Fitness levels in the northeast

[William]

Originally Posted by Climb01742

I've been a wussy. No outside rides for at least a month, maybe a week or two more. Can't face my KK. Keep thinking about trying a wahoo kickr to see if it's any better. Have a concept 2 erg in basement. Hit that many days. Go to the gym other days to lift, swim, erg there too. But I ain't crushing it. Far from it. This winter has messed with my spirits. Hard to push myself. Doing my best to maintain and make it til spring.

Was just going to mention that. I've been hitting mine almost daily mixing interval training with long distance pieces. Also working the rollers, lifting, Muay Thai, PTK, and KK so I'm in shape. I'll be felling good when I can hit the bike regularly outdoors again.








William

[fiamme red]

Doing base miles on a trainer is a great way to rot your brain and destroy your enthusiasm for cycling.

[carpediemracing]

One of my friends made an interesting observation in 2011. He was on fire in the Bethel Spring Series, winning the 3-4s overall with what looked like apparent ease. I asked him what he did differently. He said that he didn't do anything different himself, it was the others that did less. He did a steady 8-10 hours a week on the trainer over a not-great winter and his numbers were on par with the prior year. Based on that he figured the others just did less. It helped that there were no super strong soon-to-be-Cat-2s working their way up the ranks. The prior year, when I won the Series, the guy that was beating us both handily upgraded to Cat 2 mid-Series, else he'd have won. As it was he got 3rd and he only raced half the races.

I haven't ridden outside since Christmas (and for a couple of those rides I was in shorts - thermal but still shorts) but I've done 66 hours since after I started dieting (mid Nov diet but I didn't ride until Dec). I'm just short of 20 lbs lighter than my end of season weight, I'm 12 hours short of half my 2014 hours, and mentally I'm fresh and motivated. My life has been such that this is possible.

In other years things didn't work out like so. My friend that won the 2011 BSS? He became a partner in his firm and stopped racing. I had a phenomenal 2010. I had a horrible 2013. Etc etc.

The first of the Aetna Nutmeg Spring Series (I'm the promoter) is March 15th. It's to the point where I'm going to do a recon of the course in East Hartford to make sure that I have enough time to clear areas for the registration area, officials' stuff, etc, even to make sure there's places to park. I need to do the same for New Britain but we first use that course March 29 so it should be better, I hope.

[avalonracing]

I'm not planning to race this year (unless I jump in a RR or MTB race for fun) so my system is... NOT RIDING!
Sure, I'll suffer on some early spring group rides but who cares, it will be warm.

[bcgav]

Originally Posted by William

I'll be felling good when I can hit the bike regularly outdoors again.

William

Same here, but that seems like a dream that's so very far away right now! The roads are going to be a mess this spring.

[sandyrs]

Originally Posted by bcgav

The roads are going to be a mess this spring.

To say nothing of how destroyed a lot of trails will be. Many are buried under 7 feet of snow right now. I wonder how long they'll take to thaw and absorb all that melt.

[Michael Maddox]

Originally Posted by fiamme red

Doing base miles on a trainer is a great way to rot your brain and destroy your enthusiasm for cycling.

Normally, I'd agree, but I have found the Wahoo Kickr and the related software and options to be rather fun. It's nothing like hours on the rollers or mag trainer back in the 80s...or even a few short years ago. And the workout can be downright nasty, which makes me feel good about myself. Different strokes?

[carpediemracing]

I should add that I burned out on doing structured training about 30 years ago. I just JRA, whether on the trainer or outside. I make efforts when I feel like it (truck chasing on training rides, efforts in group rides, and of course races). Maybe not optimal in terms of optimizing fitness but it's what I want to do.

This makes doing 2-3 hours on the trainer sort of normal and not very stressful. Yeah, I push a bit to complete a ride, but sometimes I decide to push for "another 2 hours" and do it. Usually it's a push to round up the number so at 2:15 I might tell myself to go another 45 minutes. For me it's common to force myself to get off the bike because it might be midnight or 1 AM and it's way too late to keep going for another hour or three.

For me base miles is everything, probably because I don't train in any structured way. In the 2014 season there were months where I rode less than 2 hours a week. However, leading into that season I did some hours in the fall of 2013 (seems like off season I did about 130 hours, Sept 2013 - Feb 2014) then dropped to doing 6-16 hours a month April - Nov (and I had three 8 hour, one 6 hour month in the core of the season). I ran out of base fitness in August when I DNFed three times in rapid succession. Until then I couldn't make breaks (I never could even at my best) but I won a number of field sprints and I had fun racing.

[velomonkey]

6 hours a week on the rollers - HR no higher than 132, average HR 128 - for 40 hours. Every. Single. Ride. Has. Been. On. Rollers. I'll be 18 hours into it at the end of the week.

Am I too say this is the right way, it's what I've read, known and how other people who I know to be awesome racers train - so it's what I do.

Here is what I do know. The dudes who sit there on trainers doing all high-end HIT training ONLY during the winter. They peddle in squares (not all of them, but most) and only a few can beat me and they seem to have put in a lot more hours a week than me.

[sandyrs]

Originally Posted by velomonkey

6 hours a week on the rollers - HR no higher than 132, average HR 128 - for 40 hours. Every. Single. Ride. Has. Been. On. Rollers. I'll be 18 hours into it at the end of the week.

Am I too say this is the right way, it's what I've read, known and how other people who I know to be awesome racers train - so it's what I do.

Here is what I do know. The dudes who sit there on trainers doing all high-end HIT training ONLY during the winter. They peddle in squares (not all of them, but most) and only a few can beat me and they seem to have put in a lot more hours a week than me.

This makes me feel a lot better about my weekly hours, given that most of the relatively few that there are have been on the rollers!

[guido]

Since the new year I have been strictly on the trainer. A little over 500 miles. Lots of interruptions with rooftop crosstraining. Just caught a cold so there starts another interruption. Oh well...

[54ny77]

This time of year I prefer intervals with Elijah Craig.

[Black Dog]

Intervals every other day and then X-country skiing and hockey (I am a Canadian after all, eh). Once it warms up enough then its time for base mixed with intervals. The intervals really reduce the need for tons of base miles, but the first few weeks of base miles are not easy to adapt to.

[wallymann]

Originally Posted by fiamme red

Doing base miles on a trainer is a great way to rot your brain and destroy your enthusiasm for cycling.

this.

i hit the trainer here in motown 5x/week. there's no other way to get fit in time for spring! duration ranges from 20-mins to 60-mins depending on the workout, never more unless something really strange happens in april when i need a long ride at a particular moment in time.

on the trainer "base" miles needs to be re-thought. you can develop base aerobic condition, but it needs to be via exaggerated-high cadence for shorter duration instead of just logging mindless hours of saddle-time and learning to hate the bike as a result.

[Coluber42]

I've been commuting by bike every day, although my commute is short. At least doing it in these conditions is a bit more exercise than it is without snow to plow through.
I've been on the rollers a bit and out on the road too... although I've been more just putting in extra time at work on weekends, which makes it easier to justify playing hooky to go riding when the weather gets nicer. I realized that I've actually been out riding somewhere (usually to work) in the middle of every major snowstorm we've had this year.
Brevet season starts early this year though, so that'll whip me into shape soon enough.