prudentialridelondon.co.uk PRUDENTIAL RIDELONDON // 55

PRL // Training

The advanced programme is designed for the club/experienced rider. Choose this

plan if you ride regularly for several hours but want to improve your fitness, speed and endurance.

You can then tackle the 2017 Prudential RideLondon-Surrey 100 with the confidence to set your target time or be able to ride with a specific group of friends/club mates.

This programme is designed to gradually increase your ability in all areas to ensure you fully enjoy your 100-mile ride as well as setting you up for a great performance on the day.

ProgressionProgression is key to your training. Without it you will be putting in a lot of work to ‘stand still’. You will see from the plan that each week is a little harder than the previous one; it’s the same for each four-week block. Don’t think too far ahead, just take it one week at a time.

RecoveryGood recovery is the key to improving your fitness. As you can see, each fourth week is an easy one – a recovery week. You will also need to get used to post-ride recovery, maybe a bit more sleep, perhaps a bit of planning about your lifestyle. This will become more important as the rides get longer.

TestThe idea of a regular test is to see what improvements you have made. So you will complete an initial test at the end of week one to set a benchmark and then you will perform the same test again at the end of each ‘recovery’ week. This should be a ride of around 60 minutes, on a route without too many stops like traffic lights

or right turns, something that you can easily repeat each time. Take your exact time for each test ride and compare them. It’s not a race, you should ride at your normal pace, after all, that’s what we are trying to improve.

If you are using power and would rather do a 20-minute functional threshold power (FTP) test that’s fine but remember this is about your improvements over 16 weeks not absolute numbers, and don’t compare indoor and outdoor tests.

Sweet SpotsThe idea of ‘sweet spots’ is to help add a bit of speed to your riding. So on Tuesdays (where indicated) put in a one-minute ‘burst’ every 15 minutes (after a 30-minute warm-up), this should be close to a flat-out effort but not quite a sprint. On Thursdays it’s five minutes every 30 minutes, this time a little above normal effort, enough to make you breathe hard.

Try riding these sweet spots one gear higher with the same cadence, or ride a gradual climb without changing gear. Doing these at set times means that the terrain will vary, which is also important – don’t only do them on the ‘easy bits’.

Nutrition: the two-hour ruleYou can ride for around two hours on glycogen, which is the fuel stored in your blood. After that your body will switch to breaking down fuel from other sources.

This means two things. Firstly, if you are not used to this it can create a low point, a quite deep feeling of fatigue. So when you ride for more than two hours you will be training your body (and your mind) to cope with this changeover. Secondly, it highlights the importance of eating and drinking little and often and starting to do so before you feel hungry or thirsty.

ADVANCEDPLAN

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Pru

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