Once upon a time, there was a cyclist named Goldilocks.  She went for a training ride in the forest.  Pretty soon, she came upon a house.  She knocked and, when no one answered, she walked right in. At the table in the kitchen, there were three bowls of porridge.

Goldilocks was hungry.  She tasted the porridge from the first bowl."This porridge is too hot and makes me ride too fast!" she exclaimed. So, she tasted the porridge from the second bowl. "This porridge is too cold and makes me ride too slow," she said. So, she tasted the last bowl of porridge. "Ahhh, this porridge is just right, it makes me ride not too fast but not too slow," she said happily and she ate it all up.

I wrote a few weeks ago about how you should look to pace a sportive in my weekly blog piece 'Maximize your Gran Fondo Performance' and how you should prepare and develop a game plan. However, when you start your event it is all too easy to fall into one of the following traps:

  1. You ride too easy due to a perceived fear that you have not done enough training and you won't get round
  2. You get sucked into an early speed frenzy and blow up after a few miles
  3. You try and hang on in a group that is riding too fast for your ability and get dropped

One of the things I like about organized events is that you get to ride in big groups. For me it's part of the reason I am happy to pay to ride on roads that I can ride for free at any other time of the year. But the problem with riding in large groups is that you cannot control the intensity of the riding and have to either adapt to the speed and riding style of the group or stick to your game plan and ride your own race.

The three routes of the Tour of Wessex.

Last weekend I completed a three day Gran Fondo, the Tour of Wessex in the UK, which covered 339 miles and 23,000 feet of climbing around the British counties of Somerset, Dorset and Devon.

My game plan was to ride at a steady pace on Stage 1 and not light too many matches to preserve myself for an easier Stage 2 and a full gas Stage 3.

Stage 1: We hit Cheddar Gorge in a group of around 15 riders and immediately the pace increased. I could feel just from perceived effort that I was pushing hard and a momentary glance at my Garmin told me that at 165 bpm and 400w I was not going to keep this up for much longer!

I had no option but to back off and ride to my own game plan and numbers. Funnily enough I managed to get back to the group half way up the climb (they were obviously going too hard as well!) and continued with them, passing the first feed station by. The pace was high and the group of young guns wanted to race. I did my turns and then dropped back and was in a comfortable place as we arrived at the middle feed station at 62 miles. After a four minute pit stop we set off again and the pace increased. My turns on the front were hard and I was riding at, and above threshold, for long periods of time.

By the time we reached the last 20 miles I was hanging on and just managed to keep with the group over the finish line. I had buried myself, had lit too many matches and had not followed my game plan. On the positive side only a late set of temporary traffic lights stopped us getting a Gold national standard medal time.

Here is how my heart rate looked for Stage 1:

Stage 1

Over two hours at threshold or above (most of that in the closing stages) and only 50 minutes at Tempo which is the intensity that I had planned to ride most of the race, especially as it was Stage 1 of three! The porridge at breakfast was a little too hot!

Stage 2: I decided that today had to be an easy day as I wanted to go all out on Stage 3 which was over my home patch on Exmoor. So I rode with a friend who is a good rider but has been plagued with injury this season and has not been able to train.

It was a beautiful ride across Dorset taking in amazing places like, Cerne Abbas,  Lulworth Cove, Milton Abbas and Bulbarrow Hill. We rode at a very steady pace as my friend was concerned that he would not get over the line.

Here is how my heart rate looked for Stage 2:

Stage 2

As you can guess riding 70% of the race in Z1 is not going to burn any matches nor will it give you the chance to win anything!  Although this ride was planned to be easy it is a good example of riding too conservatively. The porridge at breakfast was a little too cold.

Stage 3: Today was a hilly ride over the Quantocks and onto Exmoor to take in some iconic climbs such as Porlock and the climb up to Exford Common and Withypool Hill. I decided early on that this was a day to ride the game plan and not get sucked into early skirmishes.

The plan was to ride the first 40 miles steady and see if I could get into a good, similarly paced group to conserve energy, then ride the next 40 miles hilly section on my own, at my own pace, then let it rip for the closing 40 miles or so to empty out the reserve tank!

The plan played out perfectly. I got into a group of 25 or so riders very early on who were just a little bit slower than I would have liked but I managed to ride 30 miles with them using very little energy mainly in Z1. We hit the hills and I just stuck to my numbers and rode at my own pace which was a tad quicker than the group I had been riding with.

By the end of the hilly stage I was with two other riders of similar pace and we rode together to the last feed station with 32 miles to go, which was my first stop of the day. Here I joined a group of 15 young riders who were up for a race!

We rode the last 25 miles in 1hr 2 minutes and despite the leg burning and heart pounding intensity, was the most fun I have ever had on a bike.

Here is how my heart rate looked for Stage 3:

Stage 3

This looks more like it. 70% of the ride was in Z1&2 which looks a little conservative but remember at this stage I had over 125 miles in my legs and was starting to feel muscle fatigue. At this point in an endurance event you can struggle to get your heart rate up as your weak point tends to be power output not your cardiovascular system.

This was a well ridden stage. The porridge at breakfast was just about right, not too hot and not too cold.

So whatever event you have planned to do, make sure that you have a ride plan and stick to it.

Find the porridge that works for you and don't get distracted by what other people have had for breakfast! If you regularly ride 50 miles and your event is 65 miles by all means have some hot porridge and go for it in the closing miles. However if your regular training ride is 50 miles and you have a 125-mile event then make sure that you opt for a cooler porridge and ride to your game plan.

Rob Wakefield is a fully qualified Level 3 Cycling Coach with the Association of British Cycling Coaches and founder of Propello, a cycling focused health and fitness business delivering Performance Training Programmes and Bespoke Coaching to cyclists anywhere in the world.

All cyclists who are looking to improve their speed, endurance or strength will benefit from a structured training programme. Propello Training will improve how your muscles, lungs and heart work and will enable your body to transport and utilise fuel effectively - making you faster and stronger for longer.

Click here to learn more about Propello.

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