Change to my Training Philosophy for Ultra-Distance Cycling

Following on from the last blog where I talked about high cadence pedalling, I wanted to share how I’ve adapted & made a change my training philosophy for ultra-distance cycling, following a traumatic brain injury.

Back in December 2022, I went for a bike ride in Fort Worth, TX. I woke up 5 days later in intensive care, without a clue how I’d got there. I’d suffered a brain haemorrhage – I won’t go into any more details, but it was hellishly unpleasant. I’ve broken my back before & that wasn’t as unpleasant as this has been. A broke bone is a visible injury, where the recovery process is generally linear – it’s pretty clear what you can/can’t do & the timescale associated. A brain injury is invisible & there is no set recovery time. Coping during a time of uncertainty, where the answer is always ‘I don’t know, it depends’ has tested my patience beyond measure.

I found consistency really tough in the early stages of this injury. The nature of a brain trauma is such that the effects of sleep/stress/exertion are all amplified. You don’t know what you can/can’t do till you’ve done it & your brain tells you it didn’t like that – the effects are delayed. If I over stimulate, it can be painful – in the form of light headedness & migraines, feeling nauseous & weak. It’s not physical pain like ‘ouch that hurts’, where you know within seconds if you can or can’t manage it – no, this is a deep, dull unreachable pain, which manifests itself inside your brain. You can’t put ice on it, you can’t distract from it – all you can do is take medication to suppress it. And even that creates more problems than it solves.

So now that I’ve explained the ugly nature of a head injury & now that your heart is bleeding with sympathy for me, allow me to explain what I’m doing about it!

Stress, lack of sleep & exertion all result in a high heart rate – and it is that which causes me problems during this recovery phase. Its not nearly as bad as I type this in September as it was back in January. Back then I couldn’t work, could barely move, had to avoid any social setting – basically avoid anything that could raise my heart rate. Now I can work, I can think, I can exercise & do everything I’d call normal without too much trouble – although I’m still very mindful of over exertion, simply because it’s taken me 10 months to get to where I am.

I spent a lot of time educating myself in the early part of this recovery period. Sitting down, in my quiet office & reading was one of the few things I could do that didn’t raise my HR. I figured if I couldn’t ride myself better, I’d learn how to ride myself better; to help me understand my body & how I can rebuild myself back stronger. This injury & setback it caused has opened up a window of opportunity for me to learn & in turn, rethink my training philosophy for ultra-distance cycling. I understand now why periodised training is adopted by many, using macro cycles & intensity/volume distribution to stress different training zones in the body to generate overall improvements.

Background

I’ve always liked high cadence pedalling, let’s get that out there first. But, in liking high cadence, I realise I’ve never actually done ‘zone 2’ specific training – which is quite astonishing for an ultra-distance endurance athlete. I’ll start by saying zone 2 training is actually hard work! I’ve always considered endurance riding just riding a long way & enduring it. If that means hills, even better. Over the years I’ve fine-tuned my technique & bike set up choices to enable a high cadence technique. I find this helps me keep my legs spinning longer and fatiguing less. It does however mean my heart rate fluctuates a lot during rides. I guess this is my mountain bike style translating across all my riding. Therefore, what I’ve always done is effectively fartlek training; steady riding on the flat (Z2-ish), tempo up the hills (Z3+), then rest on the descents (Z0/1).

The more I read & learn during this current setback period, the more I understand that whilst this is a good session – its neither a tempo session, nor a zone 2 session. Whilst it always felt like a good ride, measured by how much it hurt afterwards – it never actually stimulated the system I wanted it too. It also prevented me from training consistently. When building a base in winter, that requires high volume & low intensity. One cannot be done without the other – at least as an amateur with moderate fitness & recovery levels.  

In this adapted training philosophy for ultra-distance cycling, I’m also finding that recovery is so much quicker, meaning I can go again the next day without stiffness. Who knew, when you actually do endurance riding in the endurance zone, as written by the professionals, magic happens. Maybe all this reading about science I’ve done lately is actually working! It’s certainly showing me that quality of a session is better than quantity. When building an aerobic base, it’s better to generate stimulus from two decent Z2 60km (2/3hour) rides, where the lower stress on the body means it can be repeated on consecutive days. This better structured approach enables consistency & stimulates the correct system according to the current mesocycle. That’s not to say that riding at tempo is a bad thing, it’s more about timing. Hitting out 90km at tempo stresses high intensity systems, which isn’t ideal during a high-volume endurance block – and therefore training three systems in the same session, as I was doing, isn’t very productive either!

Development

I guess where I’m going with this post is that training in the right zone is of critical importance to me at the moment. High HR isn’t great for my brain, increased blood flow feels like high pressure inside my head – that, and lack of sleep/rest are the two main agitators right now. I have to keep my HR within Z2 as much as possible to minimise headaches, migraines & light headedness. For 6 months I’ve been unable to train at anything above zone 2. I find myself having to adjust to a high torque/low cadence pedalling technique to keep my HR down.

At first, I found this new pedalling technique to be tedious & slow. Almost painful. Going uphill felt more like a gym session – each uphill pedal stroke felt like a leg press exercise. I’ve always aspired to generate that ‘endless perfect circles’ feeling – this felt quite the opposite. It felt like I was back on a mountain bike, with flat pedals again, stomping & squashing the pedals each time. It took a while to adapt to this – especially having lost a lot of weight; with it, a lot of aerobic fitness & strength. I was asking my legs to be strong, when in reality, they were at their weakest. I was in disbelief that all the gains I’d made during 2022 now felt a distance memory. Accepting this was tough.

Removing any races from my 2023 calendar was a difficult but smart decision. I’ve had no ’goals’ other than to ‘just ride’ again. Its allowed me to be process oriented, get better in a sustainable way – rather than having to get better by a certain date. That only leads to cutting corners.

