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Intermediate Bike Training News
Create a Sustainable Healthy Lifestyle
May 9, 2006
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in this issue
--Road Rides
--Indoor Training
--Motivation and Encouragement

Dear Rick,

Several people have told me that they are unable to
read the newsletter.  Some e-mail servers do not
accept "HTML" e-mails to reduce the chance of
malicious code reaching the reader's workstation.

If you have had trouble reading the past newsletters
please send me an e-mail and I will change the
format to "text-only" to eliminate the problem.  Also,
you can go to www.midlifecycling.com and access
past newsletters in the archive.  The link to the
archive is under the newsletter sign-up box.


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Road Rides
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Last Saturday we had one of the largest turnouts
ever for the 200K Brevet.  The weather was nice and
cool for the 128 miles and over 10,000 feet of
climbing.  Congratulations to Diana P. who completed
this, her first, brevet.  This is a great
accomplishment, not only because it is one of the
hardest events we ride, but because Diana has only
been riding since November.

This shows, once again, that you can make rapid
progress in your riding if you follow the Midlife Cycling
training program.  The foundation of this entire
program is taking the time to build a solid endurance
base by putting in lots of miles at the "fatty
acid/carbohydrate" crossover point on flat to
moderately sloping terrain.  This does not mean
motoring around like a snail on a joy ride or going out
hard on every ride.

To fully explain what I am talking about takes several
hours which is why I periodically hold the Cycling
Physiology seminar and have an upcoming DVD to
cover this information in detail.  However, you can go
to the Midlife Cycling online store and download a
free overview paper titled "Endurance Training."

This coming Saturday we will ride the Elephant Rock
metric century (65 mile) route out of Castle Rock. 
Got to www.rmccrides.com for more information
about the route, start time, and starting location.


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Indoor Training
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This month we started our big rides.  Each weekend
we will cover between 150-200 miles and at least
6000 feet of climbing.  You should also be adding one
or two shorter (1 1/2 - 2 hour) rides during the week
to focus on climbing power (Tue) and speed (Thu).

This much riding volume comes at a cost.  The price
is soreness in the patellar tendon and iliotibial band. 
Stretching is the most natural way to help minimize
these problems.  Focus on stretching routines for the
quadriceps, hamstrings, calves, and IT band.  These
can be found in any exercise book and we cover
them in our winter core fitness clinics.  Also, use
alternating ice and heat on the sore area after a ride.

If you must resort to supplements or medications my
favorite is liquid glucosamine.  I found a
pharmaceutical quality liquid that is quite effective. 
It is offered in the online store.  Ibuprofin before and
during a ride is the old standby.  DO NOT use pain
relievers immediately AFTER a ride.  These interfere
with the body's healing process.  For more
information, download the free anti-inflammatory
paper from the online store.


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Motivation and Encouragement ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For those of you who are just starting our program,
or are not progressing as fast as you would like, I
want to offer some words of encouragement.  The
Midlife Cycling program is not about competing with
others.  It is about making the most progress YOU
can for the amount of time that YOU have to ride. 
In general, those who train more will have better
conditioning.  That doesn't make you a bad person.

What does make you a bad person is riding outside of
your abilities, trying to ride at the front of the pack,
to stroke your ego.  If you aren't one of the 3 or 4
people leading the group then chances are nobody
will really notice your riding.  We all want to ride
well.  Focus on making steady and consistent
progress one-ride-at-a-time.  Ironically, it seems the
more relaxed your are, the faster your distance and
speed abilities will creep up on you.


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Contact Information
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email: rmrusson@midlifecycling.com
phone: (303) 756-0041
web: http://www.midlifecycling.com

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Midlife Cycling LLC | 1579 W Briarwood Ave | Littleton | CO | 80120