After 3 months of steady riding and rest, February marks the beginning of more ‘serious’ training for me.
My philosophy is to take 3 months (November, December and January) off any kind of racing and interval training. In February I will be following this kind of training schedule.
- Medium Length ride of 50-60 miles 3 and half hours averaging about 70% HR
- Medium Length ride of 35-40 miles 2 hours averaging about 20mph and 80-85% of HR. This ride is fairly hard, but does not involve intervals or racing. It is to boost the aerobic capacity. It require alot of concentration to maintain an effort level of 80% HR, if you lose concentration it is easy to slip down into 65-70%. For this ride I try to find relatively flat roads. It creates a good feeling after the ride.
- Racing Practise. In February, this will involve riding for 25-30 mins at race speed, or a little under race pace. This is to get used to riding at close to race pace. Sometimes the speed can feel very slow. Yesterday I managed 10 miles in 25.30 minutes. (My pb is under 21.00)
- Hill Intervals. At this stage in the season I may start racing up hills. This will not be ‘eyeballs out’ at my maximum like later in the year. The effort levels are probably about 10 mile pace or a little faster. This ride my last for 1 and half hours. Sometimes I may incorporate it with the longer 55 mile ride.
- If chance I will go out 5 times a week and probably just ride for an hour and a half to get more miles in.
At this time of the year, I am doing perhaps 100-120 miles a week. I would like to do more, but time is a constraint.
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