All I can do is go through what I did, and tell you what worked for me, and what didn't. There are lots of training resources around - on the net or in books - and if you are intending to take on something like the Etape, I guess that in the end you'll do exactly what I did, which is try and take the best tips and advice from a wide range of sources.
The only thing that I would say, that I think holds true for anyone attempting the Etape for the first time is that you really have to put in the hours and be prepared to train hard and consistently. It's true that lots of the training is really enjoyable, and it's great being out on the bike. However, lots of the training is hard and miserable and you really don't want to do it, and then when you are doing it, you want to stop. It's at those times that I guess it's really important that you have the ability to summon up the mental strength not to stop. That's because however hard it gets, the Etape is probably going to be harder.
Anyway, I'll try and go through things in roughly chronological order, as that seems the most sensible way to go about it - but some elements will obviously deal with ideas that flow across the training period.
Physiological Testing
I decided to go for detailed, cycle-specific physiological testing at Dr Garry Palmer's 'Sportstest' at the beginning and end of my training program. A lot of that was to do with my own interest in the 'process' as well as the 'outcome', and the fact that I was doing this blog. However, having done it I found it really useful.
Frankly, a lot of this was to do with the psychological boost it gave me, both at the beginning and end of my training. At the beginning of the training, despite my very average results, Garry said he was confident that I could complete the Etape there and then. It might not be much fun, but I was in a position to do it. Knowing what I do now, I don't think that was really true, but it made me feel a bit less out of my depth.
At the end of the training, it was really great to see the measured improvements in my fitness - to know that my hard work had paid off, and that I'd done everything I could to make the Etape experience as 'comfortable' as possible.
There were two key 'scientific' things which really helped me out though. Firstly, having got all my stats, Garry could give me targets to aim at over the course of my training. Many of these would be difficult to measure until I went back, but things like weight loss are easy to track and absolutely crucial in training for rides which include any significant amount of climbing. Secondly, knowing my individual level of fitness, he could help me put together a training programme based on what I needed to do, and the time available to me.
Books
Although I've mentioned it several times before, I'll mention it again here, because it seems to make sense. At the start of my training, I bought 3 or 4 books about training for long distance cycling, which looked like they might be useful. By far the best was Garry Palmer's book 'Elite Performance: Cycling: Succesful Sportives'. I won't repeat what I've said elsewhere, and you can see roughly what it's about from the link, but it's specifically aimed at the Etape, and covers everything from bike choice and setup to what to take in your bike box. Basically everything you need in a handy package.
Weight loss
Garry made the point which was later reinforced to us in no uncertain terms by Dave Brailsford - you've just got to lose the weight. Climbing is all about power/weight ratio. It's really hard to increase your power by much in the short term, but you can lose a lot of weight at a sensible pace and improve your power/weight ratio significantly (and self-esteem!) that way.
I lost 19 pounds at a rate of approximately a pound a week - which is what Garry and others recommended as a healthy rate.
Again, people have different experiences of trying to lose weight, but my experience was fairly positive. Because you're doing a lot of training, you're using a lot of energy so it's easier than normal to create a 'calorie debt' where you're using more than you're eating.
You do have to be careful what you eat, but because you have to eat a lot of carbs, it's not as hard as a 'normal' diet. The key is to cut out as much fat as possible. I didn't find this particularly difficult. I was eating a lot of rice, pasta and bread, so never felt really hungry. I switched to low-fat cheese and particularly low-fat cottage cheese, which is also supposed to be good for muscle repair and growth. I cut out chocolate muffins and other fatty treats, which was sometimes hard, but I figured the short term sacrifice would be worth it in the end.
I figure it was. If I'd had to carry an extra 19lbs up Mont Ventoux, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have made it.
Training Program
For me, it was important to have a detailed training program, and to understand exactly why I was doing what I was doing. Although we got a weekly training program from British Cycling, it was necessarily 'generic' and aimed at people doing a 5-day week. I had a real advantage, because I work part-time, but my slighly eccentric rota means I work a lot one week, and then am off work completely in the alternate week.
Also, the time I'm not at work is spent doing other important things - studying and volunteering - so I had other commitments to work around.
Garry was happy to work with this, and put together a training program which took all this into account. This was really useful, and also helped me feel less guilty and 'behind' when I wasn't able to do all the things suggested in the BC training.
Obviously, the training changes in intensity as you get closer to the big day, but the basic principle was to train different types of muscle fibre on alternate days - working on 'Endurance' training one day, and then higher intensity 'Threshold' training the next day. In theory, that means that the 'endurance' muscle fibres get rest/recovery on the day that the 'threshold' fibres are working, and vice-versa, so that you're getting training response, but not over-stressing them.
