Bike training schedule to get someone from the
couch to riding 100Km a day in 10 weeks.
Before you go out for a ride tell
someone where you are going and when you expect to be back.
Unless you are going to ride
around and round the same block, your weekend rides will take you farther and
farther from home. It's a good idea to learn some basic bike repair skills
before you start, skills like fixing a flat, fixing a chain and adjusting a
cable. Personally checking over and preparing your bike for the upcoming season
should give you enough experience to handle most roadside emergencies.
Check your bike out. Make sure
it's working well. Check the chain to see that its links all hinge properly.
Give the wheels a spin and see that they rotate easily. Listen. No dragging
brakes. No rattling bearings. Look. See that the wheels are straight and don't
wobble. Check the shifters. Make sure that they work through their whole range.
Spin the pedals. They should spin as easily as the wheels. Spin the crank, make
sure that it operates smoothly, easily and makes no noises. Test the brakes.
They should operate easily, grip well and release with the pads equally spaced
on either side of the wheel/disc. Check the tires. Run your hand over them.
Make sure the tread is good and sidewall isn't cracked. Feel for any lumps or bumps
and make sure the tire is evenly seated on the rim. Pump the tires up hard. Use
the maximum recommended pressure printed on the sidewall.
If there is a bike repair that
you think you can't handle or that you are unsure of, take it in to a bike shop
for repair. Don't take it to Canadian Tire or WalMart or places like that. The
guys there probably have minimal training.
Road Rules:
While riding on the road you are covered
by the Highways Traffic Act. That means that you must follow the rules set out
for (slow moving) cars and trucks. Ride on the right and stick to the
right-hand side of the lane or, preferably, to the shoulder.
You are entitled to use the car
lane if you can keep up with traffic: Not all drivers know this so don't feel
like you have to assert your rights if you are dealing with an ignorant driver.
You won't win an argument with a car.
Don't ride on the left side of
the road facing traffic. Some people feel more comfortable doing this because
it's how they were taught to walk on roads and highways. Unfortunately, many
times, drivers entering from a side street will look left for car traffic then
turn right without checking to see if there is a cyclist barreling down the
shoulder at 20 or 30 Km/Hr on the wrong side of the road. This almost always
ends with the driver being late for his appointment and the cyclist going to
the hospital.
Signal your turns and use a
rear-view mirror of some sort. I have a helmet mounted one.
Be Seen!
Be sure your bike has reflectors.
You need lights if you are riding at or after dusk. Not just a head light for
you to see by, but a tail light or flasher as well.
Dress in bright colours.
Reflectors on your helmet and pant-leg straps are a good idea too because
you're not always close to your well-reflected bicycle. I wear a traffic vest.
Some people think such things make you look dorky, but it's better to look
dorky and be alive than it is to look cool in a casket. Besides, if you get hit
by a car you probably won't look all that good in the casket anyway.
Be Heard!
Edmonton requires that you have a
bell on your bike. That's fine if you're riding on the pathways and through the
parks. In traffic the little ding-ding of a bicycle bell just isn't going to be
heard. I have an Air Zound, it only weighs 4 or 5 ounces and is as loud as a
car horn. You can get one at United Cycle for under $30. If you will be riding
in traffic something like that is a good idea.
For this training routine you'll also need a speedometer/odometer. You can get a cheap one at Canadian Tire or some such place. You can get a nicer (more expensive) one at just about any bike shop.
For this training routine you'll also need a speedometer/odometer. You can get a cheap one at Canadian Tire or some such place. You can get a nicer (more expensive) one at just about any bike shop.
Riding checklist:
Helmet
1st aid kit
Bicycle multi-tool
Pump and patch kit or spare tube
Water
Snack
Cell Phone
A little cash
ID
Training:
I'm a guy and guys like to measure. I have a cheap bike speedometer with an odometer and trip-meter. It cost about $20 at Canadian Tire. I've found it to be a great tool for training motivation and measuring progress.
I'm a guy and guys like to measure. I have a cheap bike speedometer with an odometer and trip-meter. It cost about $20 at Canadian Tire. I've found it to be a great tool for training motivation and measuring progress.
I've divided the training
schedule into 6 types of rides over 10 weeks to give you a bit of variety and
to have you work on different aspects of your riding. Most will challenge you
at some point in the training. Push and Sprint rides will build and test your
legs, Steady and Hill rides will build your heart, lungs and endurance, the
longer Weekend rides will test your resolve. Easy rides might seem difficult in
the first few weeks but they will quickly become easy and, I hope, pleasurable.
