A possible dip?

phreak

Traditionally my cycling friend and I have traded blows, me leading him up hills and him leading me on the flats. This was much the case on a cycling holiday in Italy at the end of April, but since then we've done a few sportives and I've felt rubbish, getting dropped on the hills pretty early on and grovelling home 15 minutes back.

Not really sure what the issue is, I thought perhaps where most UK sportives seem to have a flat(ish) start that he's taking the sting out of me early on and by the time of the climbs I'm already in the red. Is it simply a case of increasing tempo work?

chrisw12

No responses yet, so I'll help you out.

Re-write the post but mention heart rate power or bananas. :roll:

phreak

That or mentioning some patented Lance Armstrong training routine (funnily enough he did mention that he'd been using a LA training plan on his turbo). Hmm

Sure would be nice to know though. I wouldn't imagine it would be stamina as I rode more distance over the winter than ever before but it'd be good to know.

Infamous

Ride more.

phreak

I'm doing more miles now than ever before, kinda looking for something particular to do as it is generally just riding at the moment. Commuting during the week and then either a club ride or a sportive at the weekend.

Isn't the summer a time for tempo work or intervals? Must be something going awry somewhere.

Infamous

There's plenty of intervals you can do, 2x20, 4x5 etc, or you can just ride more (even more!) while it's nice and sunny.

Alex_Simmons/RST

phreak wrote:

I'm doing more miles now than ever before, kinda looking for something particular to do as it is generally just riding at the moment. Commuting during the week and then either a club ride or a sportive at the weekend.

Isn't the summer a time for tempo work or intervals? Must be something going awry somewhere.

can you quantify what you mean by "doing more miles now than ever before"?

phreak

Well my monthly totals for the year read:

Jan 614.21 km
February 554.6 km
March 798.3 km
April 755.2 km
May 770.78 km

I know that's perhaps not much compared to what others do but it's more than I've done in previous years. I only really started doing this properly from last autumn.

Alex_Simmons/RST

OK, from a volume perspective, I don't see much change in your workload but that depends a lot on the intensity of your riding. Has it changed much or are you basically doing the same stuff these last few months?

In order to continue to elicit improvements in fitness, one need to progressively increase their workload, with some recovery at appropriate times. Workload being a function of duration and intensity.

It might be your fitness progression has stalled while your buddy is getting fitter.

It might also help to have a goal to work towards and train for it rather than JRA.

phreak

It might be your fitness progression has stalled while your buddy is getting fitter.

Yeah I had thought of that, just seemed to have happened over a short period of time. I might try and work in some training to my commute as suggested in another thread, see how that goes.

simon_e

phreak wrote:

I might try and work in some training to my commute as suggested in another thread, see how that goes.

I found that my commute has helped my fitness to a limited extent, but I seem to have hit a plateua and I think 25-30 minutes at either end of the working day isn't long enough to get a decent workout. Too many other concerns (traffic, not falling asleep at my desk etc), and in the morning my legs don't get into a rhythm until about half way. I'm now trying to make the homeward run more of a hard ride once a week. As per your other thread, I'd suggest the urban commuting is not usually good for training.

Make sure you're eating the right food at appropriate times. I found that healthy snack (raisins, banana) an hour before gives me more zip come the ride home. Good sleep/rest, go easy on the beer, make sure you include rest/easy days so your body recovers from any hard efforts.