Entries Tagged 'training' ↓

I’ve been spending two weeks in New York. The weather was very hot (85-100 F), which I like. Coming back to England makes me start rummaging around for leg warmers and gloves. There is a definite autumnal feel compared to the US.

I didn’t do much cycling in New York, apart from a few interval sessions up a small hill and around the Kissena park Velodrome. Hopefully, this was enough to maintain the form of this season.

There are two months of racing season left, which will be mostly hill climbs. This weekend is the British Time Trial Championships with quite an impressive starting line up. BTTC 2010 at Team Grumpy.

Now, I’m back in UK a more normal posting schedule should resume.

This week has been fairly light in terms of training volume, but, high in terms of intensity. Just two rides so far – Tuesday and Thursday. Each day was heading off to ride up a few hills as fast as I can.

I have timed myself up many hills with cycling distance of Oxford. Tuesday was off to Brill hill (3.42)  Today was off to Watlington climb (3.54) and the A40 climb up Stadhampton (5.08).

I tend to choose the hills, where I will have a tailwind, as it gives you an artificially created sense of being faster. If you’re going to suffer up hills, why not get a little help?

Riding on the new Trek Madone 6.9 is making a big difference on the climbs. Either that or I’m  fitter this year – hopefully a combination of them both. Anyway, mid way into each session, the heavens opened and the rain came down, which is a pretty good excuse for turning back home

This weekend I have another  100 mile time trial along the flat roads of Cirencester bypass. My mind is all focused on sprinting up hills at the moment, looking forward to hill climb season, I will need to get psyched up for a very different kind of race on Sunday morning 6am start.

It’s Steep in Swaledale

Last Saturday, I was finally able to break the 21 minute barrier for the popular H10/8 setting a new course pb with a 20.51. Perhaps inspired by 100 greatest climbs, yesterday, I did a very different kind of ride and tackled some of the toughest hills of the Yorkshire Dales. It turned into a long tough day on the bike – 115 miles and 4 big climbs.

Looking towards Reeth in Swaledale

Fleet Moss Climb

The first climb was Fleet Moss (17% -  height gain 350 metres) after 35 miles of leaving Menston. There was a fine mist at the top of the climb, it felt like riding into the clouds; it meant the descent had to be taken with care as visibility was much reduced at the top. I’ve also found a bigger obstacle than pedestrians with headphones or white van drivers – sheep! sheep really are a potential  menace for the cyclist. They have this habit of running in front of you at the last minute. Rather than run away they seem to run into danger. It can be tricky if you’re descending quickly.

Buttertubs, looking towards Hawes.

Buttertubs Pass

After descending into Hawes, I took the Buttertubs pass over to Muker. The ascent form Hawes is not too bad – max gradient of 17%. The descent into Muker offered great views of Swaledale, with some sharp hairpin descents. After a short respite, there was another climb to Askrigg. This starts off with a really steep 25% section with numerous hairpins. It then levels out, before a long drag to the summit.

The 25% climb to Askrigg.

Coverdale / Park Rash Climb

After racing with a tailwind along the Wensleydale valley to Leyburn, I switched back to Middleham and Coverdale. This was a really difficult section as it was all headwind. The climb is not viciously steep, but, it is very long and undulating. The net gain is not too much, but, it is actually made of many small up and down sections. After innumerable false summits, I was relieved to reach the top of the Park Rash climb near Kettlewell, which afforded great views down to lower Wharfedale.

The descent down Park Rash. – It gets worse later on (25%). But, to be honest, it’s not very practical to stop and take a few photos!

The descent into Kettlewell is very unsatisfying as it requires you to sacrifice a good percentage of your brake blocks on the 25% sharp hairpin descents. It would have been great fun to ascend the other way (at least with fresh legs), but is a pretty tough descent. It wasn’t the first time on the ride, I was glad to have the power of the new Dura Ace Brake blocks. After reaching the valley and escaping the tough cold head wind, I got a second wind and enjoyed the last 25 miles along the relative flat through Grassington,Burnsall and Ilkely. I averaged 16.8mph which shows how tough all the 20-25% climbs were.

Hawes

A good way to enjoy the Yorkshire Dales!

What I ate on Ride

• 6 Kellogs Nutri Grain bars (it’s easy to get sick of same energy bar)
• 1 High 5 Energy bar
• 3 bananas
• 1 flapjack from shop in Middleham
• 2* bottles of High 5 energy drink
• 2 bottles of water
• 1 Tracker Raisin bar.

Yorkshire Dales Cycle Sportive. Etape du Dales is 112 miles but takes in a few different climbs going through Horton in Ribblesdale and Garsdale.

