I have been fortunate to do several long distance trips by bike, including the USA West Coast, Milan to Prague and Perth to Sydney. For my most recent big adventure, we (my wife and I) cycled from Barcelona to Helsinki, covering 5,500km in 4 months. As well as the incredible scenery, food and people, I had lots of time to compare the long, steady days of touring to my usual training and racing back home. And although touring and training seem at opposite ends of the cycling spectrum, I was able to draw quite a few parallels between the two.
A goal is key
Our trip took 18 weeks. We had a record heatwave in France and rain every day in Switzerland. We met many generous people and were robbed in Germany. Essentially, it was a roller coaster, from day to day and sometimes even within the same day. But making it to Helsinki was never in doubt. When the going was tough, we had a firm goal to keep us motivated and on track. It gave us purpose and direction in more ways than one. Helsinki was much more than a point on a map, it represented finishing what we started.
A goal should stretch you, and that means some days will be tough. You will have ups and downs, but if you have truly committed to your goal, you’ll find ways to get the job done and stay on track. You also need to make sure to enjoy the process. Don’t become so caught up in your goal that you forget to look around!
Have a plan, but be flexible
It sounds like a contradiction and perhaps it is, but bear with me. Our trip didn’t happen without a bucket load of planning. However, some of the best parts of our trip were because of changes we made along the way. Some, like having our tent stolen, were forced upon us. Others, like changing our route because locals had told us about a beautiful place, were choices. Yes, we had a detailed plan, but we weren’t so tied to it that we were unwilling to change it for the better.
Having a goal and a clear plan on how to get there is vital. However, rarely is the pathway to a goal a straight line. Over the course of a training plan things are going to change. Work and family commitments, illness or injury will require you to reassess and adjust.
The best athletes are resilient and determined, but they also have the ability to cope with change. I have prepared riders for some crazy, ultra endurance events where, despite the best planning, chances are things are going to go wrong. Having a flexible mindset during training helps them to apply that mentality to their event and focus on solutions rather than stress over things not going perfectly to plan. I also believe the more physically prepared you are for an event, the more capacity you have to cope with the unexpected come race day.
Remember your goal, but be humble. Be open to change and prepared to listen and learn along the way.
Even “easy” can become hard if you do too much of it
Before leaving, I was riding 8 - 10 hours a week and racing occasionally. My numbers were good and I was going well, if not great.
Five days after arriving in Barcelona, we headed north on loaded touring bikes, riding 20 - 30 hours a week. We weren't in a hurry, but this still represented a huge increase in duration over our recent training. And that eventually caught up with us.
In technical terms, training stress is a combination of intensity and volume. In this case, our intensity was very low, but our volume was European Pro high. We had a plan to ride no more than 5 days in a week and 3 days in a row. And in those early weeks, we needed those rest days. After 4 weeks, we were weary, so we backed off for a week, added some extra rest days and freshened up.
Throughout the trip, we took two other opportunities (in Strasbourg and Oslo) to stop in one spot for a while and recover. By the end of the trip we were certainly stronger and physically more resilient. Over 4 months, we had built an amazing base. But even at that low intensity, we needed to factor in the large volume, listen to our bodies and rest and recover accordingly.
Many athletes do not consider the interplay between Volume, Intensity and Fatigue. Think of it like a see-saw. If you are increasing your training Volume, then Intensity should go down and vice versa. Don’t increase Intensity and Volume at the same time. You may be okay for a week or two, but you’ll fold eventually and lose consistency. Increase your volume by adding additional time at low intensity (Zone 2). Once you have established your resilience at the new volume, more intensity can be added.
There’s different types of “Fitness”
It was great! After 6 weeks and 150 hours of riding, TrainingPeaks was telling me I was approaching record levels of CTL or “Fitness”. However, my legs and lungs were telling me otherwise. Drafting the odd tractor or swapping turns with a random roadie left me gasping for air. I had become good at riding long distances at a steady pace on a heavy bike, but I had no snap or top end.
Programs like TrainingPeaks and Strava love telling us how “Fit” we are. However, I have always considered “fitness” a very slippery term. In this context I view “Fitness” as an indicator of an athlete's capacity or tolerance for work. CTL (or Fitness Score if you are a Strava user) says nothing about how that number was achieved. Two athletes may have the same “fitness”, but one may have great endurance and poor relative anaerobic capacity. The other may have great peak power, but a poor underpinning of aerobic endurance, something I refer to as “brittle fitness”.
You can lose to someone with a lower FTP and beat someone else who is “Fitter”. Fitness can mean many things and basing your potential or ability on one metric can be misleading. Every metric needs context and no single metric defines you or anyone else (or their tractor).
Life stuff has an impact
Elite athletes are removed from many aspects of everyday life so they can focus on their sport. For amateur athletes, training is often squeezed between work/study, family commitments and a social life. Even as full time cycle tourists, each day there was accommodation to be found, a tent to put up, gear to pack and unpack, kit to be washed and food to be found (lots of food!). If we rode 6 hours a day, we generally did an additional 3 hours of physical life stuff. It all adds to fatigue.
It’s easy to ignore the impact everyday activities off the bike have on your performance. Because they are not cycling related, it’s easy to dismiss life stress as different from training stress. But your body doesn’t know if your cortisol levels are raised because of yesterday’s VO2 session or because your boss just dumped a new project in your lap. Your body doesn’t know the difference between “good stress” and “bad stress”, life stress and training stress. It’s all just stress and the impact is the same.
I tend to think of life stress and training stress as two dials. Generally, the dial we have the most control over is the training stress dial. If life stress gets turned up and starts to impact your happiness and performance, then dial back the training stress. Take some pressure off yourself. Reduce your volume or drop some intensity for a while and aim for consistency over improvement. The best long term outcome is to emerge from a stressful period healthy, happy and ready to dial your training back up.
We don’t do it alone
My wife and I are at an age where our parents require more care and galavanting around Europe for 5 months meant other family members had to pick up the slack.
Training is a selfish endeavor. I don’t mean that in a bad way, but it is the truth. An increase in your training often means others around you are going to see less of you. Having their support and understanding rather than negotiating (or fighting) for every hour of training time makes a huge difference. For many, training time is also valuable “me time”. You don’t want that clouded by guilt or feelings that you really should be somewhere else.
Gain your permissions before you start. If you have a clear plan, you will know what time you need to commit. Complete your training, be satisfied with what you have done and be present with those who matter.