Training for a 4,500km ride
So what does training for the Tour Divide look like, anyway?
It’s 4:45am and, for the sixth day in a row, the alarm goes off and I’m out of bed before 5am.
Just another day as I prepare for this year’s Tour Divide.
"How do you train for something like that?”
When discussing the Tour Divide with people, I get a lot of questions.
“Why on earth are you doing that?” (more on this soon)
“Are you insane?” (perhaps)
“What does your wife think of that?” (don’t ask)
But one of the most common is “how do you train for something like that?”
The backstory
I’ve ridden bikes as a hobby for most of my life but only really caught the touring bug back in 2015 when I did my first cycling tour with my dad.
I’ve done a few tours since then and it was after doing my first solo tour through the Kawartha Lakes, Algonquin Park and Muskoka regions a couple of years ago that I started to consider whether the Tour Divide was something I might be able to tackle.
It was readily apparent from the outset that completing the Tour Divide would be a stretch, as the event is completely different beast to the tours I’ve done previously. The distances are longer, the locations more remote, the weather harsher, the terrain much more challenging, and the elevation - up to around 12,000 feet above sea level - is the icing on the cake.
In short, a daunting challenge. So I started training early.
Setting the foundation
I began training for this year’s Tour Divide about 16 months ago, when this was still more of an ambition than a plan. At the time I was in shape, but it was a little more pear-like than I would have liked so I viewed the first year of riding as my time to just get a base level of fitness in place. Consistent miles, 2-3 days every week, with a long ride in the 120-150km range at the weekend.
My goal was to drop some of the extra pounds and get to a solid level of overall fitness ahead of another solo tour I planned for the Fall - one with slightly longer daily distances than before and more hill climbing - a mid-way checkpoint to gauge if doing “the big one” was realistic.
October rolled around, and I headed out on the week-long ride - up through the Muskoka Lakes, into the Canadian Shield, over the top of Lake Huron and south across Manitoulin Island before taking the ferry across to the Bruce Penninsula and ending at my in-laws place at the base of the penninsula for Thanksgiving - at an average of about 160km per day.
Despite some mild injuries, route shenanigans and minor equipment issues, this ride confirmed I was hooked, and cemented my passion for this crazy idea - so I set about really committing to the process.
Kicking into gear
Since January I’ve been following a popular training program developed by professional ultracyclist Kurt Refsnider. As I write this, I’m at the peak of the program, and just came off a 30-hour training week including a weekend where I rode 420km over two days (Strava: day 1, day 2) on a fully-loaded bike - complete with tent, clothes, tools, food… you name it.
Fitting 30 hours of training into my life alongside a job that routinely demands 50-60hr weeks, plus spending time with my family, isn’t easy - hence that horrific alarm at the beginning of the day. Add to which I tend to be on the road roughly every other week, which means I’ve become very familiar with a number of hotel gyms!
I do my training rides while the rest of the family is asleep (at the weekends they’re longer but at least I get a couple of hours head-start). That way, I minimize the time away from them as much as I can.
My alarm typically goes off at 5 and I’m on the bike by around 5:15-5:30. On weekdays, depending on the day, it might be for a short one-hour recovery ride, a slightly longer high-intensity intervals session or an even longer (2hr+) steady endurance session. At the weekend, it varies between mid-length (4-8 hours) endurance, challenging hill or tempo rides, or “big weekends” with 18-25 hours of riding aimed at just getting hours in the saddle.
When I’m indoors, I also integrate one-legged “pedal drills” - one-minute intervals where I ride with just one leg at a time on the pedals - aimed at equalizing the strength between my legs.
There’s no “typical” week as the program is constantly building up, but if I look back at a few recent weeks of training it’s looked like this:
I try to also layer in one or two gym sessions each week that focus primarily on stretching, core exercises and leg strengthening that is focused on building balance between my dominant and non-dominant legs. I’ve discovered I have a major strength imbalance between my legs, which has led to me being the lunatic at the gym doing one-legged leg presses, extensions and the like (and taking double the time on the machines as a result).
So that takes me to between 7-8 workouts per week.
Unfortunately Canadian winters have meant that until recently, most of these rides have taken place on an indoor trainer (side note: I wouldn’t wish a 10-hour trainer session on my worst enemy). I made the mistake of venturing outside in March and the temperature plummeted during a long ride, leading to some minor nerve damage to both feet from the resulting frostbite.
Fortunately, in recent weeks as the weather has warmed I’ve been able to venture outside more.
Perseverance
There’s no getting away from the fact that this level of training is tough - especially for weekend warriors like me.
Managing my sleep has become a priority (I still need to get better at it) - it’s hard to get more than 5-6 hours of sleep when there’s always something to do in the evening once the kids are in bed.
I’m constantly thinking about nutrition (“brain daze” is a thing during training peaks if I don’t).
Some part of me always hurts. Always.
I also know it’s more intense than some people prefer to take on (shout out to Justin McKinley for his excellent videos in general, but in particular this one with his views on training).
I’ve come to take a perverse pleasure in it, though - I think you have to, to stick to something like this. My mindset has become that every long ride, every brutal interval is just a deposit in the bank that will get me closer to completing the Tour Divide.
It’s also incredibly satisfying to see the progress I’ve made - performance-wise, endurance-wise, and even weight-wise (none of my clothes fit me any more) - there are moments of realization when I’m able to step back and see how far I’ve come over the last year.
I harbor no illusions that I’ll be anywhere near the front of the Tour Divide pack - but in a ride as wildly unpredictable as this and where so many things are out of my control, I’m determined to do everything I can around the pieces that I can control - and my fitness is chief among them.
Donate!
If you’ve read this far, please consider donating in support of my ride. I’m riding to raise money for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation - one of the top cancer research institutions in the world - and every penny goes directly to that organization.