“So You Want to Try Orca K1 !”

Whether tackling the full 200k K2 or the 100k K1, any ride around the spectacular but tough Coromandel Peninsula is a challenge not to be taken lightly. Challenges, however, are meant to be met and with good planning and a little advice even the most inexperienced cyclist can conquer the Coromandel.

To many people, especially new cyclists, the thought of the 200-kilometre K2 ride is a tad overwhelming. The 100-kilometre K1, however, is achievable by anyone who is willing to spend a bit of time training. Of course, 100k on a bike is no small challenge, but with the right training at the right time it’s a challenge that is eminently achievable.

Identify The Challenge

The first thing in any challenge is to identify what you’re training for. Ok, sure – you’re training for the K1. But are you a first timer? Are you there for fun, or to race? Are you an individual or team? Do you have an understanding spouse? Does your job mean that much to you? All these questions decree how much of a commitment this challenge will become.

If you’re new to cycling, or maybe returning because last year was so much fun, then three rides a week for a total of six hours on the bike is ample. If you’re trying to beat your training partner, improve your time, or slip into the prize list then four or five rides a week for a total of nine hours on the bike will see you approaching 75% of your potential.

OK, so now you’ve established how much of your body and mind you’re willing to invest in K1. But knowing how to do it is another thing altogether. The next step is ensuring that you make the best use of whatever you’re willing to put in.

Understanding Endurance

With a race that covers up to 100k and anything from three to five hours, it doesn’t require a degree in exercise physiology to realise that K1 is all about endurance. What this means is a lot of general riding, eventually building up to the distance or time you expect to be riding for at K1. Logic might say that you’d just try to do a bit more every week – and that’s not a bad approach – but by taking that logic a step further we can take you beyond the realms of merely finishing to help you explore your personal potential.

Specificity

Endurance is everything, but the key to effectively developing endurance is specificity. To understand this, you need to understand that the human body is an adaptive organism. The more we train he more it adapts to allow us to handle that training and thus we get stronger, which allows us to do more training and get stronger still. But the body also has a memory bank of sorts, so when we do an activity repeatedly the body processes those movements via our central nervous system so that the next time we do that activity, whether it is cycling or lap dancing, the body has adapted to enable us to do it more efficiently.

In regard to endurance events like cycling this adaptation to training and biomechanical movements means we get stronger and more efficient, which means we not only get faster but also more efficient in regard to energy expenditure. In events longer than two hours the energy equation is just as important as fitness. The more efficient we get the longer we can hold the required effort.

If you haven’t worked it out yet, what we’re saying here is that the more specific we make our training the more effective we will become at what it is we are trying to do. K1 is a long event, so endurance is the number one aspect. But you can fine-tune that endurance by tailoring it to the specifics of the event. Hills are a major part of the race, so we need to develop a combination of strength/endurance. It’s almost certain you’ll be riding in bunches, so you need to become accustomed to changes in speed and riding safely and comfortably in enclosed space. And because you’re peddling for a long time your technique needs to be efficient otherwise you’ll burn too much energy or over-use certain muscle groups, all of which leads to fatigue hitting earlier than it needs to.

Recovery

So, we have to build endurance in a manner specific to the task at hand. Hard training alone, however, does not make you stronger or faster. Even more important is the recovery factor.

It comes back to the body being an adaptive organism. Think about the last bout of flu you had. When you get the flu the body adapts by building immunity so that we don’t get that flu again. Training is the same; if we stress the body in a manner specific to what we’re training for it adapts to that stress by increasing muscle growth, oxygen uptake ability, and co-ordination. In time the body is better able to handle the stresses of training, which means you become faster and can go further, but also that you can train harder and thus stimulate more adaptation. BUT, this adaptation only works when the body is allowed to regenerate on a regular basis.

Ever notice how if you don’t rest when you’re sick you just get sicker! Same with training; So it goes with training: if you don’t back off after a hard session or after two or three weeks of solid training, then you’ll get either injured, ill or just plain tired… and it’s hard to get fitter when you can’t train!

