Peaks Challenge Falls Creek – The First Four Weeks Of Your Training

The fundamentals of training for this event

Before I get into it, I wanted to discuss the fundamentals of training for this event. The ride will, on average, take between ten and thirteen hours.

During the ride, you’ll be doing a lot of climbing, over 4,000 meters, which is made up of the following major climbs:

Tawonga Gap will take you on average between 28 and 35 minutes to climb:

Mt Hotham will take between one hour forty and two hours twenty to climb.

While the back side of Falls Creek will take you around two hours and two hours forty-five.

What to focus on with your training towards the Peaks Challenge Falls Creek

As you gear up for the Peaks Challenge Falls Creek, focusing on your training is crucial. This endurance event demands extensive climbing, emphasising these key goals in your initial four weeks of preparation:

• • Building a Strong Aerobic Base: Establish a solid foundation through regular cycling to enhance endurance.
  • Developing Hill-Climbing Efficiency: Lay the groundwork for strength and efficiency in tackling steep inclines.
  • Emphasising Volume Over Speed: Prioritise longer sessions over high-speed workouts, accommodating busy schedules effectively.

With family and work commitments, it’s important to make your training as effective as possible. In the first month, aim for about nine to twelve hours of training each week if you plan to finish in under thirteen hours. If you’re aiming for a sub-10-hour ride, target thirteen to fifteen hours of training each week.

• Weekend Endurance Rides: Focus on low-intensity rides with significant hill climbs.
• Midweek Interval Training: Incorporate indoor sessions for pedalling technique and recovery.
• Off-Bike Strength Training: Supplement cycling with yoga or specific strength exercises.

Why you shouldn’t do too much speed work early on in your training

It’s not the time to sit in fast-moving bunches along flat roads or do short, high-intensity efforts on a home trainer. Also, it’s not the time for High-Intensity Training (HIT). Since they became popular in the 2010s, plenty of HIT programs have been available. This training method has been enthusiastically adopted by trainers who advocate the “no pain, no gain” approach.

However, much research has been done in recent years that determined that building a strong base through low-intensity aerobic Training and long-interval training is more efficient at improving overall fitness. This was a popular training method in the 1980s and is having a resurgence today.

Don’t get me wrong. There is no doubt that HIT training makes you fast, and there is a time and a place for it, but it doesn’t build aerobic endurance. That’s why the first four weeks of your training are better focused on building a solid foundation of aerobic base while working on good hill-climbing technique, because that’s what you’ll be drawing upon in the latter half of the ride for the Peaks Challenge Falls Creek.

Many cyclists make the mistake of introducing speed work too early into their Training for the Peaks Challenge Falls Creek. First, you’ll want to focus on building your endurance so that you’ll be fit enough to finish the event. Then, once you have your endurance, you’ll want to start working on building your speed.

Functional Threshold Power (FTP) and Endurance

Another area where I see cyclists go wrong is focusing on improving their Fu

nctional Threshold Power (FTP). They think the bigger their FTP, the better their Peaks Challenge Falls Creek ride will be. Don’t get me wrong; FTP is important, but not as important as you think for your Peaks Challenge Falls Creek training.

While FTP is a metric used to measure performance, remember it measures your average power over sixty minutes.. And it will take you a lot longer than sixty minutes to complete the Peaks Challenge Falls Creek event. Most cyclists who fail to complete the event do so not because they didn’t have a high enough FTP but because they didn’t build enough endurance to maintain enough power for the whole ride. So, there’s a big difference between your sixty-minute power (your FTP) and what you can sustain for 8+ hours on a ride that includes over 4,000 vertical meters of climbing.

Let’s put this into perspective.

I finished my first Peaks Challenge Falls Creek event in just under 11 hours with an average ride power output for the whole ride of 112 watts! Now, 112 watts was well under my FTP at the time.

So, once you have your endurance sorted, you’ll want to focus on improving your average power output for three, four, five, and six-hour

The basic building blocks of the Peaks Challenge Falls Creek Training

So here are the basics of the Peaks Challenge Falls Creek Training:

• The basic training schedule includes an indoor session on Tuesday and Thursday, recovery rides on Wednesday and Friday, and Monday as a rest day. As most of us have the weekend available for longer rides, that’s when we get out and build the bulk of our aerobic base.
• During the recovery rides, cyclists maintain a low intensity (able to hold a conversation) and a higher cadence rpm.
• The specific long-interval low-cadence indoor training is done preferably on a home trainer. The longer intervals are done at a medium intensity (breathing hard but not breathless) at lower cadences. Focus on developing a good, efficient hill-climbing pedalling technique and a stable core.
• The weekend rides consist of getting out and riding the hills while putting together the hill-climbing technique you have developed during the week.
• Finally, it’s important to do body maintenance and off-bike functional strength training. Yoga is a great way to do this, as are cycling-specific functional strength and mobiliser exercises.
• If you have additional time to train, do a light one-hour ride on Mondays and Wednesdays or Wednesdays and Fridays. Remember that the progressive build and consistency in your training are important. So do these rides at a low intensity to save yourself. That way, you can do the Tuesday and Thursday rides while still fresh. If you don’t take it easy on these additional rides, you’ll end up burning yourself out as you progress through your program.

Get your free training program.