The Fitbit Fifty Training Plan

Starting at around 7am on Friday 30th September and Sunday 2nd October, two teams of six people will attempt to run and cycle from Buckingham Palace to Edinburgh Castle and back again within 50 hours – a feat never previously attempted. The good news for our brave men and women is that it’s very achievable, even with a mere six weeks to train. The bad? Well, there’s a quite a big if attached to that last sentence…

RECOMMENDED: The Fitbit Fifty Route

“To start this training programme, you should already be able to do a 50km ultra-distance run or a 100-mile cycle,” says coach George Anderson, a veteran of the Endure 24 race and Ironman triathlons. “If you can do either of those, you could probably struggle through the distance right now. This training plan, however, will enable you to do it more comfortably and a bit quicker.” The latter is essential, as our teams are competing against the clock.

This plan uses heart-rate training to monitor intensity – every participant will be equipped with a Fitbit Surge to track and display heartbeats per minute – and mixes tough threshold sessions designed to improve the body’s ability to recover from lactate build-up with easy paced recovery rides to allow the teams to go further and faster.

The specialised nature of the challenge – riders will tackle the bike sections in pairs, each person completing at least 50km before resting – also means specific training will achieve the best results. “There’s a big difference between doing it in stages and doing it in one go,” says Anderson. “You’re basically going to be doing a couple of hours on the bike, then take three or four hours off, so this plan contains one day a week when you’ll do a 50km loop, then rest before doing it again.”

It’s a good idea for participants to have a training partner so they can practise riding as a pair, including drafting behind one another. Most Saturdays contain a single all-out one-hour effort done close to time-trial pace, ideally with a partner. This will also mean an early start. “Practising the sleep-deprivation element of the challenge is one simple training hack that will get results without more time on the road,” says Anderson. “Getting your body used to moving around at times when it’s normally asleep is half the battle.”

RECOMMENDED: Who’s Doing the Fitbit Fifty

Below is the six-week plan that has been sent to our brave athletes. The first two weeks are designed to get them used to the distances involved; the middle two weeks consist of hard efforts; while the final fortnight ends with moderate tapering towards the event itself. The intensity of the sessions is designed to be measured by the Fitbit Surge; if you don’t have a heart-rate monitor, aim to do the cardio pace sessions at a rate that’s fairly easy and sustainable, and the peak sessions at an intensity that you can only just maintain for the time required.

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Week 5

Week 6

This plan was designed by running coach George Anderson and James McCallum, sports director at oneprocycling.com