not me, but a couple on a tandem in Oxford
After 2-3 months of long base mile training, I have started thinking about the start of the racing season. I’m tempted to begin racing in mid February which is quite early.
On Thursday, I did the first really hard session since the end of October. I just raced around a 12 mile circuit averaging about 22 mph. You always feel slow at this time of the year, the weight of winter clothing doesn’t seem to help either. But, ignoring the time, it’s good to regain the feeling of racing after such a long break.
At this time of the year, I might do one or two hard sessions a week. Also, it doesn’t have to be at a maximal effort. Just enough to prevent the first race being a real shock to the system.
I don’t really have a strict training plan, I find a lot is determined by weather conditions. For example, the week of really cold weather led to a very quiet week in terms of hours spent training. But, this kind of light training weeks is good to have every four weeks or so. I think it’s a mistake to do the same intensity and duration every week. A heavy week followed by a shorter mileage week helps recovery.
Generally, I train depending on how I feel. If I don’t feel tired after a couple of 2 hour rides, I know that is a good sign to be able to lift the intensity of the training.
Any athlete always has a difficult balance between undertraining and overtraining, and depending on who you ask you will get very different answers. It is certainly a very individual issue depending on
- general health
- base aerobic fitness
- age.
- ability to recover.
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