Readers Question: I’m a 56 year old, 14 and half stone 5ft 8in bloke who has been messing about on bikes for the last year or so but have got more into it since buying a Cube Road bike in Feb this year. So far I have ridden just over 2000km this year and have used a heart rate monitor (just in case). I have been timing myself the last few days over a 10 mile circuit (reasonably flat road) and the best I can achieve is 36 / 37 minutes. By the way, I am ex Army and was really fit until I came out 16 years ago and things have gradually got worse with age and enthusiasm, but I am really keen to try and break 30 minutes for 10 miles.
It sounds as if you are building up a good base level of fitness. 2000 Km in a year is a good starting point for moving up to a higher intensity. At this point I would suggest trying some above Aerobic Threshold intervals where you get used to riding at a level which is uncomfortable due to accumulation of lactic acid. Don’t worry about knowing your aerobic threshold, but just try for three minutes to try at an intensity just above that when you were doing a 10 mile time trial. After a recovery period of 5 minutes try another 3-4 minute interval. This will be harder to maintain because you will have more lactic acid in legs. Try do 3-4 of these intervals. Then as you get fitter, you can increase number and also reduce recovery time in between them. I would start off by just doing one or two of these per week. Also one of the best ways to get faster for 10 mile time trials is just to do more of them. If you do one or week, this will definitely help get faster. As Graeme Obree said you can’t beat training for a 10 mile time trial by doing a 10 mile time trial. His training philosophy for training for the hour was to ride as fast as he could in training for an hour.
Another thing to do is to try and find a local club time trial. (you can look for local clubs at CTT) Racing against others will increase your motivation, and you will also pick up other easy tips to reduce times.
- The courses will probably be faster.
- Buying some cheap aero bars will probably knock off a couple of minutes too. Don’t be intimidated by the expensive equipment that some people will have, timetrialling doesn’t have to be a drain on your wallet (though in my case it definitely is!)
I think if you keep doing 10 mile time trials and keep up a mix of base training and harder interval training, you will soon see your times fall closer to 30 minutes.
Related
Aero bars
By the way ‘evens’ refers to riding at 20mph average speed. For some reason, I used to think evens was riding at a 25mph average speed.
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