The weekday training rides are to
be done in a given time over no specific distance. The weekend rides are to be
done over a given distance with no specific time. As the training goes on, the times
and distances get longer. Good thing the Spring days get longer too.
There are a total of 40 rides in this program. I've given you days on which to
ride. You don't have to stick to those days, but try to do all of the rides
given for a week in that week.
Be aware of your body. Some
muscle ache is normal during training. Learn what is normal and what is too
much. Normal aches should lessen in a day (the recovery time is usually longer
early in an exercise program; say two days) and recovery should get faster as
you get passed the fifth week. Joint pain or muscle pain that doesn't go away
are things that you should see a doctor about.
In the first 2 weeks you
shouldn't feel like you are working too hard.
Ride around the neighbourhood.
Try to keep moving but don't rush. This is just intended to get your body used
to the repetitive movements of cycling. And to harden your bum a bit. Bicycles
have been around for 150 years and no one has ever made a comfortable
seat...there are only less-uncomfortable ones.
Pace/cadence - It's hard to say what will be a comfortable/sustainable speed for
you. Everyone is different with different muscle types, physiologies and
recovery times. The experts say that you should rotate the pedals slightly
faster than your heart beats. If your heart beat is 60 BPM you should pedal
about 70 RPM.
I find the expert's cadence to be
a little high but the point is to keep the workload on any pedal stroke light.
If you feel like you're working as hard as you would to climb stairs then
you're working 'way too hard. By the end of this program you will be riding for
4 or 5 or 6 hours in a day. Nobody climbs stairs for that length of time. Your
chest would explode.
In general, beginners use too
high a gear and too high a speed when starting. Start in a low gear and ride on
the flat. Gear up until you feel resistance on the pedals then go down one
gear. This is a good starting point. As your strength and endurance build your
starting gear will go up.
The Easy Ride - Just what it sounds like. This is a time to find out what your
"normal" pace is. Take the bike out and ride at an easy, comfortable
pace. There should be little effort on the flats. You should work a bit going
up rises and into the wind. Try not to coast down hills or with the wind, keep
your legs moving. Check your speed a few times during the ride to make sure it
doesn't drop off too much. That can happen on an easy ride if you're looking
around and enjoying yourself.
The Weekend ride - The weekend ride has no specific work-out
component. It's just a ride for you to get out on the road and enjoy yourself.
Consider the distance you're aiming for today and think about where you would
like to go to make up that distance. It's good to have a goal and a reward in
mind before you start out. A coffee shop, a store, a town, a place with a nice
view, a creek where you can picnic or some place you've never been before. If
you want to use the ride as a test to see how you're doing so far or if you
want to incorporate some of the training techniques used on the week-night
rides that's fine but I advise you to save any of the drills for the last
quarter of the ride. The last quarter is going to be the hard part anyway.
There's no sense in burning yourself out too early. If you're starting to feel
tired by the halfway point the return trip will likely be painful.
Be sure to carry water and/or Gatorade.
Take snacks and a phone (this is especially important as your rides get
longer). Check the weather report and carry appropriate clothes.
Week 1:
Weekday rides - 15 to 20 minutes
Day 1 - Easy Ride
Day 3 - Easy Ride
Day 4 - Easy Ride
Day 6 - Weekend ride - 16 Km ride
No time Limit
Week 2: Weekday
rides - 20 to 25 minutes
Day 1 - Easy Ride
Day 3 - Easy Ride
Day 4 - Easy Ride
Day 6 - Weekend ride - 24 Km ride
No time Limit
The Push Ride - Ride easily for 8 to 10 minutes to warm up. Note your speed. Ride 2
Km/H faster for about 2 minutes followed by about 2 minutes of your easy pace.
Next ride 4 Km/H faster for about 2 minutes followed by about 2 minutes of your
easy pace. Continue the pattern, increasing the push speed by 2 Km/H each time
until you can't hold the speed 90 seconds. The work is almost finished now.
Take the rest of the ride at a leisurely pace except for 1 sprint about 10
minutes before you finish.
The Steady Ride - This is a good one for a secondary highway or
country road. What is your normal/average riding speed? Take a short warm up
ride then add 2 to 5 Km/H to your normal riding speed and try to hold exactly
that speed for as long as possible. Hold your speed up hills, down hills and on
the flat. Don't just coast down the hills, gear up if you have to and keep your
legs moving with slight pressure on the pedals but don't push or speed up more
than the slope dictates. If you reach the point where you can't hold your chosen
pace any longer, relax and finish the ride at an easy pace. At the end of the ride
you should feel like you've done a long isometric squat. If you reach your time
limit before you run out of energy then you should increase your normal/average
riding speed.
