Building up mileage

Alibran

I'm relatively new to cycling. I rode a bit last year - had visions of commuting by bike, and bought myself a new hybrid for that purpose, but soon gave up on that idea and just used the hybrid for leisure rides of maybe 10-15 miles or less. So, purely a recreational cyclist.

Early this spring, I decided I wanted a road bike, and knew the only way I could justify the expense to my partner was to demonstrate savings in petrol. So I started commuting a couple of days a week on the hybrid until she got the message, and bought my new road bike 2 months ago. (My partner now also has a road bike, and we're enjoying getting out for rides together.)

The trouble is, I can't seem to increase my mileage. Until I got the road bike, I was riding under 60 miles a week. When I bought it, the mileage immediately jumped to 80-100 (over 100 one week) because I wanted to ride it all the time, but that exhausted me, so I had to cut back again. At the moment, I seem to do 70-80 miles most weeks, and feel exhausted if I go any higher. This week is 80. I did a hard 28 miles yesterday (by my standards), and planned to do 10 miles or so today, but I feel too exhausted. (I did run 5 miles this morning, but I've been running for over a year, so I don't see that has affected me much, and it isn't unusual for me to run 5 miles in the morning and cycle 10 miles in the afternoon.)

I know my nutrition is right. I've worked really hard on that for the running, so I'm well fuelled and eating the right things at the right times to recover properly. I've just had a week off work, so I definitely got enough sleep this week. I'm just getting very frustrated.

My aim at the moment is to commute 4-5 days a week, at 20 mile round trip, so 80-100 miles a week. Plus I would like to be able to do at least 50 miles over one or two rides at the weekend. (I know I have to build up to 50 miles in a single ride - 28 is my longest so far - but I'm finding increasing single rides much easier than weekly mileage.) So, my overall weekly mileage goal is 150+ miles. I'm also running 10-15 miles a week, and want to continue with that.

Is it better to try to increase the length of the rides I do (currently 4-5 a week), or should I be trying to fit another ride in?

Any suggestions?

Alex_Simmons/RST

Alibran wrote:

Is it better to try to increase the length of the rides I do (currently 4-5 a week), or should I be trying to fit another ride in?

Any suggestions?

If you are doing 5days/wk now, that is plenty. You need days to recover. Typically in training for athletes there is one day/week completely off and another that is just very easy active recovery.

But trying to increase cycling workload when you also run might be problematic. So hard to comment as to what impact your running is having.

If we are talking just bike riding, I would suggest gradually upping the workload on existing days you ride. This can be done by increasing the hours and riding at the same level of effort you are now or increasing the relative intensity of your riding if your volume doesn't/can't increase. The former is easy to measure, the latter takes some experience to assess.

As a rough guide, increasing hours by say 10%/wk over the medium term is usually very attainable. Perhaps add a few miles to your commute one/two days a week and lift weekend rides in 15-30 minutes chunks.

Mettan

Alibran wrote:

Is it better to try to increase the length of the rides I do (currently 4-5 a week), or should I be trying to fit another ride in?

Any suggestions?

Why not Commute on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday - have Wednesday and Friday off (use your Car) - the day off on Friday will then set you up for a 40-60 miler on Saturday or even Sunday? Personally, I'd include more rest days - the difference can be quite dramatic between riding on chronically "tired" legs and riding on legs that have had a 3-4 day off or atleast 1 rest day.

Alibran

Thanks for your replies. I was already getting the feeling that I shouldn't be trying to add more rides, however much I think it's something I "should" do. (One of my reasons for starting to commute by bike was to cut down on car use, and I was hoping I'd be up to 5 days a week by now.)

Mettan, when I mentioned "weekend", it was in the figurative sense of the word because I work shifts, but I can see where you're coming from with your suggestion. Try to keep at least a day clear of cycling or running before I do a long ride. That makes sense.

What really prompted me to post was feeling tired on Sunday after having done a long, hard ride (by my standards) on Saturday, and then run 5 miles (again hard) on Sunday morning, so maybe I should be a bit easier on myself and accept that I will feel tired after 2 hard days in a row. I still managed to cycle to work yesterday, and still managed to run another 5 miles today. I've got 6 days at work coming up, so I intend to alternate cycling and rest days, and give running a miss until my next days off. I'm also considering taking a couple of weeks off running altogether, as that will give me a clearer idea of how much impact it's making on the cycling.

I've got a late start at work on Sunday, so I'm planning to take advantage of this and extend my ride in a bit. Assuming all goes well, I should have done around 90 miles by the end of the week, and hopefully I won't be shattered by the time it comes to a day off.

scapaslow

I'd agree with Mettan and consider cutting your days on the bike down to 3 or 4 in total per week. Have a full day off after your long ride to recover. No running!
Most training plans work on a 4 week basis with the 4th week really easy - perhaps this might help.
It might also be good to time your rides and only increase volume by 10% at a time rather than the actual miles. A 28 mile hilly ride will generally be much harder physically than 28 miles on the flat and take longer(depending on how hard you ride obviously).
You could vary the intensity of your commute - some days easy some days hard and add 5/10 min here and there.
I think it would be good to cut out the running for a bit and see how it goes. Try to have a few days in the week where you do neither cycling or running?

Also make sure you are eating well to cope with all the demands of your extra exercise.