Training: The least amount required.

[stephenmarklay]

So I got dropped. I don’t get dropped. I am not fast but I will push myself to stay on.

My problem is that I do to many things. I spread my energy expenditures out too much with martial arts and strength training 3 days a week (at 48 I don’t recover as fast) and I have so many interests my cycling is hit and miss at best.

I do love to ride but I love to ride with my friends who are more dedicated right now.

If you had an just a very small amount of time to train during the week and they Sunday was a 4+- hour training rider for racer types (pretty fast and was race pace for me), what would you do?

I will figure out a way to fit it in but I want to know what you folks have done when other things get in the way?

I am looking at things like Tabata sets, all out 20-30 efforts etc that I can fit in when time is short etc.

Thoughts?

[MattTuck]

It was a 4 hour ride you got dropped on? I am not sure about the weather in Spokane, but I just started doing outdoor rides a few weeks ago. The longer rides are where I suffer at the moment, I just didn't carry over as much endurance from the winter, which was mostly 1-1.5 hour trainer sessions.

Do you feel that you have a solid aerobic base, and that wasn't the problem?

[JStonebarger]

Some of my favorite workouts are 45ish minutes on the trainer. Very hard intervals, but a short enough workout to fit in almost any day. Also, in my not-so-scientific experience, these short but intense efforts offer a high return without too much fatigue. Keep in mind I'm talking 2-3 times a week, with much lighter work other times. (I'm a fan of polarized training, but if you want to do 4hr hard efforts on the weekend... I dunno.)

[Chris]

Get Trainer Road and get on one of their low volume plans. It will do wonders. I agree with an earlier poster, trainer work with limited time is loads more effective than riding outside.

[54ny77]

here's a different perspective, although doesn't really answer your question: you sound like you have fun, diverse activities and stuff going on and honestly, you should be really happy and appreciative you can do all that.

yep it's tough riding with guys who only ride their bikes (esp. if they're well into race season) and are very strong, esp. if they're buddies and you want to join 'em. i'm in similar boat, esp. during race season: i don't really ride with most of my cycling pals, as they're in full blown race training mode, and there's no way i can hang. i try & pick the days i can join, which is typically a mellow recovery ride for them.

[nooneline]

It differs for everybody, but I would focus on two approaches:

1-minute intervals. This can lean on your strengths, since you do strength training 3 days a week. And, interestingly enough, 1-minute intervals stimulate the aerobic system even though you're not working at aerobic durations.

Threshold over/unders. You can do these in 3 10-minute intervals and expand them as you get better. Basically, 30sec at Vo2max, followed by 30sec at tempo or sweet spot - repeat until you're donezo.

This will help your general fitness. What it won't do is help you keep and apply that general fitness as you get deep into a 4 hour ride. Not much will help you with that except for 4-hour rides. That's the thing about endurance. There aren't too many shortcuts to getting it.

[EDS]

Originally Posted by stephenmarklay

So I got dropped. I don’t get dropped. I am not fast but I will push myself to stay on.

My problem is that I do to many things. I spread my energy expenditures out too much with martial arts and strength training 3 days a week (at 48 I don’t recover as fast) and I have so many interests my cycling is hit and miss at best.

I do love to ride but I love to ride with my friends who are more dedicated right now.

If you had an just a very small amount of time to train during the week and they Sunday was a 4+- hour training rider for racer types (pretty fast and was race pace for me), what would you do?

I will figure out a way to fit it in but I want to know what you folks have done when other things get in the way?

I am looking at things like Tabata sets, all out 20-30 efforts etc that I can fit in when time is short etc.

Thoughts?

If you just sit in and don't take a pull at the front would you get dropped?

[dem]

In short, I don't think you can. Either you need to dedicate 6-7 hours/week to cycling, or just enjoy the ride for the ride.

Assuming you can reliably get 6-7 hours/week, I'm a fan of the "Time Crunched Cyclist" programs (if you can stomach the association with Carmichael) - they work. The Trainer Road low volume plans seem similar.

Huge caveat: Because any short duration training plan is extremely condensed, you can't miss many sessions (skipping a 1 hour endurance day is fine.. skipping 1 of your 3 interval days will pretty much cancel it out.) Training volume can balance out a lot of sins in training, if you remove the volume, you remove your margin of error on physiological adaptation.

Of course, ideally you hire a coach who can figure out how to balance this all out for you, but there's no magic.

[ultraman6970]

If you do another activity then you are ok physically speaking unless you are really overweight. My only question and since I dont know you is... are you a smasher?? is your cadence good, how is your pedaling technique?

A lot of people do not realize how bad is to be a smasher and they ride all the time with the 53x11 and they dont even go that fast.

The 1st thing you have to train is the cadence... cadence and pedaling technique is the base of cycling. You do martial arts, no idea which one but as in martial arts you have base positions that is the 1st thing you learn, punches and kicks right? if you do those bad there is no way you will be able to perform at higher belts (unless you are in a TKO place where parents pretty much buy the belts, you know what im talking about for sure)

That being said, cadence and pedaling technique is the base of everything in cycling, once you master those two will be really hard for anybody to drop you specially if your friends are just normal people, not like cat3 and up riders. Which can spin those pedals all day long.

[redir]

I've gone full circle and am back to the old school LSD on the off season and intervals during the season and it's what works best for me. I do 80 mile races so if I just do short interval time crunch workouts it just doesn't work on those long days. It works great for cyclocross and crit racing though. But you need saddle time IMHO if you want to hang on long rides and races.

[stephenmarklay]

Originally Posted by MattTuck

It was a 4 hour ride you got dropped on? I am not sure about the weather in Spokane, but I just started doing outdoor rides a few weeks ago. The longer rides are where I suffer at the moment, I just didn't carry over as much endurance from the winter, which was mostly 1-1.5 hour trainer sessions.

Do you feel that you have a solid aerobic base, and that wasn't the problem?

Yeah it was 5 of us. We ride for an hour at a moderate base and they picked it up for 90-2 hours. At that point I was likely pushing 250-300 watts for most of it.

I got caught out on one windy up hill section. The group waited as I caught up. I will say that after that I did not get dropped again and two other riders did. Our lead rider has found form and is pushing the pace. Sunday is supposed to be a faster day for the group so it is all fair and good.

The last hour most of us were tired so we went easy the last hour.

[stephenmarklay]

Originally Posted by EDS

If you just sit in and don't take a pull at the front would you get dropped?

Unfortunately, the strongest two were taking all the pulls. They don’t mind at all as at least we can keep a pace they need.

[Pastashop]

I'm in a similar boat. Family, work, other sports – and I want to be good / performing at a high level at all of them!.. But with just so many hours in the day, and an aging body, I have to make some trade-offs.

In my experience, riding on the trainer / rollers is a more efficient form of training than riding outdoors. But the weather is getting to be nice finally (in Michigan), so I would much prefer to ride outside... If riding outdoors without friends, a fixed gear – if feasible in your terrain – could help expand your dynamic range in a shorter amount of time. (All that said, if you don't give yourself enough time to recover, none of this will hold.)

[mtechnica]

Focus on your diet, eat less meat and dairy, completely cut out alcohol, make sure you're getting enough sleep, stretch more, improve your bike fit and comfort if possible, try to rest more during the week if you can.

Maybe once you have all of that stuff in order then worry about training more. I think a lot of cyclists are overweight, inflexible, and have poor diets and it makes a really big difference.

[mtechnica]

Also who cares if you get dropped now and then, in my experience people drop and catch up all the time on group rides.