3 Workouts to Add Zest to Your Weekend Long Ride

If you are training for an iron distance event, chances are you are biking long on the weekends to prepare for your long bike ride on race day. The weekend long ride is crucial for developing muscular and cardiovascular endurance for the bike portion of your race. Over the course of a 6 month race prep, my athletes will do a long ride 20-24 times in addition to their shorter mid-week rides. Why not up the ante a little bit and add some pacing efforts to keep things interesting? This ride doesn’t have to feel like the same ole same ole, and in this article I offer some options to spice things up to make it more enjoyable and fun. Ride with a purpose and be intentional with these workouts. Make them your own and use them to fit your needs. Let me know how it goes!

Add Zest to Your Weekend Long Ride

Duration: 3 hours

Warm up: 15 minutes easing into a comfortable endurance pace (Z2 low Z3)

Main Set: 5 x 20 minutes at Olympic distance pace with 10 minutes easy in between each interval.

Ride the remainder of the ride in Z2

Cool down last 5 to 10 min

Duration: 3 hours

Warm up: 15 min easing into a comfortable endurance pace

Main Set: At each half hour (30 min, 1 hour, 90 min, 2 hours, 2:30) do the following:

6X2 min efforts in Z4 with 2 minute recoveries;

Ride the remainder of each set at Z2 or comfortable endurance pace

Duration: 3 hours