The myth of the miles

No doubt by now you’ve been told by someone that “You need to get the miles in” to achieve your goal. They’ll have sold you a fishing tale about how you need to be doing hundreds of miles a week and hundreds more at weekends to stand any chance of finishing.

They might have finished an Etape or two themselves by doing this but it is not the only and certainly not the best way to suceed. It’s probably the best way to tire yourself out and to frustrate yourself with a lack of progress, being about as good a method of overtraining as can be imagined.

My advice is this: ride three times a week, doing three different types of ride.

  • Intensity – 1 hour aiming to do around 32km/h pace on the flat
  • Endurance – 3-5 hour club run of around 120-140km door-to-door
  • Skills – 30 minutes to 1 hour practicing things like getting food out of pockets, taking off arm warmers/gilet, putting on clothing

And remember: we’re only mid-April, the Etape is in July. That’s still some time to go.

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