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Intermediate Bike Training News |
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Dear Rick, Happy New Year to all! Hope you survived the holidays without losing too much conditioning. January is the month to work on our endurance base. The training "investment" that you make now will determine how you ride this summer. Remember, this group is not training to race we are training for lifelong health and fitness - and that is endurance riding. Just some other quick notes: I will be scheduling more "Getting Started" seminars for late March. I'll also be bringing that out in audio form if that is more convenient for you. The maintenance, climbing, and speed clinics will occur sometime in Apr and May. Finally, check out my experimental "podcasts" at http://feeds.feedburner.com/midlifesports. These are audio versions of the newsletter that you can download and hear in iTunes or other MP3 players.  Rick Russon
It was great weather for the New Year's weekend. We got a nice 50-mile warm-up ride in and did the New Year's Day Century ride. In spite of the wind a lot of us finished in under six hours. Not bad for this early in the year. I want to remind you that the members of this group are not competing against each other. The goal is to ride to the best of your ability with whatever time YOU have to devote to training. So be careful about comparing yourself with the others on group rides. Right now I have 700 miles on the bike for this training season. That does not count indoor cycling and the elliptical machine. I am 14 weeks into my weight training routine which is in addition to my core exercises that I may or may not do daily. This is actually low mileage because of the poor weather we have had. Again, don't get discouraged and give up or not start because you haven't trained this much. I just wanted to show you how much volume you are missing if you think Oct-Dec is in the "off" season. I hope it will encourage you to get started NOW on getting healthy and fit in this new year.
We stopped the weights in the middle of Dec to taper before the Century Ride. This week we will start back in. I've only had three people take up my offer to work out at the Littleton YMCA with Dan and I on Mon & Wed night at 5:30 pm. I know that getting to the YMCA after work is difficult for some. But for others you are missing some great training in spite of the debate about the benefits of weight training for cycling. Perhaps in elite cyclists the benefits are negligible but for the average recreational cyclist I'll tell you that this is another activity that makes up for lost riding mileage. If you have some experience in strength and conditioning our program is very different. You may or may not believe that this is a better way to train for cycling but it is worth checking it out at least.
The holidays blew all our diets. Time to get back into training mode. For normal eating I am recommending a 55-60% carbohydrate diet. Experiment with your protein/fat percentages. We have found that higher protein (up to 25-30%) is beneficial for long endurance riding. This is also a time to experiment, during your normal work day, with sports drinks, gels, bars and other on-bike nutrition to see how well these items sit in your stomach. Nice to have a bathroom nearby when experimenting rather than being on the bike and finding out that something disagrees with you.
I've been overwhelmed with the holidays and my own cycling so I haven't been up into the back country lately. Denver Bike Touring Club is coordinating a lot of trips up into the snow.
The website and store are still in development and a mess. The store works for the Bargain items and polo shirt but the other items are not ready to go. Just trying to put things in place to give you a preview of what's coming and to help us with the store design.
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