Week 3:
Weekday rides - 20 to 30 minutes
Day 1 - Push Ride
Day 3 - Steady Ride
Day 4 - Easy Ride
Day 6 - Weekend ride - 30 Km ride
No time Limit
Week 4:
Weekday rides - 25 to 35 minutes
Day 1 - Steady Ride
Day 3 - Easy Ride
Day 4 - Push Ride
Day 6 - Weekend ride - 40 Km ride
No time Limit
The Sprint Ride - Ride easily for 8 to 10 minutes to warm up then do
a sprint. Pick a spot (a tree, a rock, a clump of dirt, a cross road, a sign -
not a STOP sign - or any other thing that you can fix your eye on) about 150 to
300 or 400 yards ahead. Race to that spot as hard as you can. Resume your easy
pace for 8 to 10 minutes and keep repeating the pattern. It helps to do your
sprints in different conditions, uphill, downhill, with and against the wind.
An alternate to picking a spot to race to is to pick a time of 30, 60 or 75
seconds and go as hard as you can for that long. Finish the session with an
easy pace to cool down.
The Hill Ride - If you can find a section of road with some rolling hills that would be
great. Longer hills are better than steeper hills but a steep hill isn't bad
either. If all you have nearby is one hill then this is going to be only
slightly more interesting than riding a stationary bike.
Basically you're going to try to
maintain your normal cadence (foot speed) while climbing a hill. It's your foot
speed that you're trying to maintain, not your road speed. Gear down for the
climb as soon as you feel your foot speed start to decrease. Waiting too long
to gear down can cause problems. Hill climbing can be as much an exercise of balance
as of strength. To maintain your cadence, gear down as much as you need to.
Your speed will drop and it may become hard to hold a straight line. Work on
it.
To change things up, try standing
on the pedals to do your climb. I find that I use a higher gear standing than
sitting. I have a decreased cadence but the same climbing road speed. Standing
on the pedals works a different set of muscles and you can burn yourself out
quickly if you're not used to it. If that is the case with you (as it surely
was with me) then try incorporating some stand-up pedalling into your other
rides. Add a little at a time.
When you reach the top of the
hill don't rest. If you rest you'll cool off too much and chill on the way down.
Take your rest as you coast down the hill. Enjoy the "Whoo hoo"
moment. Now it's time to climb the next hill and the next (or the same one
again and again if you've only got one).
Week 5:
Weekday rides - 30 to 45 minutes
Day 1 - Sprint Ride
Day 3 - Hill Ride
Day 4 - Easy Ride
Day 6 - Weekend ride - 60 Km ride
No time Limit
Week 6:
Weekday rides - 30 to 45 minutes
Day 1 - Easy Ride
Day 3 - Steady Ride
Day 4 - Sprint Ride
Day 6 - Weekend ride - 50 Km ride
No time Limit
Week 7:
Weekday rides - 30 to 45 minutes
Day 1 - Push Ride
Day 3 - Easy Ride
Day 4 - Steady Ride
Day 6 - Weekend ride - 65 Km ride
No time Limit
Week 8:
Weekday rides - 40 to 60minutes
Day 1 - Hill Ride
Day 3 - Push Ride
Day 4 - Sprint Ride
Day 6 - Weekend ride - 85 Km ride
No time Limit
Week 9:
Weekday rides - 40 to 60minutes
Day 1 - Easy Ride
Day 3 - Sprint Ride
Day 4 - Steady Ride
Day 6 - Weekend ride - 75 Km ride
No time Limit
Week 10:
Weekday rides - 45 to 60minutes
Day 1 - Push Ride
Day 3 - Sprint Ride
Day 4 - Easy Ride
Day 6 - Weekend ride - 100 Km
ride No time Limit
A word on snacks:
Snacks should be high energy and
easily digestible. I like fruit and have been known to eat quite a lot of
chocolate on longer rides. It's better to eat small amounts frequently rather
than a big meal half way through the ride. I know some folks who attach a small
bag of gummy bears to their handle bars and pop one every 10 or 20 minutes. I
can't do that but I do make a point of stopping at semi-regular intervals (16
Km, 20 Km, hourly, whatever) getting off the bike, doing a quick bend &
stretch and having a small snack and a drink of water.
