My Training History
Last year I entered the Marmotte Cycling Event with several friends. (You can read more about the event here.)
This was the most challenging event I’ve ever attempted. The course is 174km long. I’ve completed this distance before, but the killer is in the fact that over the course of this you have to climb 4 alpine stages; the Col du Glandon, Col du Telegraphe, Col du Galibier and finishing on the Alpe d’Huez.
We decided to do this at the end of 2012, so this left about 6 to 8 months of training.
Coincidentally with this, I had the opportunity to take a sabbatical, so I was able to use this time also to train.
This was also the first event I used a turbo trainer as part of my programme. For previous events, I relied on being a regular commuter, covering about 110km per week (10 rides of around 11km each, so about 5 hours of training), plus some longer weekend rides with friends covering about 60 to 80 km in the North Kent downs.