The loneliness of a long distance cyclist.
The previous post on racing and training got me thinking about how much training is the optimal amount. You will get a wide variety of responses, depending on who you ask and what your goals are.
Some professionals may spend up to 35 hours in a week training. They won’t do this every week, but at an early season training camp, they may want to get as many miles in as they can. This improves the aerobic fitness and gets them prepared for three week tours and races lasting up to 250 Km.
Other professionals may give a very different response. Graeme Obree said that when he was at the peak of his form he was training ‘Four Hours a week’ When he trained, it was really as hard as he could – probably at a higher intensity than most of us could manage in a race. When he wasn’t training at race speed, he would just be spinning to help recovery. Like Chris Boardman, he wasn’t training miles after mile, but, when he did train it was at a very specific intensity.
It shows that for short distance races, (upto 40Km time trials, one hour crits), the duration of training is less important than the intensity with which we can train. It is good news for those who don’t have much time to train. It is not so much how often we train, but, whether we can train with sufficient intensity to keep improving our capacity.
Many cyclists will respond by saying – ‘ but I want to train for longer than four hours a week’ I enjoy riding the bike. I would certainly fall into this category! I think as well as the really high intensity interval training, we need a complement of steady aerobic training. The duration of this will depend on what kind of racing / riding we are doing. If we are planning ambitious Cyclo Sportives, we need a certain mileage in our legs. If we are just doing 10 mile time trials the volume of miles in our legs is of less importance. Though that doesn’t mean we should just do intervals. Recovery rides need to be given same importance as rides to stretch our capacity. There needs to be the right mix between stretching the body, and allowing it to recovery and grow stronger muscles.
Over Training / Under Training
The level of training is highly individual. Some people may just not be able to maintain 4-5 hours of really high level interval training a week. More than two sessions may burn people out, leading to greater propensity to illness. We have to be adaptive to our body and listen to signals of over-training. (see: avoid over-training)
At the same time, if you want to be at the peak of your fitness, you can’t get by on small levels of training. Professional cyclists are so fit and fast because they spend so much time on the bike.
Personal Choice
There is much to be said for training at a level that you enjoy doing. If you really enjoy training long hours every day and you want to be ready for long races / rides, why not? If you don’t get burnt out, you can improve your fitness and just enjoy the cycling.
If you have limited time and specific goals, you want to make sure your training is as focused as possible.
The level of training we can manage may also depend on other factors such as:
- General state of health
- Nutrition
- Massage / stretching to aid recovery
- Our motivation for cycling
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