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Ask a Cycling Coach Podcast - Presented by TrainerRoad

WHY LONG RIDES WON’T SAVE YOUR RACE | Ask a Cycling Coach Podcast 590

Ask a Cycling Coach Podcast - Presented by TrainerRoad

TrainerRoad

Sports

4.94.6K Ratings

🗓️ 18 June 2026

⏱️ 87 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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❤️ Donate to Coach Jonathan’s Leadville Fundraiser: https://give.ltfoundation.org/leejonathan


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// TOPICS COVERED

(00:00:00) Welcome! Why Long Rides May Not Build Long Race Fitness

(00:00:54) TrainerRoad AI Updates and Future FTP Prediction Fixes

(00:05:02) Why Outdoor Workouts Can Affect AI FTP Detection

(00:08:29) How to Answer Post-Workout Surveys Accurately

(00:12:55) Why You Shouldn’t “Game” TrainerRoad AI

(00:17:47) Upcoming AI Workout Improvements

(00:19:36) Jonathan’s Lost and Found Gravel Race Recap

(00:21:05) Why Separate Starts Improve Gravel Racing

(00:23:28) Gravel Race Tactics: Climbing, Corners, and Descending

(00:27:15) Training Power on Flats vs. Climbs

(00:30:16) Heat Training for Hot Gravel Races

(00:32:44) Reading Competitors’ Nutrition and Hydration

(00:35:13) Did Jonathan Break the Race Rules?

(00:39:01) SRAM Transmission Issues on Rough Gravel

(00:45:08) Listener Question: Are Long Rides Necessary for Leadville?

(00:51:39) Why FTP Matters More Than Durability for Long Races

(00:57:08) Leadville Nutrition: Training Your Gut for Race Day

(01:00:31) Jonathan’s Leadville Sub-7 Training Update

(01:06:39) Leadville Bike Setup, Tires, Gearing, and Kit

(01:13:39) Listener Question: Can Swimming Improve Cycling Fitness?

(01:23:47) World Cup Picks and Final Thoughts


In this episode, Nate Pearson and Coach Jonathan Lee dig into why long rides are not always the best way to prepare for long races like Leadville, and why raising FTP, protecting key workouts, and practicing race nutrition can matter more than stacking huge endurance days. They cover TrainerRoad AI updates, including outside workout improvements, more precise post-workout feedback, dynamic workout adjustments, and why athletes should answer surveys honestly instead of trying to “game” the system. Coach Jonathan also recaps his Lost and Found Gravel race, including heat training, pacing, equipment lessons, possible disqualification from outside feeds, and how he’s refining his Leadville 100 MTB strategy with smarter hydration, carbohydrate intake, caffeine, altitude prep, and bike setup. The episode wraps with a look at whether swimming can improve cycling performance, how CO2 tolerance and extra aerobic work might help with hard group ride efforts, plus a quick World Cup discussion.


// RESOURCES MENTIONED

- Donate to Coach Jonathan’s Leadville Fundraiser: https://give.ltfoundation.org/leejonathan 

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- Follow TrainerRoad on Instagram 📸 https://www.instagram.com/TrainerRoad 

- Join the TrainerRoad Zwift Club 🚴 ⁠https://trainerroad.cc/trzwiftclub⁠ 


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https://trainerroad.cc/GetFaster⁠ TrainerRoad is the #1 cycling training app. No other cycling app is more effective. Over 17,000 positive reviews, a 4.9 star App Store rating.


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- Learn more about TrainerRoad: https://trainerroad.cc/3LBb5Ur⁠ 

- Listen to the Successful Athletes Podcast: https://trainerroad.cc/3JmKrN5⁠

- Listen to the Science of Getting Faster Podcast: https://trainerroad.cc/3LpuIhP⁠

- Training Blog: ⁠https://trainerroad.cc/3gCdNdN

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Today we're going to talk about why long rides might not be the best thing to prepare you for long races. We're also going to talk about a big mistake that you could be doing with your training that could be affecting some of your key workouts. We're also going to talk about swimming, possibly being a secret hack for cycling and maybe why, Nate, I did a race over the weekend and I might be disqualified. I just found out just before recording this. Is you litter? No, I did not. Everything was in my pockets. Yeah, yeah, we'll cover that. We're going to get into that. You're very much against that. Yeah. Oh, yeah, totally. I hate it. I've stopped. Yeah. 100% in the middle of a race. I've dropped a gel and I stop and go pick it up. I do not. I don't tolerate. So it wasn't literally. I don't drop it. I don't stop in the middle of a race, I've dropped a gel and I stop and go pick it up. I do not. I don't tolerate it.

0:38.3

I don't drop it.

0:39.4

I don't stop in the middle of a race for sure. Yeah. If it's a feed zone, I won't stop. But otherwise. Yeah. But there's another reason. But before we do all that, Nate, it's good to have you back on the podcast. We should probably jump in. give some people some updates, you and the team.

0:55.9

Everyone's been head down, working hard, really hard. on the podcast. We should probably jump in, give some people some updates, you and the team.

0:56.0

Everyone's been head down, working hard, really hard on tons of stuff.

0:59.6

Yeah, it's been, the world has changed. And with all the new, like, I feel like when we

1:05.9

launched Traynard AI, the AI stuff was the models were just getting along. And now there's

1:09.7

like so many months have passed. And it's, you know, 10x is good. It's crazy. The tooling and everything. And I haven't on the podcast a lot, but it's like 15 hour days every day. I'm listening with my kids. It's crazy. You see like the amount of commits that I have. It's like double anybody else.

1:27.8

We track it in the company.

1:29.5

Yeah, we track it in the companies.

1:30.9

We can see commits of all the engineers and stuff.

1:33.4

And Nate's top in charts.

1:35.4

They were, but we've doing these AI meetings and everyone else is like catching up.

1:40.2

It's going to, the gap's going to close.

1:42.2

So anyways, train art AI. It's been going well the gap's going to close. So anyways, uh, trainer at AI. It's been going well,

1:47.2

except for a few people who are, uh, I want to talk about some of the things that have,

1:51.1

happened and what we're working on and what has been fixed, what hasn't fixed. So right when we first

1:54.9

launched, there were some things with like, um, we need switch a workout and the workouts like

1:58.6

cascade down and they change. Uh, there were some bugs around that on our code side. And when I talk about this, there's two things. There's code issues where it's like, those are deterministic things where it's like one plus one equals two. We can look at it. We can fix it. And then it comes up right away. Then there's models side. And that's with our ML models. And these are our own models. We're not using LLMs. Like these are things that we've trained. It takes about 12 hours to train our model right now, depending on things that might get it faster. But we want to make an update. It takes 12 hours with the result. And that's the ML thing. It's kind of a black box. You don't really know you have to build like test harnesses around it.

2:35.0

See what's happening.

2:37.2

In general, if you do indoor workouts, you will get, like, you'll get faster.

2:43.1

It works really well.

...

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