Hi, Mel. I am training for XTERRA Brazil in August, where we have a bike course with lots of climbing. I'm used to do 4 to 5 hours of climbing ( ascents and descents )on Sundays, either on the road bike or on the mountain bike. Some friends of mine say 4 to 5 hours is too much because XTERRA is a 1h45' to 2h bike course. I am wondering if they are right and if it would be better to shorten the climb training time and make it harder ( altough i already climb near 90 to 95% of my max heart rate, and I rest on the descents ). Thanks again, Luiz.

Hi Luiz,

Your friends are right. If you are climbing for 4-5 hours then you can't go as fast as if you kept the ride a bit shorter.

I would say ride about how long the race would be... maybe 3 hours. That way you are used to the race length on race day and during the bike portion can go even a tiny bit harder than in training.

I am not sure what kind of hill riding you are talking about but a good workout would be warming up for about 45 minutes pretty easy, then doing about 60 minutes of effort and warming down. Sometimes more, sometimes less, but flogging yourself for too long will not allow you to get the intensity you need. What you think is 90% in a 4 hour ride is not 90% of what you are capable of if you shorten it.

XTERRA is about FAST!! Not so much long. So I would make more quality, less endurance in your training. For XTERRA a 3-4 hour ride counts as endurance training and when I do rides of 4 ish hours, I keep the intensity at 85% and LESS.

Ciao, mel

Thanks one more time. Luiz.