Mileage: finding the time

phreak

I've seen a few people on here recently saying they do somewhere around 150-200 miles a week as though it's nothing. I wonder how on earth they find the time? Over Christmas with no work I managed a max of around 130 miles and rode most days on reasonably lumpy terrain.

Assuming a conservative average speed of around 15mph you'll be riding for around 13 hours all told. If you have a job, and indeed a life outside working/riding, how do you fit in the hours?

How many hours do people here generally ride per week?

chrisw12

Easy, ride to work.

or failing that 4-5 hours Saturday 2-3 hours Sunday and then you only need another 4-5 on the other 5 nights of the week.

Tbh Christmas week is not a good example of how you could spend your training time.

sportbilly1976

Depends on your personal situation as well....

Anyone with a family and or partner needs them to be very understanding.

ride to and from work - about 5 hours per week.
Add in a 5 hour ride on a sunday and a 3 hour ride on a saturday and thats quite a bit "away" from the family if you have a reasonably time consuming job...

phreak

My commute to work is only 10 minutes or so. I could take a longer route but we don't have any shower facilities or anything so don't want to arrive too sweaty.

Suppose it is possible, I go to the gym three times a week as well, matter of priorities I guess.

jhop

My commute is only 20 minutes but I find it possible to get at least 2 hours extra in on the return trip 3 times a week. Weekends I can only get out on one of the two days for 4 or 5 hours. Making a weekly total of between 10 and 12 hours. I usually make the weekly total greater when the weekend ride is a 200k Audax or 100mile sportive.

brownbosh

I ride 12-15 hours per week and work 42 hours per week. I never lie in, am regularly on the turbo in the garage in the dark plus do at least 2, usually 3 x 3-4 hour rides per week. One mid week (in the dark with lights if necessary) and both days at the weekend. My mrs would rather i was doing this than going on the beer and being found under a bush!

chrisw12

phreak wrote:

My commute to work is only 10 minutes or so. I could take a longer route but we don't have any shower facilities or anything so don't want to arrive too sweaty.

Suppose it is possible, I go to the gym three times a week as well, matter of priorities I guess.

So take the very long way home.

This is the perfect situation, you get home latter then normal absolutely shattered and she thinks you've been putting extra work in.

softlad

I work from home, so can pretty much arrange my workload to suit. Aside from weekends, I can generally make time for 1-2 hours over lunchtimes, or if I have a quieter week I can generally get out for long rides on a couple of weekday mornings too...

singlespeedexplosif

commuting, turbo late at night, track sessions at lunchtimes, early starts at weekends to get long rides in. Up at 4 tomorrow to put in 5 hours, home for breakfast with the family and the full day ahead of us.Not missing a single hour of family time that I would were I not a cyclist.

Jeff Jones

It depends on your obligations outside work and cycling.

I used to ride ~20hrs/week, work (at home) at least 70hrs/week and eat/sleep the rest. Doable, if you've got nothing else on your plate.

ride_whenever

Become an insomniac, I've been known to coach (rowing) 45 hours a week on top of a nine to five, but you don't really get a social life...

grahamcp

Work is the key - I do min 5 hrs per week on the commute, about 70 miles.
The the sunday club ride + 50 miles and I'm on 120minimum straight away.

Obviously this time of year that's about it, but in the summer I'll ride most saturdays, and longer rides 2-3 evenings as well.

We do have showers at work but they're a bit scummy so I shower at home, no-ones ever complained about the smell !!!!!.... actually I just take it easy and don't work up a sweat on the way in.

tlw1

singlespeedexplosif wrote:

commuting, turbo late at night, track sessions at lunchtimes, early starts at weekends to get long rides in. Up at 4 tomorrow to put in 5 hours, home for breakfast with the family and the full day ahead of us.Not missing a single hour of family time that I would were I not a cyclist.

Like your thinking! My problem is a like getting up with the kids!

This years aim is to cycle to work at least once a week when the spring arrive (70 mile round trip) and when my decent lights turn up MTB at Llandegla once a week plus my normal few hours over the w.end! That way my fitness will improve, as I struggle with anything over half an hour on the turbo

nasahapley

An artificially extended ride to work is definitely the answer Phreak, I've recently started riding to work a couple of times a week which totals about 65 miles, but I'm lucky in that it hardly takes up any more time than going in on the train! Do one longish ride at the weekend and 130-odd miles a week is pretty easy to fit in. Tbh I'm not sure I'd gain a lot from doing more miles than that; I find that riding only three or four times a week but caning it when I do gets me in better shape than riding more miles at a slightly more sedate pace. Everyone's different though!

Bronzie

phreak wrote:

I've seen a few people on here recently saying they do somewhere around 150-200 miles a week as though it's nothing.

Depending on what you are training for, it might be quite unnecessary to spend this sort of time on the bike. As Nasahapley said, some shorter higher intensity rides may be more beneficial BUT it depends on what you are trying to achieve.

I generally aim for 8-10 hours a week which is pretty much the minimum for me to be anywhere near competitive at my level of racing (Cat 4).

