Base Training: Why You Still Need the Long Ride

It's true that most people ride and race for different reasons, but in the end it's always about riding the bike. No matter what your goals or ambitions are, it's those moments when life's responsibilities take a back seat to the enjoyment of the open road that is a form of salvation for many.

Unfortunately, with life speeding along at a dizzying pace, we're often forced to "maximize" our training in less time than we might otherwise choose. Interval and threshold training have become more and more popular for athletes looking to get the most fitness possible under time restrictions. But that doesn't mean that cyclists should forget about the long ride.

Here's how adding at least one long ride once per month can improve your fitness and challenge you in ways threshold training can't.

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The Rise of Efficiency

The rise of optimized training has been rapid and nearly unimpeded. Ride everyday with focus, and don't squander the few hours you have to devote to training. Sound familiar?

One of my favorite examples of this type of thinking is the difference in overall training stress in a 10-hour week of optimized versus non-optimized training.

The classic Training Stress Score (TSS) model offers 100 points for a maximal 60-minute effort. So if you do 10 hours at maximal effort you would have achieve 1000 points for the week.

Of course no one can do maximal efforts all day long, so we have to dial down a little. But let's say you do the prototypical 20-minute warm up and 10-minute warm down per ride, and cycle for two hours five times a week. This would mean that you "wasted" 25 percent of your ride time on minimal TSS activities—such a squander, right?

Not so fast.

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Polarized Training

With the start of the season quickly approaching, many cyclists are eager to jump into hard training and build race fitness. Coaches can appreciate the work ethic and desire to get fast, but more and more I've come to see hard training (threshold training) as the metaphorical icing on the cake, rather than the daily necessity often pushed by the "efficiency" crowd.

Yes, focused training is essential for those with very limited schedules (under 10 hours per week), but that focus can range from endurance to "sweet spot" intensities without forcing the athlete into a hole every ride. The use of a polarized approach to training can be a viable alternative for those who may flounder under the constant barrage of threshold efforts.

By definition, a polarized approach splits training between very hard and very easy efforts. Total training volume on a polarized approach is usually above 12 hours per week, but it doesn't have to be, and tends to follow the 80/20 rule—80 percent of training time under 2m/mol of lactate and 20 percent above 4m/mol of lactate (as defined by Seiler and Tonneson in 2009).

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Will this approach work for time-limited athletes? It's possible that those with less than 2 years of focused training on the bike will improve at nearly any imposition of structure—even lower intensity. But that doesn't mean that the long ride won't give you even more benefits, or that you can get away with not riding long somertimes.

The Long Ride Returns

Long rides build your fitness in ways shorter rides do not. A long ride produces more total-caloric expenditure, more mental toughness and greater efficiency.

Long rides also have a way of resetting your baseline of what's possible. It can help you to feel connected to riding in a way that short rides cannot. Long rides are a reward for good planning, and a stepping-stone to higher fitness. So what's considered long? Essentially, a long ride is anything more than 200 percent of your average ride time. Ideally this will be anything over 4 hours, and occasionally over 5 or 6 hours. Doesn't that sound blissful?

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With some planning, everyone should be able to get in a long ride on one weekend during the month when the weather allows. Doing it's just a question of commitment.

My long ride template is always the same: Start out easy and stay there. That goal is easy in the first hour or two, but since most long rides include some amount of climbing, it often comes to pass that long minutes will be spent in that "sweet spot" zone anyway.

Of course, if the ride is long enough, the end of the ride will always be a physical challenge. Later in the year, when your fitness is better, you might add some specific intervals and possibly some HIT work to augment the duration, but for now the mere riding of the miles should be plenty to push your fitness to a higher level.

Remember to Eat

On long rides, you'll need to think about eating more frequently. On short rides of 1.5 to 2 hours, you can probably get by with little or no food. It's critical to consume calories during your ride for anything longer than two hours.

A couple of week ago I headed out for what would become a 5-hour ride. I started a bit low on calories, and the whole way out to the coast I was flat and a bit grumpy. Climbing went well, but the headwind flats were killing me.

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Fortunately, there was a rest stop at about the halfway point. After refilling on coffee and a big bear claw, I was able to make it the rest of the way home, although I was taxed.

The lesson here is that long rides take more planning. If you have a good turn-around point where you can stop and take in some calories, great. If you don't, you'll need to carry plenty of food with you on long rides. And don't forget to consume plenty of calories during breakfast.

Summary

As with most things, there's more than one way to skin the proverbial cat. Sweet spot and circa-threshold based training has many merits and lots of supporters. Polarized training and low-intensity volume alternated with high-intensity bouts are also effective training fundamentals when done correctly.

But the long ride is just as viable of a training alternative. We all get on bikes to explore, enjoy the solitude and reap the physical benefits of our passion—so why not throw down a long ride once a month (or more) and revisit those days when it hurt less to keep pedaling than to stop. Chances are, you'll get faster and enjoy your time spent on the bike even more.

More: What's the Right Intensity for Base Building?

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