How best to use 5 weeks with quite a lot of time available?

bigpikle

For various reasons I have quite a bit of time available for riding/training the next month, and I'm wondering how best to use it to maximise fitness gains?

I have about 2500 miles of general riding in my legs this year, have completed my first century a few weeks ago and have spent nearly all my riding time this year 'just riding', often at a fairly hard pace & climbing lots of hills and plenty of miles at an endurance pace. I've done that classic thing of struggling to hold about 15mph average at the start of the year, to managing 18-19mph for flatter 40-50mile rides.

I have a 2 day hilly 'tour' round the Chilterns in early Oct (about 180 miles over all the hills) which is my only specific goal left for this year, other than generally getting as fit and strong as possible. I'm pretty good at spinning up hills now and probably my biggest weakness is pushing bigger gears for longer periods of time, especially into the wind etc.

As far as available riding time goes this is what I can reasonably manage over this period:

Week 1: max about 90mins a day
Week 2: up to 4 hours available a day
Week 3-5: 2-3 hours most days and a few days with up to 4-5 hours

I'm not suggesting riding all of this obviously, but just so you know potentially what time is available

I should probably add that I am well rested enetering this period as the last couple of weeks my business travel etc has meant little riding and Sept sees another busy period where riding time will be much more limited, so I will have plenty of time to recover from a high workload before my big event.

So what would be your suggestions? I have the Time Crunched Cyclist plan and was potentially looking at following that to build strength, but as I have a lot more time available than he uses, and he is honest in suggesting its a compromise plan, I was wondering how I might use it for these weeks given its summer and a great time to get out and enjoy time in the saddle!

Thanks for suggestions...

bigpikle

anyone?

tramotane

Bigpikle wrote:

For various reasons I have quite a bit of time available for riding/training the next month, and I'm wondering how best to use it to maximise fitness gains?

I have about 2500 miles of general riding in my legs this year, have completed my first century a few weeks ago and have spent nearly all my riding time this year 'just riding', often at a fairly hard pace & climbing lots of hills and plenty of miles at an endurance pace. I've done that classic thing of struggling to hold about 15mph average at the start of the year, to managing 18-19mph for flatter 40-50mile rides.

I have a 2 day hilly 'tour' round the Chilterns in early Oct (about 180 miles over all the hills) which is my only specific goal left for this year, other than generally getting as fit and strong as possible. I'm pretty good at spinning up hills now and probably my biggest weakness is pushing bigger gears for longer periods of time, especially into the wind etc.

As far as available riding time goes this is what I can reasonably manage over this period:

Week 1: max about 90mins a day
Week 2: up to 4 hours available a day
Week 3-5: 2-3 hours most days and a few days with up to 4-5 hours

I'm not suggesting riding all of this obviously, but just so you know potentially what time is available

I should probably add that I am well rested enetering this period as the last couple of weeks my business travel etc has meant little riding and Sept sees another busy period where riding time will be much more limited, so I will have plenty of time to recover from a high workload before my big event.

So what would be your suggestions? I have the Time Crunched Cyclist plan and was potentially looking at following that to build strength, but as I have a lot more time available than he uses, and he is honest in suggesting its a compromise plan, I was wondering how I might use it for these weeks given its summer and a great time to get out and enjoy time in the saddle!

Thanks for suggestions...

For hills get your body fat down, if not already to 8-10%,
Do loads of V02 max work ie 4-8 mins intervals
2 rest days a week or very light recovery ie turbo 30mins no resistance
one long ride every 7-10 days of 5 hours preceded the day before by 50 mins of SST this will help you optimise your FTP and give you a higher cruising speed.
taper down your hours the week before

bigpikle

thanks Tramotane