My desire is to be competitive at DK200, so with that said, is it normal to feel tired from 5-7 hour rides? I mean, I am not completely trashed but it is very daunting at 5.5 hours to think you are only half way. For sure do not feel overcompensated for this like I usually do for other events like typical road race and crits; or am I missing the consistent weekly load as covering that? Obviously new to this ultra-endurance thing. I know that fresh legs and a race number will help and there is still about 9 weeks left to ramp up.
I plan on continuing into the gravel plan from the current base plan and see a couple 7 hour gravel simulation rides so perhaps I should bump those to 9 or 10 hours, just don’t want to test the batter too much before the cake is done. I will also do BWR as another simulation.
I just did a 5 hour ride this weekend and feel smashed myself. And honesty not too much different from when I did an 11 hour ride last year. The 5 hour ride was a lot more intense than the 11 hour ride and that is why. Intensity factor of .68 compared to .83. Plus for me it was my first long one since last year, not sure if it was for you as well. But you do a few more long simulation rides between now and then and you will feel better. Still have 11 weeks.
Also I may not have been as good with my nutrition, well I know I wasn’t. But this is the time to start making good habits. Bars > blocks > gels or as the FasCat Gravel team will do GU stroops > chews > Roctane Gels . Keeping up on water and electrolytes. So look back at what you did. Was it enough? Did you feel hungry or thirsty at any point? If you did it was probably not enough. Every 30 minutes should be eating something.
There is no easy way to complete Kanza and you will feel smashed afterwards. You will have to make sure you do pace yourself somewhat. Know your limits and you will have a better idea through these simulation rides.
FasCat had two great podcast I believe about Kanza with riders who have done it. Amity Rockwell who won the women’s race talks about her pacing strategy and how it paid off.
Peter Stetnia talks about how hard those last few miles are for everyone, even the ones up front.
So just keep #FtFP’ing and you will show up to the start line ready to ride, finish and compete!
Thanks for sharing your experience Jake, will listen to those for sure. Definitely no stranger to volume (I do 15-20 hour weeks - advanced plan plus a little extra Z1/Z2) and nutrition is good (I think bars will be tough to eat outside of check points?) . No doubt this will be a hard event and fully expect to be trashed, was just more thinking that 5.5 hours should feel pretty easy, like you just got started, if I expect to go 11 hours and I was only going 75% of planned pace. Road and track never made me anxious as I always went longer and harder in training so this is a different mindset for sure.
Maybe it is more because of the total block’s load and not tapered.
Don’t know about you but I have surprisedly recovered well. After I finished all I could think about was the Vo2 max efforts I had scheduled today. Even as of yesterday my legs were still sore. But some good yoga, foundation work, #winninginthekitchen and I recovered well and ‘breezed’ through the efforts. Ready for the next big simulation weekend.
Nice. Today was a little off, time change or fighting something? Hopefully this is our last time change.
Usually following days are fine, like I was always fine stage racing, it’s more of a in the moment thing. I guess early season long rides feel hard and tend to get easier by like April, will just have to push that limit a little further this season and hope for the same effect.
Agree on the yoga and stretching/foundation, that stuff is great! They say that stretching does not affect recovery but I could not disagree more. There is another program out there i like that I also use daily called dynamic cyclist.
. Keeping up on water and electrolytes. So look back at what you did. Was it enough? Did you feel hungry or thirsty at any point? If you did it was probably not enough. Every 30 minutes should be eating something.