My Taupo Cycle Challenge Training Programme.

I have printed out the Leppin Sport training programme for beginners. It can be found here. I am going to use it as a guide and put in bits that I think will help me. I am not sure that I will be able to keep up with it. Ten and a half hours in the seventeenth week but we will see.There are just twenty one weeks to go.
I jokingly said that the two things that killed me in the Challenge were the distance and the hills,but of course that is exactly right. My training will then concentrate on distance, hills and cadence. There are about fifteen major hills on the challenge course,for me that is.The pros won't even notice them. Click to see the big picture.












Hill Training.
Train on hills so that you are no longer scared of them.Make hills a challenge and enjoy them. I am going to mix up my hill training. Some shorter hills will be ridden at just about max HR while others I will do many rep. intervals on, and will also try to find long hills as well. I will spend more time on hills than the programme guide suggests.

Distance Training.I think that I have been doing my distance training at too high a heart rate. The recommendation that HR should be between 60% and 75% of max. Do the talk test. I must however try to get up to 160 ks at least once.

Zone E2. (General Aerobic Endurance) 75-84%MHR
While this is an important zone for training in to build an increase in muscle glycogen storage, you''ll need to be careful spending time in this zone. It’s sometime referred to as “no-man’s land” or “temp riding” as you are riding too fast to build your aerobic base but too slow to develop your V02MAX and lactate threshold. The result of spending too much time in this zone is that you’ll get home feeling tired but not have really improved your fitness.

Cadence

Keep cadence at a comfortable level,not to high and not too low.Should be above 80 though. You have to find what is best for you. I found by increasing my cadence I have been pedaling much more smoothly. My left ankle used to be a bit stiff,and that trouble seems to have disappeared altogether.I used to be a sprint cyclist so cadence was no problem but I seemed to have got into bad habits.I can still raise my cadence for short bursts up to 160 rpm.Low cadence uses fast twitch muscles and high cadence uses slow switch muscles.Seems odd to me. Sprinters have a preponderance of fast twitch muscle fibres.

In the run up to the Comrades marathon way back in the 1980's a runner made a bet that he would run the race which is close to 90ks with just eight ks training a day. He finished in a very good time. Its the quality of training that is important and not the amount.