Stephen: When you're riding on a bike for 50 miles, probably the best warm up, is to just gradually increase your pace on a bike. But for 50 miles, unless you're Lance Armstrong, you're not gonna be going, really really fast the whole time. So I don't think the warm up actually is the most important part. I think it's what you do, to negate the fact that you're on a bike for 50 miles. Eg, when you're sat down in a certain position, you're going to be causing, essentially muscular imbalances, because I'm assuming there's a lot of training, that's happened, to get to being able to do 50 miles. So, you're going to be sat on a bike, for a long long time, in your training and then actually on the day. So, that will mean that your hip flexors will potentially become shorter. The front of your legs, are gonna become tighter. And, what you need to think about, is what you're going to be doing, everyday probably, to make sure that those things don't actually become an issue. For example, if your hip flexors become tight, then that can often cause your, well other side of your body, the opposite muscles to either become weak, or not to be working. So for example, your bum just won't be working the same. Cos essentially it's sat down, and you're not really doing too much, your hip flexors become tight. So, what I would do is make sure that you're implementing a flexibility routine, everyday, to essentially negate all of the things that happen from the bike. So stretch your hip flexors, stretch your quads, stretch your pecs. Because when you're sat down on a bike, you'll be really protracted in your shoulders. And try and make sure that you're thinking about your posture. Because you don't want the fact that you've done a bike ride to cause you issues in a few months time, because it's effected the way that your body sits.
Mark: And on a side note, you also wanna be, a lot of people think about nutrition wise, what they need to be eating. They think about the food they need to be eating on the morning. Actually, it's kind of the, it's the meal the night before, actually from the lunch before, that you need to be focusing on. Carb loading, a lot of people say, but it's not necessarily just carb loading, but it's effectively thinking about the, when you do long endurance like that, you are using the food from previous days, day.
Stephen: And often, when you're doing really endurances, you wanna be thinking about, little gel packs and things like that, to give you that boost of energy.
