Cycling-Related Strength & Conditioning

Right. You chaps are well up on your fitness know how so, in a nutshell, I'm feeling like I've really losing shape over the last year through being really unsettled and moving round a lot so I'm wanting to set myself a goal for next year and do a few sportives leading up to either l'etape or marmotte in summer. Am I being totally unrealistic to take something like that on? a guy I know that's done it says you need to train 2 years in advance to have good core fitness and also get a lot of experience riding in packs. I get out on my bike for long rides when I can (50-75 miles normally) but it's mostly short commutes during the week,

A lot of sites tell you general info about how many miles you should be doing per week in the lead up to something like the etape but could/should I be complimenting this in the gym/doing spin classes, or at my level is it just a case of htfu and get a better alarm clock and some thermals for long winter miles?

Regular time on the bike would work best. How short is your commute? Mine's about 5min each way, which doesn't really count for shit, but even something like 5 miles each way is good for ticking over.

One long ride a week over the winter, the kind of distances you mention, is fine. Follow the usual advice about not increasing single ride/weekly mileage by more than 10% each week. You should be getting some century rides done by the time spring comes around, at which point you can also add in periods of higher intensity/harder hill efforts.

Perhaps bodyweight exercises, done at home, would be useful for core/whole-body condition, which will definitely make the tail end of the Marmotte less uncomfortable. Crunches, bodyweight squats, press-ups; that kind of thing. No need to go mental.