twice trying to get up the hills (had a 34-23 setup I think) but those few days brought me on a lot I reckon. For endurance I did the Tour of Sligo (my first 100 miler), Mick Byrne (160km), Wicklow 200 and Tour of Meath (160km and boring). I took part in around 6 league races which were probably the best thing I did (35-40km each). I live in Athlone so went to the Slieve Blooms twice in 6 months. Apart from the sportives, the longest rides I did were probably 80km/3hrs. As my advisor said, marathon runners don't run 26 miles in training so why would you do it on a bike. I upped the training rides to around 4 a week in May and June doing the 3 weeks on, 1 week 'off' approach. Went easy on the Mars bars and porter for 6 months also although I began to falter in the last 3 weeks (I reckon I drank more in those 3 weeks than I did in the previous 6 months - probably got langers 3 times in those last few weeks). Anyway, off to France and did the Etape in 7hrs30m (Ventoux in 2hrs) which I thought was respectable enough for a first time effort. Maybe that approach just suited me, I don't know but I'm considering doing the Marmotte myself this year (which I appreciate is more difficult than this year's Etape) and I can tell you now that at a max I will do 6x100mile rides between now and then.

cormpat

Hi Leo,

I appreciate what you're saying, that it can be done without turning yourself into some sort of machine, but your time will suffer if you want to do a quick time.
There's a great blog about training for the Marmotte by this English Bloke in Surrey - not none for it's Alpine Peaks!
http://marmotte2009.blogspot.com/
He basically lists out his training plan and his weight loss programme, and like yourself last year he doesn't seem to go nuts training. He's not a Michael Rasmussen clone when it comes to the weight issue & he completed it in under 9 hrs! (I'd be over the moon with this time).

I would like to be able to ride 200km fairly comfortably before I get to France next summer, do a good few sportives; Wicklow 200, Tour of Sligo etc. and I want to get the weight down in January (I'm 12st 7lb now, get it down to about 11st in the new year).

I going to use his training plan as a guide for my own, check it out it's worth a look.

LeoD

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't exactly 'happy go lucky' either. I started at around 14st 6 in Feb and was around 12st 10 in July. Basically all I'm saying is that three 2hr rides in a week are better than one 6hr ride. I just read most of that guy's blog and after all the preparation he put into it I think he was mad heading to France on Thursday and only doing 45mins on a bike over there before the event itself. I think getting there a few days beforehand to put a few mountain miles in the legs does wonders. This year we went to France on Wednesday, did Ventoux on Thursday (couldn't get over how hard it was and feared the worst for the Etape), did Alpe d'Huez on Friday (felt really good, getting into the swing of climbing solidly for 1hr), did a rolly 80km ride with a lunch halfway on Saturday, did around 20km on Sunday and did the Etape on Monday and found Ventoux much easier (relatively) than the previous Thursday - only stopped once at Chalet Reynard to fill the bottles. Whatever training you do beforehand, I'd recommend getting out there a few days beforehand to climatise the legs to the mountains.

hunkymonkey

LeoD wrote: »

Is that 6hrs in a week or in one day??

Not really sure why the two question marks. The event is an 8hrs++ ride. If someone is planning to do the Marmotte, do it well and still enjoy it, taking into account the weather conditions that could happen on the day, i'd say this is quite a reasonable approach.

What your training for is a long day in the saddle. If someone hasn't had any experience of long distance cycling its important to gradually increase the mileage, so that the body adapts to fuelling needs as well as muscular adaptations.

Biggest limiter in someone new to distance cycling is aerobic endurance, which can be improved quite quickly.

LeoD wrote: »

I'm glad I never read anything on this website before I decided to do the Etape 12 months ago. The training regimes some of you are going through are off the scale and would scare anyone new to cycling from ever taking part in something like the Marmotte or the Etape.

There is nothing relatively difficult with doing the Etape or Marmotte, especially if ya have any experience of cycling. This years Etape wasn't that hilly for the first 145K but still a stiff test. If someone has any history of cycling, this will dramatically improve their ability to cycle for long distance, due to their better ability to pace themselves.

LeoD wrote: »

As my advisor said, marathon runners don't run 26 miles in training so why would you do it on a bike.

