How have people been training for RTL? Aside from those California maniacs who ride their brains out, I mean.
For fun, I’ve been trying to ride to some other activity and ride home again, after. One two-sport combo I have done is riding a 13 mile, hilly ride to my LDGC (Local Disc Golf Course), playing a round or two, and riding home. This simulates RTL, in that it’s a good ride-workout, then a period of non-riding (doing something I love, incidentally), followed by another good ride.
The other combo: a couple times, including yesterday evening, I rode about 8 in-town miles to another sport I love, ultimate. I played ultimate basically until I had just enough daylight to ride home, and then rode home. This does NOT simulate RTL, because the activity between rides was more (far more) tiring than riding.
I believe variety is a way to avoid injuries, and the more aerobics, the better. I did have some achilles tendon pain after the ultimate (I getting old), but it didn’t seem to bother me once I was back on the uni. If I can keep my achilles happy, I’m going to try to repeat this combo a couple times/week. It’s a hell of a workout.
I’m curious when people will stop training for RTL to let their bodies recover.
In the past week and a half my training consisted of going on a business trip, having the flu, and then working long hours two days in a row. I felt pretty strong last night on my ride, so I guess it worked?
Besides riding, my “other” activities have included trials unicycling and tennis with my wife.
I think the best cross-training is uphill MUni. And then you get the downhill MUni to get you out of the incessant feeling of slogging that is prevalent in distance unicycling. Then we also have uni basketball, which is good for cardio but probably not ideal cross-training due to the relatively high injury risk.
I think we’ll do our last huge rides next weekend (May 31-June 1), maybe some shorter speed workouts on the weekend before RTL, and then maintenance rides during the week, tapering off into the race. I’ll probably skip uniBB that week.
I’m not in the race, but I’ve been hard at work applying experience from other endurance activities to unicycling. I think you’re doing some good practice there. Riding tired is going to be a big part of the race. Riding distance multiple days in a row is going to be even more important than riding multiple times per day. Looking at some people’s estimates of RTL paces, I’d say the impact of the sheer length of the race is being underestimated.
I think something like commuting to work and back several miles several days in a row would be good training.
Very good point, and one I meant to make in my other post. We’re what, 23 days out? I would get a last long ride in this weekend, or if an experienced endurance athlete maybe next weekend. For the last two weeks don’t stop unicycling but focus more on short fast rides of good form then trying to get the body ready for the endurance it’s going to take to complete the race.
A flu at this point can be the best thing to happen to you, forcing one into a taper that can be hard to do on your own
I’ve definitely been trying to ride a lot, but I’m starting to get too fatigued to keep it up.
Regarding cross training, a few weekend ago I went to Yosemite with Jason. I rode 20 miles around the valley floor before doing a few trad climbs and hiking around El Cap.
The other day I rode a mountain bike trail on my Coker V2 with 150mm cranks. It about killed me the first time I tried it (the previous week), but this time I did a lot better and felt great when I was done. Oddly, average speed was the same. But this time I rode nearly all of it except for a few steep climbs, and all the technical spots.
Coker MUni! Way fun! I also hope to get in a “regular” MUni ride this weekend…
Feel free to slate it as a toy/game, however, I know it gives some of my muscles a good work out that unicycling just doesn’t do. It’s also great for tracking my progress.
Disc golf!! Something about unicyclist and disc golf go hand in hand as I know lots of other unicyclist that play. Too bad there are no courses in Novia Scotia (well one but not anywhere near the route) as we could get a group together and play a round or two. But I suppose we’ll probably all be too tired to play anyways…
I was doing cross-training by doing distance rides and MUni or Trials. But it didn’t work out for me as I broke my foot doing trials. Should have stuck with MUni. Oh well, it’s healing and should be healed for RTL. Sucks that I can’t train much for it though. But then again maybe my body will be all rested up and ready to go balls to the wall!
Indeed, anybody who is participating should expect that the shape they’re in now is just about the best they can hope to be in for the race. Maybe one more week of peak training if you want to try to lock in some of that hard work you’ve been doing, but it’s getting to where the best thing you can do to improve performance is taper down your training.
Whether you want to win or just ride the best race you can.
I think in terms of training for fitness, it’s too late for any gain at this stage.
If you want to go faster, the best things to work on is technique- being able to spin fast. And also getting your set-up dialed in, and experimenting with crank legths so you know what set-up to use come race day.
Good news is that Unicycling is far less dependent of fitness than it’s two wheeled cousin. You can have the cardiovascular capacity of a Tour de France rider and still ride like a dog.
But then again maybe my body will be all rested up and ready to go balls to the wall! 