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Intermediate Bike Training News |  |
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Greetings, It is hard to believe that we are starting month SIX of the Intermediate Bike Training program. Dan and I are phasing out the weight training and will work on turning all that strength gain into cycling power. If you are planning to startup this month or next all I can say is good luck. Just follow the same sequence of building an endurance base before working on climbing and speed. As I have mentioned before the label "Intermediate" implies some level of commitment to training. You may follow this training program exactly, train for another sport and switch to cycling in the spring, or participate in some other fitness program. While the RMCC ride schedule is challenging you can do well with our program of riding only 2-3 days per week as long as you continue to do core exercises in between rides.  Rick Russon
March starts the real riding season for RMCC. Saturday's ride will be 50 miles over Deer Creek and Parmalee Gulch. This is the start of the climbing. However, this is not "hammerfest" time. For the Training Group I designate March as Lactate Threshold (LT) month. By now you should have a great endurance base and some cardio fitness. We will start pushing up the speed by slowly increasing our time above LT. The way to do this is to ride at a comfortable cruising pace and do occasionally longer increased efforts. Typically we start with a ratio of 1:4 effort to rest. That means, you increase your effort for 1 minute then return to cruise speed for at least 4 minutes. These are not maximal efforts or what people think are intervals. What I saw on last Saturday's ride was an insistence on riding constantly just above their "comfortable" zone. The pace was fast on the flats but the speed dropped way off on the rollers and the hills. Several people broke out of the group on the flat lower portion of Wolfensberger pass only to be caught and dropped on the climb. This is a climbing club. The majority of the season we ride in the hills or over a lot of rollers. You need to learn to control energy and maintain a more consistent speed over the course. If you crawl up the hill and speed down the hill you will find yourself getting dropped a lot. The reason is because the descent is a great equalizer and you probably won't make up as much time down as you lost on the climb. Finally, I just want to set some expectations for the Training Group. 1) We ride the long route unless doing a recovery ride or warming up for a longer ride the next day. Winter was the time to motor around 30-40 miles on flat terrain. 2) we can't provide coaching to a group of riders while on the road. I am in the process of re-organizing the seminars/clinics and developing other training materials for you to study between rides. 3) it trashes my personal ride when everyone is riding at different speeds and are spread out all over the route. Another important characteristic of Intermediate riding is staying in a group. Sometimes it will feel slow to you and other times feel fast. Nobody is perfectly matched. We will refine group riding into Paceline riding. This is an important tool for advanced cycling. The Paceline can maintain a faster average speed as a group than an individual can maintain on their own. You need to learn how to conserve energy on descents, flats and in a paceline so you can climb faster and not slow down on rollers.
As I mentioned we are now ramping down the weight training. You will still want to continue with some form of upper body workout to prevent bone loss. It would also be a good thing to try some of the studio workouts at the health club that emphasize stretching. And, the alternating hot-cold water therapy after a ride will speed recovery.
We had several people on Saturday's ride show up with only water. I'll assume it wasn't anyone who receives this newsletter. But for those recent subscribers I will review. RMCC rides are challenging. We typically burn over 1000 calories per hour when the season really gets going. You need to replace at least half of that or more via sports drinks, gels, nutrition bars, or solid food. On hot days most of us will lose more water than we can comfortably replace. So the goal is to get to the end of the ride before dehydration reaches a point where it affects performance. Also, we will need to replace sodium at a rate of 800-1000 mg per hour. All this requires training your stomach and intestines. Make it a habit to drink at 10-15 minute intervals throughout your ride. Don't wait until that hot day to start pounding down the water bottles. A common thing I hear is that you are afraid to drink because you don't want to have to go to the bathroom. At around 65% effort there is an anti- diuretic hormone released that tells your body to start conserving water and sodium. And, because we are not racing, there are usually adequate places to stop on the rides. So stay ahead of the "bonk."
There is a lot of training information available on the Internet. This newsletter should help guide you to what is important at this time in training. Also, I am working on papers, seminars, clinics, and audio-video training materials. The important thing is to pick a training program and stick with it. The tendency is to mix and match from things you pick up in magazines, on rides, and elsewhere. But some things are either not appropriate for your conditioning, the timing is wrong, or you have contradictory info (i.e. tips for time trialing are not necessarily right for Century rides). Of course, I would prefer you stick with this program. There is no perfect or correct training program. That depends upon your goals and current level of fitness. Our goal is to ride 100-125 miles with 5000-9000 feet of climbing on a regular basis. Our assumed level of fitness is for a person busy with a career, who has a family, and participates in community activities. If you are just out of college, rode on a cycling team, and have six days a week to ride then obviously your training program will be different.
If you are going to ride regularly with us please join RMCC. You dues help offset the cost of the printed schedule, maps, and other materials handed out at ride starts. Legislators and others will take our suggestions more seriously if they see a strong group of cyclists/voters speaking with one voice. You can join online through this store using a credit card or send in the application off the ride schedule. Someone else just contacted me and will be putting some items in the Bargain section of the store so be sure to visit often.
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