Cycling up 100 Pyrenees climbs in 10 days: how can I do it?

From early May to the start of September, the three grand tours of cycling – the Giro d’Italia, Tour de France and Vuelta a España – see the world’s best riders tackle countless punishing climbs amid three weeks of racing.

And then, just as this rolling spectacle packs away for another year, 30 amateur riders will attempt an arguably equally difficult feat of ascending. Participants in September’s self explanatory-named Cent Cols challenge will try to ride 100 categorised climbs through the French Pyrenees in just 10 days.

This means an average distance of 125 miles a day, and a total ascent of 49,500m. By comparison, last year’s Tour de France total was 45,000m, and that was over 21 days. The toughest Cent Cols stage, from Oust to St Lary-Soulan, will feature almost 6,000m of total climbing.

If that’s not sufficient indication of how tough a challenge it is, consider this: of last year’s 30 participants, only 10 finished the entire course.

The Cent Cols is organised by cycle clothing firm Rapha but is the brainchild of Phil Deeker. He is a cyclist renowned in the industry for his understanding of, and appreciation for, the French mountains. He created the event five years ago as a personal challenge, attempted solo; a “seemingly unachievable, impossible” task that he has shared every year since with the most masochistic riders in the world.

And in 2016, one of these will be me. It’s six weeks since I signed up and it still seems unachievable, impossible. It is the most daunting physical endeavour I have, and perhaps will ever undertake. I have never attempted a multi-stage race before, have never climbed more than 4,000m in a single day and have no history of succeeding in serious endurance sports. I am a moderately active 20-something with a full-time desk job. How will I do it?

“You need to put in the hours of training,” Deeker explains. As for any long-distance event, “it’s the miles in the legs that get people round this”.

“You needs to know what climbing for two hours non-stop means. It’s about that ability to endure, and the ability to recover. You need to be able to rest up properly, recover, and get up the next morning and do it all over again.”

The ride will, of course, be tackled at a much slower pace than the grand tours it emulates, but the fitness required, especially for an amateur beginning from a standing start, feels little less daunting. Experts assure me it is possible to prepare in just a few month while balancing all those other, less important responsibilities that come with adult life. However, like a professional rider, it will require a religious dedication.

The jaunty commute to and from the office isn’t going to cut it. A static turbo trainer for your bike, or better still something more specialist (if expensive) like a Wattbike is a huge help.

Joanna Rowsell, Olympic gold medallist at London 2012 in the team pursuit, says a time-poor amateur can only achieve pro-levels of fitness if they are willing to put the effort in on one of these.

“A normal week for me would be six days of training. Monday to Friday would normally have two sessions a day - two hours on the road in the morning and then a track or gym session in the afternoon. But the biggest gains come from an interval session of any kind,” she explains. “Within less than an hour - on a Wattbike or a trainer - you can do a brutally hard session that can leave you lying on the floor, and that’s when you get the most bang for your buck.

“Training is all about quality over quantity, and while it’s good to get long miles in at the weekend, a lot of improvement can come in short sessions during the week. Indoor sessions are the bread and butter of my training. You can do an intense 45-minute session that will give you a massive fitness boost, far more than a steady, long ride on the road.”

Deeker reckons for any rider to have a hope of getting round this course, or any major multi-day sportive, they need to be training at least five times a week. For me, four of those sessions will be on a Wattbike - practising grinding gradients, long shallow sections of uphill, and the occasional high intensity interval session.

The static bike, used in some form or other by many pros, offers the ability to train by numbers. Rather than seeking out that perfect climb on a long weekend spin, riders can complete short targeted sessions in time for a 9am office start.

But five rides a week - indoor or out - raises the issue of fatigue. How do you work full-time, and then work out for another two, almost every day, without completely burning out? Charlotte Kennedy, a sports nutritionist at Etixx, says food is the answer.

Like most cyclists, she starts with carbs. For every day that features one to three hours of training, she suggests 7-10 grams of carbohydrate per kilogram of rider weight. But, she explains, the traditional carb-loading isn’t the favoured method for the most serious cyclists.

“There is not as much focus on carb-loading, but more on a carb-enriched diet. It is common knowledge to many people that in the build up to an endurance event you need to eat a lot of carbohydrate to maximise your carbohydrate stores. However, there is only so much your body can actually store and eating too much will leave you feeling bloated and sluggish. Therefore nutritionists are trying to communicate that you don’t need to go overboard and eat banana after banana after banana the night before an event – you’ll feel worse for it.”

There are also some tricks of diet trickling down from the pro level that can help time-poor riders, such as magnesium, and beta-alanine, an amino acid.

“Magnesium plays a part in more than 300 reactions in the body and supplementation can contribute to normal muscle function, the reduction of tiredness and fatigue, support electrolyte balance and support normal energy metabolism,” she says.

“Beta-alanine can help to increase the buffering of lactic acid in the muscles during high intensity exercise. Studies have shown that it improves muscular endurance, anaerobic running capacity and reduces fatigue. And the other hot topic is dietary nitrates. Some interesting research has suggested that dark chocolate may also help to increase vasodilation, glucose uptake and promotes regular muscle contraction.”

But ultimately, a ride like the Cent Cols requires commitment, says Deeker: “If the body is basically sound, then it can be used by the mind to go to extraordinary places.

“This begins with a sense of discipline and then explores the ability to manage pain. But above all, it depends on the mind maintaining a sense of purpose and a sense of enjoyment. It can be a long haul.”