Back from travel and sickness I have 4 weeks to prepare myself for the biggest challenge of my cycling journey. The Peaks Challenge Falls Creek. Likened to a mountain stage in the Tour de France, this gruelling route through the Victorian High Country in Australia presents 235km, 4000m elevation and a maximum of 13 hours to get it done. Can I make it?
🎙️ Learn about my training plan to rapidly accelerate my recovery and prime myself for this massive undertaking.
🔗 Learn more about the Peaks Challenge https://bicyclenetwork.com.au/rides-and-events/peaks-challenge/
🚴♂️ In my ride I take on low cadence FTP strength climbs on Akuna Bay Easy & West in Sydney’s northern national park. https://www.strava.com/activities/10737158237
🏷️ #Cycling #RoadCycling #PeaksChallenge
🎵 Find all the tracks from all my videos in this handy playlist https://www.epidemicsound.com/playlist/xlf2mzt3lywqdnhq9dxdo5lbgejd9v11/
➡️ https://www.instagram.com/moderate.cc/
➡️ https://www.strava.com/athletes/bkpaton
00:00 – Introduction
02:00 – About Peaks
05:31 – Training Plan
07:44 – Wrap-up
The Peaks challenge in the Victorian High Country is one of if not the hardest one day Fondo event in Australia comparable to a tour to France Mountain Stage it is 235 km and over 4,000 M elevation I better start training for this wonder how long I got left four weeks So I guess this begs the question of why would I do this to myself is it some kind of naivity or am I just some kind of a masochist that likes to put pain onto myself the truth of the matter is it’s a little bit of both but also just a little bit
Unfortunate so for a long time I had a ski trip planned in Japan in the lead up to the Peaks challenge this is not something that I was able to or willing to move I accepted that there was going to have to be training on the way in and
There was going to have to be a pretty pretty tight training program on the way out those plans kind of got thrown up in the air a little bit when on I returned from Japan I got Co so that set me back about two weeks which is not a
Showstopper but it’s certainly makes the timeline a fair bit tighter the basic premise of my training plan is in three phases a base phase to get myself primed a build phase where I seek to gain Fitness and strength and a focus phase where I really tailor the training to
The type of ride required for the race I’ll go into more detail later but first let me tell you a little bit more about Peaks not only is it very long and also very high it is also time bounded the entire field has 13 hours to complete the
Course that’s how long the roads are closed for so if you don’t make it in 13 hours that’s it goodbye thanks for coming there are Pace Partners throughout the day 12 hours 11 hours 10 hours you pick but if you get dropped it’s a long way back to the next group
So you’re going to be in the win for a fair while my Target’s going to be 10 hours why I’m not 100% sure I’ve tried to do the research on some of the prior years numbers people I know who have done it what they’ve achieved 10 hours feels about right but we’ll See The event is run by bicycle Network and it’s a really well-run event it’s been running for I don’t know how long many many years so there’s a lot of understanding about what it takes to do one of these events bicycle Network put together training programs each year to
Help Riders get up to speed for the event to get a sense of what the ideal training probably looks like each of their training plans is 16 weeks they have low medium and high volume plans ranging from 8 12 and 16 hours training a Week so that makes my 4we training block about a quarter of the recommended training program what am I doing to put that in perspective though the 16we training programs are designed for people who are not necessarily serious Riders this is a pretty enduring event but it is open to a broader spectrum of
Riders so the program wants to be able to bring people up to speed as much as I am the moderate cyclist and the co doesn’t have I will be coming into this event with a pretty good base my FTP is strong my endurance is good I’ve got a lot of kilometers in the
Legs I should still be okay for this Event A My plan is pretty simple I suppose it has to be when you’ve only got four weeks to work with week one is going to be my base training it’s all about dusting off the legs getting some more CS in there after having virtually none for a
Month all my efforts are going to be focused around strength that means dropping a Cadence pushing hard holding FTP power at a really low Cadence weeks two and three are going to be my build phase so this is going to have to be stretching those KS out getting longer
Riding harder structure training is going to be the key here FTP sessions Sweet Spot sessions this is going to be the wor the fourth week is going to be the focus week this is going to be about hills and climbing I got a pretty crushing Sunday endurance ride planned I’m going to come
Down here again to auna Bay and see if I can become the local Legend how many times can I go up auna Bay in one day keep an eye out for that one I’ll wrap it all up with a week of tapering still keep the Cs high but taper off the
Efforts and that should hopefully roll me into Falls Creek ready to rock and roll in the middle of all of that I’m still committed as whff Racing League there are three more races left this season that I’ll be slotting and you’ll be able to check out over the next 3
Weeks today’s ride is auna Bay pendulums it’s all about strength climbing FTP at 60 RPM I’m aiming for about 20 km of climbing now I’m going to finish it off in zone two Sweet Spot work on the home trainer right out of the time out on the road so finish it off for
You so that’s about it that’s my training plan my best chance of achieving some form before I go down to Peaks later this year are you going to Peaks how is your training plan I’d love to hear what your plan was and how you’re progressing through it I’d
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