what kind of training?

pelliven

Hi lads, I was thinking of doing the charity ring of kerry cycle this year which is 112miles(179km):eek:. is this an achievable goal for an unfit newbie.bought a felt95 on the bike to work late last year but has had little use so far. so my question is what kind of distances and frequencies should i be doing to start with and when and by how much should i increase them. Thanks in advance for eny replies

Seweryn

pelliven wrote: »

Hi lads, I was thinking of doing the charity ring of kerry cycle this year which is 112miles(179km):eek:. is this an achievable goal for an unfit newbie.bought a felt95 on the bike to work late last year but has had little use so far. so my question is what kind of distances and frequencies should i be doing to start with and when and by how much should i increase them. Thanks in advance for eny replies

Just get on yer bike and use it, simple as .

On my own example, as a newbie - I never trained for any of the events. I got on my bike and started cycling regularly, i.e. I commute to work five days per week (that is what the Bike To Work Scheme is for, remember ), averaging say 53 up to 70km per day. That should be enough to complete an event like you mentioned without any specific "training".

pelliven

Thanks seweryn for the quick response.thought there would be a more structured approach to getting to that kind of distance:o. will get started in the morning.cheers

Captain Havoc

Yes, very achievable. Baby steps, bring your weekly distance up to 200km by June. By the end of June your longest cycle should be about 120km. Increase your spins by about 5km or 5% - 10% every week, so if your longest spin this week is now 30km next week make it 35km, after that 40km etc... Unless you're intending on racing don't bamboozle yourself with figures. Make the ROK your goal. I would also recommend joining a cycling club as there'll be guys there that'll have good practical advice. It's also very important that you enjoy it, the sense of achievement can be taken away if you go through a lot of pain, basically what I'm saying is, if you do the ROK in much pain, you'll probably drop the bike after it which isn't good in the long run as you've a very nice bike and bikes are happiest when on the road, they don't really like being locked in sheds.

Seweryn

pelliven wrote: »

Thanks seweryn for the quick response.thought there would be a more structured approach to getting to that kind of distance:o. will get started in the morning.cheers

No worries .

There are specific training schedules and just after a quick search I listed some links below for you. But from my own perspective, I would not be able to follow any of these. I would just ride the bike while listening to my body and making sure I do not overstretch myself too much too soon.

http://www.trainingbible.co.uk/uploads/resource/71/TrainingforCyclosportives.pdf

http://roadcyclinguk.com/riding/your-first-sportive-part-7-creating-a-training-plan.html

http://wattbike.com/uk/guide/training_plans/sportive

Good Luck and enjoy the ride.

joxerjohn

+1 on Cap Havoc's advice, re building up to it over the weeks from now leading up to the ROK. You could also look to to do a few sportives of a lesser distance typically 100 km or so before tackling the ROK itself.

In my experience of doing the ROK 180 km is quite a long way and a lot of guys, who may not have done that much training, were feeling it after the climb to Coom-a-Ciste which is just at about the half way stage a liitle short of the 100km distance marker.

They say you should have worked up to being comfortable at least 80% of the target distance, so that's 180km * 80% = 144 km, the last 20% will not then not a problem for you on the day.

Another way of thinking about it is in terms of time so at avg speed of say 24/25 km/h, you want to build up to being able to do a ride of about 6 hours duration. On the day at that pace your total riding time will be about 7.5/8 hours not including breaks.

If the weather is good you'll enjoy it, and it's a really great achievement so go for and let us know how your training and build up goes !