Luckily for me, my 13 year-old son is now getting into riding a bit, so I get at least 2 hours a week riding with him which gets me brownie points with the missus, allows me to spend time with him and also gives me an easy ride which I try and incoroporate as a recovery ride into my training.

phreak

Yes, might try taking an extensive detour on the way home from work, add a few miles that way. I'm trying to do some decent mileage at the weekends too in order to get them in.

sub55

in the days ,when i was competing seriously and by that i mean first cat road man and chasing national medals for tting . i was putting in about 25 hours aweek . on top of a full time job and family. the routine went something like;
monday to friday hour before work ,5.30 to 6.30am. 2 hours after work, 6.00 to 8.00 pm. saturday , 6 hours, 6.00am to midday. ( that way the family did`nt notice i was`nt there so much). sunday ,4 hours in the afternoon. on top of that ,i may spend a couple of hours in the gym.

so it was possible but it really was a case of riding ,sleeping and working and nothing else.

liversedge

So this week
Mon - 1 hours AR on the road (Rest)
Tue - 2 hours SST ergvideo on a CT between 6 and 8 pm
Wed - 2 hours Tempo ergvideo on a CT between 6 and 8pm
Thur - Nothing! (Rest)
Fri - 2 hour SST lumpy commute into work and 2 hour L3 lumpy commute back - 100k total
Sat - 1 hour AR hour noodling with SO this morning (Rest)
Sun - 4 hours L3-L4 hilly long ride

total - 14 hrs and plenty of scope to turn up the volume on the mon, thu or sat.

You can make it work if you want to. How much time do you spend watching TV or surfing the net ?

Frank the tank

Fortunately for me my commute is only 5mins each way. This allows me to fit in a 1.30+mins ride on any day I can manage, even in winter, due to being a shift worker. Add to that "turbo" sessions and I can soon rack up a few miles.

It's all about work life balance. When you have youngsters it takes some doing and you really need a partner who is understanding.

chrisw12

sub55 wrote:

in the days ,when i was competing seriously and by that i mean first cat road man and chasing national medals for tting . i was putting in about 25 hours aweek . on top of a full time job and family. the routine went something like;
monday to friday hour before work ,5.30 to 6.30am. 2 hours after work, 6.00 to 8.00 pm. saturday , 6 hours, 6.00am to midday. ( that way the family did`nt notice i was`nt there so much). sunday ,4 hours in the afternoon. on top of that ,i may spend a couple of hours in the gym.

so it was possible but it really was a case of riding ,sleeping and working and nothing else.

Paul, you must of asked around, how much were/are the other top testers doing? Any ideas what someone like Colin Wallace was doing? I've heard he's doing more now that he's retired :shock: :twisted:

How did you manage over training doing this sort of time?

and finally,

did this training regime lead to your sub 4hr 100 or was it in preparation for the 24hr?

sub55

Chris, dont know whats colin doing at the moment. but he was putting in the same sort of time as the above. his big advantage though ,is that he is manager of aberdare leisure centre . so can spend quite alot of additional time within the pretexed of working ,in the gym and pool. yes,i`ve spoken to alot of top boys over the years and the milage iwas doing was a direct consquence a long conversation with martin sage and jp. the basic ,base indurance needed to compete at the top level is 25/30 hours per week. everything else thats intervals , cadence, nutrition ,core body work etc. is on top of that basic base milage. in my oppinion.
as for over training ,its a myth if you work up to it gradually .
yes it all lead up to the championship win. all the other things were achieved on the way to that.

itboffin

Back when I had a job to commute to 1'd do 15 miles each way everyday then 50 miles or so at the weekend depending on the weather, at first the longer days killed me but after a few months 200 miles a week felt normal, now that I have lots of free time i've been lazy and reduced my mileage by half

Although as of last week I've started a new training plan - min 150 miles a week, broken down however I feel just so long as I rack up the time, so far so good.

StrangelyBrown

Bin the gym.
Commute to work - 20 miles each way.
Long Saturday morning ride.

Easy peasy. And, may I add, lemon squeezy.

doyler78

Best trick for commuting to work is to do all the prep the night before that way you aren't tempted to say "to hell with it I'll just take the car/bus/train in". Get the bike sorted, tyres pumped up, lights on, water bottle filled - if the bike in a shed it will cold enough anyway so forget even bothering with the fridge, lay the clothes out that you will wearing right in view of you from your bed (watch the weather the night before to get an idea of what the temps will be like ie layers and whether a rain jacket is necessary).

If you do all that then as soon as you step out of bed you will see all the clothes lying there saying wear me and you are less likely to take the easy route and of course enjoy the ride in and home and home is where I'll be heading in about 30 mins - 14 mile in shorts in Feb (can't believe that).

Mettan

My longest rides at the mo are only 1:45 (knee ACL injury) - usually manage a 33-34 min 10 (470 ft climbing) at around 5:00 am - as long as the intensity is sufficient, you can get something useful out of a 30-45 min ride (imho). Great if you can do 2-3 hour rides regularly, but if you can't, up the intensity, and still gain something of use.

jellikins

Doing the Raid Pyraneen in June and about to start riding to work and back 2-3 times a week. That will be a 70 mile round trip each day.

Added to this will be a couple of turbo sessions and then long ride Sunday and recovery ride Sat.

The cycling to work is key, will take me 2 hours but in the spring with light will be ok I think.

StrangelyBrown

doyler78 wrote:

Best trick for commuting to work is to do all the prep the night before that way you aren't tempted to say "to hell with it I'll just take the car/bus/train in". Get the bike sorted, tyres pumped up, lights on, water bottle filled - if the bike in a shed it will cold enough anyway so forget even bothering with the fridge, lay the clothes out that you will wearing right in view of you from your bed (watch the weather the night before to get an idea of what the temps will be like ie layers and whether a rain jacket is necessary).

If you do all that then as soon as you step out of bed you will see all the clothes lying there saying wear me and you are less likely to take the easy route and of course enjoy the ride in and home and home is where I'll be heading in about 30 mins - 14 mile in shorts in Feb (can't believe that).

+1 - it's the only way.

phreak

Will definately start doing a longer commute home before long. The local club has a chain gang on a Wednesday night as well so may stop by that.