Related

• Cycling hills of Yorkshire
• Cycling Yorkshire Dales

A few simple tips for cycle training.

Cycle More

If you want to do a 100 mile ride, you will need to find more time to cycle. You will want to be doing a few 2-3 hour rides at the very least. Preferably a few 4 or 5 hour rides to get used to long distances. When you have a low level of base fitness, the good news is that a little bit of training goes a long way. You will see a marked improvement in performance from an increase in training load.

The trick is often finding time to be able to cycle more. If you live a busy life, a good solution is commuting by bike.
This may be the whole journey or even just part of it.

If you have many family commitments, why not cycle out to some venue and meet your family there on bike. If you have a roof rack, you can easily bring back the bike on the car.

Vary Training.

One mistake, people often make is just to do the same kind of training every week. When commuting it’s easy just to get into a slow gentle rhythm. This is fine for base training, but, if commuting is your main form of training, you should try mix it up. On alternate days, try commuting home very fast. Try different routes, which are a bit longer but give an opportunity to do some speed work. This can be a time trial to see how quickly you can cover a distance or it can be a series of intervals, finding some local hills.

Training vs Riding

Similar to the last point is the idea of changing ordinary cycling into specific training sessions. Rather than just plod along, have a very specific target to train at a high intensity. If you are entering a sportive, try riding up long hills at just below your maximum, this will increase strength and power and get you used to cycling up hills. If you find it difficult to push yourself when you are on your own, try looking for the hilliest route rather than flatest route, this will make you work hard. If you live in a very flat area, you can still set out intervals.

Race

Often people have one or two targets in a year. A big sportive in August, and they spend 10 months thinking about and training for it. It’s noble to train 10 months for a big ride. But, I can’t help but feel, it would be better to have a few races, event leading up to the big one. Races or sportives give you a focus. It is much easier to push yourself when your in that kind of environment. When your doing a private training sessions, it’s much easier to turn home early. Races could be evening time trials, road races or just a competitive sportive. All give you chance to measure your progress. A sense of progress is quite important for maintaining motivation.

Motivation.

A big part of improving cycling fitness is having a good attitude to cycling and training. If you are in a positive frame of mind, training tends to be more effective. It will inspire you to go out even when the weather is not so good. You will get motivation by spending time with other keen cyclists. Training and racing with others naturally spreads a bit of motivation to yourself. It is important not to get phased by disappointing early season races or any thing like that. It can be difficult to judge your performance.

Nutrition / Hydration

I’m not a big fan of fancy diets. But, it is important to take sufficient energy and recovery food / drinks when training hard. A good solid balanced diet should help.

Loose Weight.

You can’t deny losing a few lbs makes a big difference to climbs and enjoyment of cycling. Cycling and weight loss

Discipline vs Flexibility.

To improve fitness, it does require a certain discipline. We need to do different types of riding. We need to be able to push ourselves in order to stretch capacity. We also need the discipline to do recovery rides and take time for days off, when we need it. For some people, overtraining can be as much as a problem as undertraining.

Buy A Better Bike

Actually, forget all these training tips, the real secret of cycling fitness is getting the latest state of the art carbon fibre road bike. This will make all the difference.

Training for cyclo sportives
Interval Training tips
How Much Training should I do?
Stress and recovery in cycle training

Another title found from keyword searches.

Firstly, it is difficult to maintain an average speed of 30mph for 10 or 25 miles. The world hour record which stipulates you have to use a road bike is just above 30mph, 49.700 km (30.882 mi) . This means on a track, with road bike, the best rider in the world, can just about manage a 30mph ride (I would like to see Fabian Cancellera have a go at breaking this). However, using a bike with all aerodynamic advantages, a 30mph ride is quite possible, even for a keen amateur cyclist. If you are racing on roads with traffic, you will also gain an additional benefit of passing traffic.

If you really want to do a 30mph in time trials you could try

• a motorised bike with a sneaky motor hidden in the electric gears.
• Finding a super fast course, which starts at the top of a hill and finishes at the bottom and has a steady stream of passing cars to give you a boost.
• Spend £10,000 on a state of the art carbon fibre bike and research your position in a wind tunnel.
• Train hard.

Out of all these, the last one – train hard – is actually the best, though not always the most popular. For short distance time trialling, you need to work on your speed, and get used to cycling at 30mph.

Firstly, you can only do this intense interval training when you have a reasonable level of base ‘aerobic fitness’

When you have this base fitness, you can start racing and training at a higher intensity and have better recovery from your efforts.

One of the most effective ways to increase power output, is to train at an intensity greater than you can manage for 20 minutes.