I tended to do my 'endurance' training (which equated to riding at a heart rate of approximately 150 bpm) out on the road, and my 'threshold' training (which was mostly intervals working at heart rates up to 170 bpm) on the turbo trainer. The reason for this is that, particularly when you're doing interval training, it's just much easier to keep your heart rate in the required zone at all times when you're in control of all the conditions. When you're out on the bike, you're faced with traffic/traffic lights/junctions/changing gradients etc., which mean your heart rate is going up and down fairly randomly, and you're getting less effective training.
Having said that, some of my threshold training consisted of doing 'Time Trial' efforts of around 20 mins, so I did these out on the road, around Richmond Park.
It's not easy to schedule lots of them into your training programme, because frankly they're hard and miserable, but the sessions which probably had the most positive effect on my fitness were hard interval sessions on the turbo trainer at fairly high resistances. For example, I would do 8 mins at heart rates up to 170 bpm followed by 4 mins of recovery - all repeated 3 times. With a proper wam up and warm down, this turned into approximately an hour long session.
I did lots of these just prior to the Dragon Ride, after I'd been ill, and they made a huge difference to my ability to tackle the climbs. Obviously you need to make sure you're getting enough rest and recovery too, or you won't get the training benefits - but these types of session are really important.
They may also be important for another significant reason. I'm going to write a separate post about this, but I read an interesting article in Cycling Weekly a couple of weeks ago about Central Governor Theory and how you can train your brain to 'allow' you to go harder, by using interval training. The reason I found the theory interesting was that it seemed to chime with my experiences on Mont Ventoux. Although I never actually felt too bad - my heart rate was fine, my legs felt good etc. - there were times when I just had to stop for some reason. Maybe Central Governor Theory is one of the reasons for this.
Training Sportives / Long Rides
On a day to day basis, lots of advice suggests that there's not necessarily a great deal of benefit to be gained from doing rides of much longer than 3 hours, as the potential damage is greater than the marginal gains. However, it's clearly important to have a few long rides in the locker before taking on an Etape.
For me, there are two key reasons for this:
a) Psychological - You need to know that you can actually cycle 100+ miles. This takes at least one element of uncertainty out of the Etape equation, and should actually give you a confidence boost.
b) Nutrition - You need to develop and practice a nutrition/hydration strategy that you're confident will work for you, come the Etape. The only way to do this is to do a long ride and see what works and what doesn't.
I would say that, for a beginner, the ideal would be to do two 100 mile rides 4-6 weeks ahead of the Etape, with maybe a couple of 70 or 80 mile rides earlier in the season.
I'd planned to do more, but because of illness and other scheduling issues, I did half of that recommendation - the 77 mile version of the Hampshire Hilly Hundred in early May, and the Dragon Ride in early June.
As far as the psychological benefits go, I probably shouldn't have done the HHH ride because I was pretty ill and it set me back a few weeks training-wise. However, I felt much better mentally for having done a reasonably long, hard ride. It was significantly further than I'd ever ridden before, and because I was sick, it was mentally very hard. To get through that was actually one of my biggest challenges, and actually gave me a big psychological boost.
The Dragon Ride is really good training for something like the Etape because the hills are long and gradual - a bit like Alpine climbs. It was also 50% further than I'd ever cycled before, so was a big mental step. However, having completed it, I knew that I could do the distance, and meant I could 'relax' in the six weeks leading up to the Etape and fine tune my fitness. It was absolutely crucial in a psychological sense.
Nutrition-wise, I learnt a lot from the Dragon Ride. I find it difficult to eat solid food when I'm on a ride, and thought I could cope with a diet of gels. However, around the 60 mile mark I started to feel really 'empty' and nauseous, and this made things pretty difficult. It made me realise that you have to eat something solid for your stomach to work on, just to avoid that nausea. When it came to the Etape, I made sure I ate a couple of 'Go' bars fairly early on, and although the bulk of my nutrition was still done through gels, I never felt sick.
I also realised that on the Dragon Ride I just hadn't drunk enough liquid, something I'd noticed on earlier rides. It made me determined to make sure that I drank enough on the Etape, and this proved crucial too.
The biggest lesson that I took away from the carnage on Ventoux was that however fit you are, if you don't drink or eat enough on an 8-10 hour ride, then there will come a point where things get very difficult. Knowing what I know now, I would spend even more time on my nutrition strategy and make it a much bigger priority during my training.
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