Not sure what the relevance of the running is to cycling, completely different sport. Runners limit their high mileage due to the increased likelihood of lower limb injuries and increased time for recovery. If given a chance, majority of runners would increase their LSD mileage up to and beyond the marathon distance. This is not the case in cycling, its mainly due to time restrictions due to family, social and occupational commitments.

On another note, there are many ways to train for any event e.g. "high intensity & low volume" Vs "high volume & low intensity" and everything in-between. What works for some, mightn't work for others. But in people new to distance cycling, especially with hills, its important to build it up gradually.

Lumen

cormpat wrote: »

There's a great blog about training for the Marmotte by this English Bloke in Surrey - not none for it's Alpine Peaks!
http://marmotte2009.blogspot.com/. He basically lists out his training plan and his weight loss programme, and like yourself last year he doesn't seem to go nuts training.

Interesting read.

He started 6 months out on a plan of 6.5 hours a week, and peaked at over 12 hours a week before the taper. That's a not insignificant amount of training. It was also his second Marmotte.

I love the bit where he measures his threshold power just before the event, expecting 300W, and comes up disappointed at 260W "although I am not sure that this was really representative and would guess it is closer to 285w". Yeah, because computers lie. Never ask questions you don't want the answers to!

niceonetom

No one who is training for the Marmotte should have any fear of a 6 hour ride in Ireland. By April/May I'd be looking to do one a week.

Raam

Just to add to the mix: some people like training on a bike, so they do lots
The Marmotte/Etape is their excuse to get out on the bike, as if an excuse was ever needed.

cormpat

LeoD wrote: »

I'd recommend getting out there a few days beforehand to climatise the legs to the mountains.

I'm heading out the week before hand and will ride the full course over two days to see what I've let myself in for!

Ryaner

Raam wrote: »

Just to add to the mix: some people like training on a bike, so they do lots
The Marmotte/Etape is their excuse to get out on the bike, as if an excuse was ever needed.

Its the excuse to buy more cycling gear!
Or an extra push to go out and do 3+ hours on days like Sunday

TinyExplosions

hunkymonkey wrote: »

There is nothing relatively difficult with doing the Etape or Marmotte, especially if ya have any experience of cycling. This years Etape wasn't that hilly for the first 145K but still a stiff test. If someone has any history of cycling, this will dramatically improve their ability to cycle for long distance, due to their better ability to pace themselves.

While that may be the case for the Etape (depending on the route), it's a very different beast for the Marmotte. Simply put, it's not for someone with very little experience of cycling. It's probably the toughest one day event out there, and you need to put in the work to get around it ok. It is doable if you have a training plan, but you definitely can't just rock up and do it on the day

stopped_clock

cormpat wrote: »

I'm heading out the week before hand and will ride the full course over two days to see what I've let myself in for!

Do some of the other climbs in the area instead. There's so much there that it'd be a shame to miss out on it by duplicating routes if you only have the week. Also, as has been posted elsewhere, there's a lot of the Marmotte route which really isn't all that nice when the roads aren't closed - dual carriageways and the like.

Also have a look at doing the Vaujany (sp?) which is on the previous Saturday. Annual leave etc permitting, I'll be there for the week myself too.

Diarmuid

stopped_clock wrote: »

Also, as has been posted elsewhere, there's a lot of the Marmotte route which really isn't all that nice when the roads aren't closed - .

AFAIK La Marmotte is run on open roads

cormpat

stopped_clock wrote: »

Do some of the other climbs in the area instead. There's so much there that it'd be a shame to miss out on it by duplicating routes if you only have the week.

I'm heading out with http://www.tourdoisans.com the Sunday before hand. I think the itinerary is to ride the route over the Monday & Tuesday, and do some other climbs as well, so I'm at mercy of the group. I've never been to the Alps before so I'll be pretty excited to climb any hill.

Diarmuid

cormpat wrote: »

I've never been to the Alps before so I'll be pretty excited to climb any hill.

Climbing in the Alps is great. You suffer for hours on end. Pass signs telling you that you have 1500m left to reach the top. Views are great when you get a chance to look up and the descents will scare the pants off you.

cormpat

Diarmuid wrote: »

Climbing in the Alps is great. You suffer for hours on end. Pass signs telling you that you have 1500m left to reach the top. Views are great when you get a chance to look up and the descents will scare the pants off you.