Training Philosophy

My mindset has shifted from needing to get so many hours in per week, needing to get such a distance done on a long ride, or needing to get so much uphill efforts. Whilst those things are important, its also important not to get overly obsessed with it. In the past I’ve gotten really stressed about missing a day of training & wondering how I’ll fit that in with the remaining time left that week. It doesn’t work, it never works. All you end up doing is overloading your body & brain by worrying about it. One missed training session will not affect your year – what will affect your year is doing too many sessions, at too high intensity, with insufficient recovery. This ‘gap year’ has allowed me to learn & understand this.

My training philosophy for ultra-distance cycling is now focussed on intensity distribution. A typical week would consist of as much easy riding as possible; one session with efforts, one long ride.

I could define easy rides by HR as <125bpm. Or, in layman’s terms, as boring & effortless! It’s the kind of ride where you can talk without going out of breath. How does this help, I hear you ask. Good question. If its boring & effortless, then it will require very little recovery time – meaning you can do significantly more of it. High volume, low intensity.

The other thing for me to add, as an ultra-distance cyclist, is how that is fuelled. For simplicity, let me say that the higher the intensity & higher the HR, the more glycogen your body will require as a fuel source. It’s a little more complex & differs between individuals, but for simplicity’s sake, let’s leave it at that.

For me, a zone 2 ride would aim to be at 130-140bpm. The thing with this is, when I come to a slight incline (they’re everywhere in Yorkshire!), my HR will creep above 140. Whilst <150bpm would still have me in zone 2, it’s getting towards the top end of zone 2. I will be burning more glycogen at this stage.

Where I’m going with this, is the lower I can keep my HR, the lower my rate of perceived exertion will be. The lower I can get my HR on easy rides, the lower it’ll be on zone 2 rides – meaning my glycogen stores will remain intact for when I actually need them i.e. a big uphill effort. The goal for me is to have my body using fat as a primary fuel source for the flat & easy bits, then carbs when the going gets tough.

Intensity distribution & volume is key. The goal of my training philosophy for ultra-distance cycling is to make long rides feel as effortless as possible. That is to say, for the same level of effort on 200km rides, my speed should increase throughout my training. In practice, I achieve this by increasing the volume of low intensity rides to bring my HR down on easy rides. This ‘trains’ my body & metabolism to utilise fat as a fuel source – leaving my CHO stores ‘untouched’. I will then do high intensity efforts to maintain/increase vo2 max. By doing the easy, easier, the hard can be done harder.

I should stress here, 2023 has been a ‘f*ck about and find out’ year. I’m neither a nutritionist, nor a qualified cycling coach. This is my thoughts & not sports science advice! I’m currently taking advice from Rich Rothwell at Advance Cycle Coaching.

Put into Practice

For context, imagine riding for 20hours a day & needing to eat enough simple carbs to sustain it. It’ll probably be the equivalent of eating a pastry every hour. I like pastries, especially cinnamon swirls, but I reckon 20 a day wouldn’t be the most well-balanced or healthy diet. I’m a big believer in a whole foods diet, I think its crucial on ultra-distance rides to maintain macro & micro nutrient intake – a diet of simple carbs, gels etc. is not going to achieve that. In my experience, it leaves me feeling full, bloated & sickly. Therefore, my goal is to change my riding style to accommodate a diet that works for me on ultra-distance riding.

How do I do this? currently, I’m experimenting with fasted & low intensity rides, whilst eating a diet high in fibre, fats & protein. I eat simple carbs when I need them i.e., on higher intensity days. When the glucose levels run low, triglycerides (stored fat) become oxidized and release fatty acids, which are broken down releasing Adenosine Triphosphate. Glucose can be utilized quickly, both that in the blood stream & that stored in liver/muscles in the form of glycogen. Whereas the fat conversion process (lipid metabolism), is a much slower process – however the difference in calories per gram is astronomical. 9 calories/gram from fat vs 4 calories/gram for carbohydrate. So yeah, its no wonder you’d have to eat 20 pastries!

Here, the Left picture shows what I’d like my body to do after exercise – drop into a relaxed state, quickly. Whereas the right picture shows the body staying in fight or flight mode, a high stress state for an excessively long period post exercise. After the left picture, my resting heart rate was lower & time in deep sleep higher – whereas after the right, my body is more restless, hence higher light sleep & higher resting heart rate.

When training according to HR, it’s important to remember HR is a measure of the body’s response to a given workload; it can be different every day. There are so many factors that affect HR, meaning it’s tricky to compare data between multiple days where a similar workload occurs.

This newly adopted training philosophy for ultra-distance cycling; making easy rides easy, also means making harder rides harder! Because I’m not adding adding fatigue to my legs on easy rides, they should be better able to work harder when I ask them to. Training should not be measured by soreness each day – I have to remind myself of this on a daily basis!

The fundamental principle of endurance training means I do have to do long rides. But one per week is plenty sufficient. I used to obsess about doing as many long rides as I could – thinking if I want to ride ultra-distance, I must train by riding ultra-distance. That only ever did more harm than good. The body needs recovery time, it’s no use doing 100mile on Saturday & repeating on a Sunday, unless part of planned training – even then, it should only be done in the ‘specificity’ macro-cycle – after the bulk of ‘base’ & the ‘build’ work is done.

Accumulated fatigue happens in ultra-distance riding, due to the very nature of it, but training that way week in week out will only lead to muscle soreness, mental burnout & likely, injury. The idea of easy riding is that you don’t accumulate fatigue daily. In summary; majority easy (easy = slow & boring), occasional uphill efforts (hard = super hard!), one long ride per week. Simple, easy to maintain. After all, the best training plan is the one you can maintain!