One of the hardest interval sessions is riding at maximal effort for periods of 3-5 minutes, taking a good rest in between. As your fitness increases you can increase the number of intervals that you do. If you can do 10 intervals of 3-5 minutes at your maximum effort, you can know you are pretty fit.

• Interval training tips
• Interval Training sessions

For myself, the 30mph barrier is a real goal. I have got close with a 20.09 in a 10 mile time trial – just 9 seconds off. One thing I often do, is train on a road bike trying to cycle at 30mph (or close) for five minutes, recovering and then trying again. I usually do this on a road with a slight tailwind. It’s good psychologically to get used to cycling at 30mph.

Even better would be to train on a time trial bike, so you get used to the speed of training at that speed.

With no race this weekend, I was inspired to get a few miles in, thinking about the upcoming 100 mile time trial.

• Sun – 75 miles including 50 mile race
• mon – rest
• Tues – 80 miles av. 21mph
• Wed – 20 miles av 16mph
• Thurs 70 miles av 20mph
• Fri – rest
• Sat – 25 miles av 17mph
• Sun 105 miles av 20mph
• Tues – 80 miles av 21mph
• Wed – 40 miles av 17mph

Even on rest days I will cycle at least 6 miles, slowly into town on a commuting bike. Ideally, it would be a little further. It helps to loosen the legs after long ride.

It’s quite a big week, I don’t usually cycle this distance. The good weather and lack of races encouraged me to train bigger distances than usual. It’s also got me thinking about entering a 12 hour time trial on August 15th. I never done one before, the furthest I’ve cycle in past 5 years is 100 miles. If I did a 12 hour time trial, I would want to try and cycle between 250-275 miles. It sounds intimidating, but, it would be a good challenge. If training keeps going well, I may enter. I could do with speaking to someone like Oranj (Howard Waller) with experience of long distance time trials and who is preparing for Paris Brest Paris (1200KM) in August. – The kind of ride that makes a 100 mile time trial look like a walk in the park.

Energy Drinks for Long distance Training.

Previously, I used to eat many energy bars on long rides. But, to acclimatise to the 100 mile race, I’ve been using more energy drinks and less energy bars. It is good to get used to energy drinks in training so that when you race, there is less new things to get used to.

With the weather warming up, it is essential to be getting some electrolytes which you are sweating out.

Recovery Drinks

If you look on the back of a recovery drink it is mainly maltodextrin (carbonhydrate) with some protein powder (usually soya) with some whey and perhaps milk powder. It’s not exactly rocket science, but, there is something psychologically beneficial about taking a ‘recovery drink’ I mean what better way to recover from a long ride, than with a ‘recovery drink’ Sometimes I take a ‘recovery drink’ on a ride. There’s no harm taking on some protein in the middle of a ride, it still has carbohydrate and electrolytes. When having an heavy duty training week like this week, it is also good to be eating for next day as well as this one.

Related

• Recovering from long ride
• Training for cycle sportives

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

Related

• Cycle Training principles

The last time I did a 100 mile time trial was in 2005. I finished 4^th in the National championships on a hilly course with a time of 3:55. I quite enjoyed the race, but, not enough to do another one.

Since this year, I’ve been able to train well, I am going to enter the National championships on 11^th July. It won’t involve much change to be training schedule, but, I will be trying hard to do a weekly ride of at least 4 hours. If possible, I will do a few 100 mile + rides every fortnight or so. It’s a bit intimidating racing a distance, that you have never done in training.

The race does require endurance, and the ability to keep going for four hours. However, it is still a race, in which I will be hoping to average over 26mph, so the base speed needs to be there. I will be doing more 25 mile and 50 mile time trials in preparation.

Though the race is flat, I like to do my long rides over hilly terrain – simply because I find it more interesting. I tend to ride at a comfortable threshold level, until I come to the long climbs, in which I will push myself. I don’t know whether this is the best way to train, but, I just enjoy training really hard, especially up hills.

If I can keep the basic speed and improve the endurance, I should be hopefully competitive come July.

If you don’t have many miles in your legs, but, still fancy working towards a 100 mile race / sportive / ride. The first thing is to get used to the distance. Start at 40 miles, and every week add an extra 10-15 miles. In a few weeks, you will be getting closer to the 100 mile limit. (see: Cycling 100 miles) During the week, get a few short rides in, to keep your legs in shape. When you have a base level of fitness, you can switch to higher intensity efforts. This will definitely help increase your overall speed. If your going to do a 100 mile effort, it’s going to be more fun with more speed. Though as Greg Lemond said ‘It never gets easier going up hills, you only get faster’

Eating in 100 Mile Race

A key issue in a long distance time trial is the ability to absorb sufficient fuel. With a 10 or 25 mile race, you don’t really have to worry, as the body naturally stores enough. But, in a 100 you can burn up significant reserves of calories. Some riders like to try and improve their fat burning ability. This involves training on little carbohydrate to improve fat burning capacities. However, I’m not convinced this makes any difference. It reminds me of the old way pros used to train – riding without water for hours even in heat. That doesn’t help only harm the body. When training for four hour rides, I am getting used to taking on fuel in solid and liquid form, trying to maintain optimal blood sugar levels, whilst avoiding the bloating feeling.