Well, it seemed like a good idea when I was booking it.....

hunkymonkey

TinyExplosions wrote: »

While that may be the case for the Etape (depending on the route), it's a very different beast for the Marmotte. Simply put, it's not for someone with very little experience of cycling. It's probably the toughest one day event out there, and you need to put in the work to get around it ok. It is doable if you have a training plan, but you definitely can't just rock up and do it on the day

Alright Tiny,

I wouldn't think that the the Etape and Marmotte differ by that much (i.e. a different beast). Both entail climbing a lot over a long distance.

As for the Marmotte probably being the toughest, its only as hard as ya wanna push yourself. I've had tougher times climbing Sally Gap because I've been chasing hard as opposed to climbing the Galibier. If doing it on your own or in a group taking it at a handy pace, ya'll get around with little training, once ya've experience at doing long distance. Thats not to say that ya'll enjoy it. As for a newbie doing it, I've already said what I thought about that.

There is always something 'tougher', I'm sure there are plenty more trips tougher than the one below, its 276k & over 7k of climbing.
AlpenBrevet Platin
http://www.alpenbrevet.ch/2009/index.php?pid=seite_strecken_platin.php
One of the climbs is on pave, really nice. But again, it ain't any different to Marmotte, just longer
As I say, its all relative.

Lumen

niceonetom wrote: »

Certainly avg gradients mean very little over climbs of that length. I couple of km of 13% doesn't bump the average enough to really sound scary but it's enough to cause to serious soul searching. Certainly that was my experience. It's not the heat it's the humidity; it's not the gradient it's the length.

6% after an hour of unrelenting climb feels like 15%+ anyway.

I think my training is going to have to involve some efforts of 1hr or more at 80%+. No breaks. We don't have the climbs to allow me to do that uphill so I can see some 40k timetrial kind of things being useful. Maybe deliberately overgearing during those efforts too to bring the cadence down...

That won't be for a while though. Base. Base. Base.

Thought I'd resurrect this one, as the other Marmotte thread is ongoing and I'm interested in the training, not so much for this year (since I'm not doing it) but as a 2011 target.

I'm still attempting to get my head around Blorgs's climbing HR stats earlier in this thread, which were around 160bpm sustained average on every climb (from which I subtract 5bpm for my age/conditioning to give 155bpm).

This is basically solid, unremitting, low cadence tempo pace for over 5 hours, albeit split over a handful of distinct climbs, and is way harder than any extended group spin I've ever been on, excluding the relatively short climbs we get in Wicklow.

I'm not even sure I could even manage two hours straight of that without bonking or chucking the bike into a ditch.

Even hill repeats seem to lack specificity, what with all the breaks for descents.

The usual boardsie spins (which are tougher than the few club spins I've done) are not even close in terms of average HR, tending to be under 140, even when we're pushing on a bit.

Have any of you Marmotters started specific training yet?

ROK ON

Well if your HR on spins is below 140 at least thank your lucky stars that it is not closer to my 155 avg.

As regard training. I am going with sustained repeats of every local hill on my training rides to build up to a 100km ride with 50km of climbing at 8%m
There is a horrible 7k climb near where I live. 3 over and backs would give me 50km of climbing with and alt gain of 2580m.
Obviously I get to recuperate on the 6descents.
I haven't done it yet because the road was destroyed in the recent cold snap.

niceonetom

Did 40mins of 165 to 170 BPM on the turbo last night, most of it at about 80rpm, which is lower than I usually allow on the turbo.

Psychologically speaking I find that much harder to do than a structured interval workout or even 2x20 session at higher workload. 40mins is still nowhere near enough, but on the turbo it feels a LOT longer.

Marmotte specific training will have to be done alone I think - group-spin pace varies too much to give sustained periods at the right hr/power.

Caroline_ie

Hills reps after work and long weekend spins... i am sh!t at hills, but I am patient ... atm tho, just turbo to get back in the swing of things. Real training will start next week

Ryaner

I'm out on Tuesday mornings doing repeats of 3Rock. Its really quite pretty in pitch black, honest
Also doing other climbing and power drills as well as increasing the overall mileage. Done more cycling in the last 3 months than I did during the 3 months of last summer.

Oh and losing lots of weight. Both on me and my bike.