I did my second endurance event of 2023 on 15th April. (My first event can be found here.)The event was a 300 Km Audax organised by Kingston Wheeler’s. It started in Surbiton, South London, heading out to Amesbury via some beautiful back lanes. There is also a fantastic 30 Km section through Salisbury Plain, where hardly any cars are seen.
It is a lovely ride that I’ve done a couple of times before It’s a really good test as 300Km is equivalent to a a full day’s riding on most multi day endurance events for me.
The key learnings for me were:
Rest
Again I rested well the week before. I did weights on the Monday before to make sure my legs were fully recovered. I did a Vo2Max session on the Tuesday and a short recovery ride on the Wednesday. Giving me a full two days rest before the event on Saturday. I didn’t sleep that well the night before, but didn’t feel it affected me to much as I was well rested in the days before.
Going forward I will continue to try and get up early the day before so make sure I can get a full nights sleep the night before.
Fuel
I fueled up well the 2 days before on carbs. I had about 250g on Thursday and 300g on Friday. Although in both cases I was still around my daily average of around 2,200 calories. On the morning of the event I had about 700 calories – porridge with milk, bagel with Jam and fried eggs on toast.
During the ride I stopped 4 times, eating about 2,418 calories in total. Meaning I ate just over 3,000 calories before and during the event. This wasn’t enough as I used about 9,000 on the day. By the half way point I was completely out of energy. I had to have a bit of an extended stop to fuel up on pizza and pasty’s. Again, the food choices weren’t great so was compromising by putting convenience over better calories. Once again I struggled to keep eating and ended up eating fruit pastels towards the end to give me bursts of energy, not ideal.
I felt the previous days loading helped carry me through and I’d have been fine if I’d eaten enough on the day. The big learning for me is to plan better going forward. Experience shows that on long events I should stop every 3 to 4 hours and eat 1,000 calories if I can. In the future I’ll need to figure out in advance where I can stop on the route to grab food and not always rely on what’s available at the checkpoints.
Performance
The ride took me 18 hours 18 minutes elapsed time, 15 hours 38 minutes moving time. With an average moving speed of 20 km/hour. This was pretty much what I was expecting, although I was a little disappointed in the average moving time afterwards as I felt better fueling would have led to a better time. Again I focused on heart rate throughout the event, trying to keep myself below or around 130 bpm. My average heart rate was 123 bpm, which is pretty much bang on my Zone 2 endurance heart rate of 125 bpm.
My power was 133 watts average, 157 watts weighted average. I don’t look at my power during the event, but was pleased again that my weighted average was in line with my Zone 2 endurance zone and similar to what I see in Zone 2 training sessions. I feel that power would have been a touch higher if I’d have fueled better.
I’ve done this event before. This time I was 35 mins faster than my previous 5 years ago. So overall am happy.
Physical
I’d upgraded my saddle prior to this event, using a saddle recommended on my bike fit. It had been fine on shorter rides but had some issues with my knee and hip in the first few hours. These subsided after the first stop, and were solved by lowering my saddle 5mm at the halfway point. I also had a shoulder and neck issue in the first few hours, this was more worrying as I had an issue last year that almost stopped me finishing London-Edinburgh-London about 100km from the end. Fortunately this issue went away after stopping to eat. it was a bitterly cold day and maybe this din’t help with these minor, niggling injuries.
The tendonitis on the inside of my right elbow hasn’t gone away, it was manageable and not that noticeable during the event, probably as I was more focused on the other issues.
I feel solid on the bike, plan is to see if a physio can help with the recurring shoulder / neck issue, which is the most worrying of the niggles.
Recovery
Recovery was much actually better than the 200 km event I did in March. i did weights 3 days after and 2 days hiking the weekend after. So was a really easy week. I did this on purpose to give myself time to recover and be in good shape when I got back on the buike. Having an event every month of increasing distance means it’s easy to do too much.
The following day I was very tired, I ate throughout the day, more than normal but was still really hungry. My knee ached a bit but by day 2 I felt normal, no stiffness or aches.
Doing two days of hiking a week later meant I could do some good low intensity work off the bike to keep building on the aerobic capacity but giving the bike related niggling injuries a break.
Conclusion
Again, this was a good event, I got a lot from it. I was able to control my heart rate and maintain the power and speed expected. My fueling strategy was good pre-event but poor during the event. I need to better plan my stops in advance for next time. Physically I had a few niggles, I do need to make sure the bike is dialed in and not try anything new in an event. Recovery was better than expected. This was the first all day event of this distance for me this year, my goal is to do this distance for 4 days at Paris Brest Paris. Main takeaway is to improve fueling in future events and I’ll be in better shape and prepared for PBP.
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