When applying recovery you have to look both short term and longer term. In regard to the consistency of your day-to-day training, you need to allow sufficient short-term recovery after long and high intensity sessions. Long is described as any session more than 50% longer than your average length session. E.G: if your weekly cycling averages out at 90min per ride, then a long ride is say 2.5 to three hours. High intensity is described as anything about 75% of max heart rate, or in layman’s terms any effort where you start to struggle with a conversation.

These long and high intensity sessions should be followed by 24 to 48 hours of easier training so as to allow the body to regenerate and adapt. Road cycling rookies can usually only handle one long ride and one high intensity ride per week. But even experienced cyclists struggle to consistently hold more than two long sessions and two high intensity sessions per week.

In the longer term, you need to allow a more thorough adaptation period. Very few people can consistently handle more than four weeks of hard training without backing off to regenerate. Most people can handle only two or three solid weeks before needing to back off with a recovery week.

The common theme here is “consistency”. Consistency in your training is the only way to develop your endurance potential, and if you don’t schedule adequate recovery your ability to train consistently will eventually be undermined. Many top athletes have the insight to actually do a bit less than they think they can handle because they know they’ll be more consistent and thus better off in the long term.

Training Schedules

So we’ve established that endurance, specificity and recovery are the corner stones in your training for a challenge like K1. From there we need to look at how to apply these principles.

In general, cycle training gives the best returns when you train for 90 minutes or more. You can get good benefits very quickly from shorter harder rides, but in the long term a hard one-hour ride isn’t going to get you ready for a hilly four-hour ride. So once or twice a week we need to gradually build up to something approaching the K1 distance or the time we expect it to take. In other rides we concentrate on the different elements within the race.

For most people, the K1 will involve three to five hours of bunch riding with a tough hill section every 30 to 60 minutes. Say you’re doing three rides a week; that means one ride where you emphasise riding uphills and downhills at a firm effort hills at a firm effort, one ride where you emphasise riding in a bunch, and one long ride that you gradually try to build up to the race time or distance. One way of making your training 100 percent specific is to integrate other cycle races during your K1 build-up. Try some of the many fun rides around the country, or even better join a cycle club. Check out www.sportzhub.com for a race calendar.

If you’re pressed for training time a good way to get good feedback fast is cycling on a stationary trainer. On a stationary trainer there are no downhills and/or traffic lights to interrupt the training effect, so you get more out of the time you put in. It’s generally accepted that an hour on the wind trainer is as good as 90min of proper biking and 90min on the windtrainer is worth at least two hours. The windtrainer is also a good place to work on peddling technique via various drills. But bear in mind that the windtrainer does nothing for your bike handling skills.

Having broken down what we need to do, the final step is to combine it all into a training schedule that combines all of the above. Below are examples based on experience and desired input. They assume a reasonable base fitness whereby you have been involved in some sort of sporting activity every second day for the previous six months – going from cold turkey to the K1 is not recommended.

Cycling rookies and anyone with limited time or fitness background would slot into the “Beginners’ schedule. The “Intermediate” schedule is suited to anyone with a background in endurance sports and would return around 75 percent of potential while still leaving time for a life. Just because you’re a rookie doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a beginner. Someone from another sporting background might be able to go straight to the intermediate programme, especially if they want to be competitive amongst their peers. If time allows, most people should be able to handle the intermediate program. But chose the schedule that best suits your current fitness, available time, and K1 goal.

Regardless of which schedule you decide you fit into to, each is based on a 12-week build up aimed specifically at Coromandel’s K1 event. Each session provides a range as to how much you might do. This range caters for current fitness and/or level of commitment, but also for how you feel on a given day. E.G: If you’re tired one day you might do the bottom end of the range, but if you feel great you might do the top end of the range.

Ideally, however, everyone should start at the bottom end of the range and gradually build to the top of the range by week 10, then taper off by reducing your volume by 20 percent a week over the last two weeks. The key is to line up not only fit, but also fit and fresh!

Lastly, if you follow nothing else in these schedules make sure you remember the recovery factor. Every third or fourth week, take a few days off and cut sessions by 25 to 40 percent. Not only will your training progress faster, but it’ll probably save your marriage too.