A word on hydration:
Proper hydration is not a matter
of how much you take in, it's a matter of how much you put out. While riding
you will be sweating and you will be metabolising sugar. Both of these things
require water. You need water to help you turn sugar into energy and to take
away waste form that process. The way you get rid of the poisons produced by metabolising is by peeing. If you go on a ride of more than 2 hours and
haven't had to take a pee break you're not drinking enough.
I carry 2 water bottles. One with
water and one with half-strength Gatorade. Gatorade has sugar and salts (like
Pedialite or Oral Rehydration Therapy mixtures), the combination speeds the
take-up of water, I just don't like Gatorade full strength.
I use water bottles but some
folks prefer a Camelback. Get used to drinking while you ride. Sip, sip, sip
while you're riding is better than chugging at rest breaks.
Eating for a long ride:
Snacks are good for giving you
quick energy if you start to flag while riding but in endurance sports your staying
power comes mostly from the carbohydrates you ate the night before. For your
evening meal the night before a weekend ride have a good feed of carbs -
potatoes, pasta, rice, plantain, barley, whatever - it will help you go longer
and maintain better energy between snacks.
While training it won't hurt to
take in a bit more protein than normal. You don't have to go crazy with special
training concoctions from the GNC store. An extra egg or a couple of bites of
meat or quinoa on training days is probably enough.
Training is hungry work. After
some rides you are going to feel like you're starving to death. It's okay to
eat to recharge your batteries but resist the temptation to over-eat. You will
need some extra food because you are expending more energy but it's common to
get the urge to pig out, particularly in the first few weeks. To keep from
going over board, weigh yourself before the program begins and a couple of
times a week during. Don't worry if you gain a couple of pounds at the start of
the program, that's common. Just make sure that the trend doesn't continue.
Your weight should stabilize after a few weeks and then come back down to
normal by the last couple of weeks of the program. If your weight continues to
go up then you'll have to start being serious about tracking what you eat,
denying yourself the "little extras" and get used to being hungry.
That might sound a bit harsh but it's harsher to haul 20 extra pounds a hundred
kilometres a day.
A word about Wind:
Wind is the enemy and it's
everywhere on the prairies. Bucking a headwind can be the most spiritually
draining thing in cycling. There are really only two things that you can do to
save your sanity. First, you can think of wind as an invisible hill and gear
down to maintain your cadence. Forget about trying to maintain your road speed,
after all, you're climbing a hill. Second, get in with a group of riders and
keep pace with them. At least it will seem like you're not doing so bad if
you're keeping up with the crowd.
Riding philosophy/tactics:
Every bit of energy that drives
the bike forward comes from you personally. Conserve all of the energy you can
during a lengthy ride.
On a big ride event like MS 150
or Ride to Conquer Cancer or Tour D'Alberta ordinary people tend to start out
too fast. On the first day resist the temptation to take off after the pack.
This is hard to do and most people fall prey to the temptation at one time or
another. You've ridden 75, 85 and 100 K's in a day and you know the pace that
will allow you to do that. Check you speedometer every couple of minutes for
the first hour. If you find yourself going too fast slow down, no matter how
wrong it feels. A lot of the fast starters will burn themselves out in an hour
or two, once you start passing them you will feel better about your steady
pace.
On a group ride, try to find a
person (or group) that rides at the same pace as you. Riding in groups is
easier than riding solo. It's easier to be in second place than in first. In a
large group try to be in the front third of the pack but not right out front.
Let the people in front of you push the wind. The energy required to move
forward goes up with the square of the speed so going 10% faster (increasing from 20 KpH
to 22 KpH) takes 21% more energy. Going 20% faster (increasing from 20 KpH
to 24 KpH) takes 44% more energy. You can reduce the energy you put out by
riding with a group that is dragging the air along with them.
Be ready to use your brakes at
any time but only use them if you have to. If you're riding in hilly terrain
carry as much speed as you can from the down side of one hill to the up slope
of the next. There's not much sense in applying the brakes when going down a
hill and then having to climb all the way up the next hill if you could have coasted
half way up using the speed you just threw away. But beware if riding in a
group. Not everyone will share this same philosophy. Watch for someone in front
of you hitting the brakes unexpectedly.
Last Word:
Remember to have fun. Feel the
wind on your face, the power in your body and the freedom of the road.
And watch out for the crazy
people.
If you have questions or things
that you think should be changed in the training schedule, do let me know. You
can comment or e-mail.
Brent