Recovery

When racing, you often end up doing short distances. This Tuesday, I did my first four hour ride for quite a while. I averaged over 20mph, including five long climbs. It felt good in the ride, but, I definitely noticed the legs and body were more tired during the rest of the week.

Related

Training for cycle sportives
Base Level Training

Training for 10 mile time trial

A nice way to get in the miles. Remember when the weather was this warm?

If you start cycling with a very low level of general fitness. It is highly advisable to break yourself in gently. For a few weeks, if not months, you should concentrate on base level (aerobic) fitness. This is essentially cycling at a decent pace, but, avoiding any sprints up hills.

This is mostly common sense, most people won’t need to be told, as it will feel like the best thing to do. However, if you’re riding with other people or enter a cycle sportive in the heat of the moment, you may find you are pushing yourself more than you imagined.

When you have a few good rides in your legs, you will start to get a better idea of what the body can cope with. You can gradually increase distance and later intensity.

This kind of base level training is done around 60-70% of your maximum heart rate. It is an effort level, where you should be able to speak to someone cycling alongside without running out of breath.

Base level training is not just for beginners but every cyclist. Typically, I concentrate on base level training during the winter. I will spend about three months of training at a low intensity, but, trying to get a lot of miles in.

Heart Rate Zones.

You can use a heart rate monitor to keep yourself within a target heart rate. However, don’t become a slave to your heart rate monitor. If you find yourself creeping up into a high heart rate on a hill, don’t feel obliged to get off and walk. If you feel reasonably comfortable and have an idea of what the body can cope with, don’t worry about going into ‘wrong zone’ every now and then. During the long winter months of training, sometimes I just feel like pushing hard up some hills. There is no law that you have to keep within a certain heart rate for three months at a time.

The only time when I am strict about not going into a higher heart rate is during recovery rides during periods of intense interval training. If you are training and racing hard, it is important that recovery days really are recovery days.

Base level training should be fun. Find good roads, pray for good weather. Find other people with similar goals to help pass the time. Commuting to work, can help create more hours on the bike.

How Long to Keep Base Rate Training?

As you build up your aerobic fitness, you will feel more comfortable at racing up hills. You will be able to do more effective training when you have that base level of fitness.

Cycling with heart rate monitor
Training for cycle sportives
Winter Cycle Training

Spring is here, – well actually not reallly, this was taken from this time last year.

Since the worst of the weather, in the middle of January, I’ve been training quite hard. In February I completed about 850 miles. I have also started training at race intensity. Last year, I didn’t start until March or April. But, this year, I was getting bored of just doing long miles so I started doing what I like best, which is training hard, especially riding up hills.

This week’s Training

• Sat 80 miles – mostly steady averaging 18mph pushing hard on two climbs around Vale of White horse, and Lambourne
• Sun – 45 minutes on turbo to help legs recover after Saturday’s hard ride.
• Mon – no cycling
• Tues – 70 miles around Chilterns, averaging about 19mph – Bledlow Ridge, Stokenchurch. There’s about 7 long climbs on this ride, I’m basically zigzagging up and down Bledlow Ridge. The climbs are often quite long up to 2 or 3 miles and not too steep. It was a great ride, with some of the best weather this year. Also, some of these very quiet country lanes were completely deserted in the middle of the day. You were as likely to come across a dog walker as a car. Cycling heaven! It was the first time, I felt really fit.
• Wed – 25 miles averaging 15.5. My legs were really tired from the previous day, so I just plodded around a local chaingang circuit, barely managing to average 16mph
• Thurs- Planning to do about 40-50 miles fairly fast, but no intervals
• Friday – Rest
• Sat – 30 miles steady
• Sun – 25 mile Race.

The previous week, I had a few rides were I just felt really slow, I had set an ambitious plan, but, I didn’t have the legs. Sometimes, I feel quite slow, but, other times I felt really good. Especially, at this time of the year, I don’t worry about this kind of inconsistency. In fact it is good to have alternating sessions. Hard, recovery, hard, recovery e.t.c.

Related

• Winter cycle Training