Newbie Needs Training Advice

Smallers

Hi All,
I'm a 44 year old guy who has just embarked on his first full year of road cycling after buying a bike and doing a few rides at the end of last year. I used a heart rate monitor for the first time at the weekend on a 2 hour ride and followed some training advice from this site.

In trying to keep my HR between around 60 and 80% of max HR, I found it very difficult. The reason is that I live in Portugal in the hills and one whole hour of my ride was spent above 80%.

I have no option other than riding/driving 40 miles before I can ride on the flat, so I would like some advice on how to adjust my training due to my environment.

I know that my situation has its merits, however, as a beginner I want to improve in the most efficient and effective way.

Regards,
Andy

jibberjim

Smallers wrote:

I know that my situation has its merits, however, as a beginner I want to improve in the most efficient and effective way.

Your a beginner. The difference between the most optimal perfect training plan and just riding around as much as you want will be tiny. You've got more time available than your body will be able to keep up with adaptations so it doesn't matter if you're a little inefficient, indeed you'll probably have more fun being inefficient (in that there's no point getting a really solid 40 minutes work in if you have 2 hours free to train that day even if that's all the real load you could take that day.)

You just want a couple of basic philosophies. Train at a few intensities - particularly all out for 5-8 minutes, easy in the UK may be tougher in Portugal with longer hills. Hard tempo efforts in the range 20-60 minutes - the sort of effort that you'd ride all out for an hour for, done for a reasonable solid length of time, at least 20 minutes. Use the hills you have for this.

And just be as consistent as possible, little and often is much better than doing nothing in the week and 100 miles at the weekend.

Don't look at the HR whilst riding, keep the data for looking at later, especially in the future when you've lots of it. For now your body can't adapt fast enough to make doing more worthwhile.

coxy84

big hills in portugal as your training ground! massively jealous

Smallers

coxy84 wrote:

big hills in portugal as your training ground! massively jealous

Thanks coxy84, I know I'm lucky in that repect so I'll embrace those hills.

Thanks for the responses.

Andy

lef

there's some training programs on the following website and you can buy an e-book too.

http://www.training4cyclists.com/

Smallers

Thanks Lef, that is a great site.

The thing for me is, although I am new to road cycling, I was a successful powerlifter until I quit the sport 4 years ago, so I am used to very focused training that even included easier periods after a competition in order to spend 16-20 weeks training to peak for the next competition. Although I don't plan to compete in cycling (famous last words), I have always been serious about my training. Being a "beginner" to cycling doesn't mean that I am not serious about it. I just want to avoid typical newbie mistakes.

I'm really looking forward to my next ride tomorrow with all the new info I have gleened from this topic and Forum.

Cheers,
Andy