Long commutes and recovery

prawny

Morning all.

I've just started back on my commute into Birmingham building up to 5 days starting straight after Christmas.
It's 20 miles each way and fairly lumpy I've tried riding in HR zone 2 in the mornings but with the traffic it's almost impossible. According to strava I'm a training impulse of about 160-190 per day at the moment.

Does anyone have any tips to structure the rides in such a way that I'll be able to recover better and get faster? I won't have any other travel options either so I have to ride five days straight and I need to get a shift on on the way home everyday to get the kids to bed. I'm not riding at the weekends at the moment so have two full days recovery at the weekend. Also my house is at the top of a 9% 1km hill so no chance to spin it out for the last mile either.

Cheers for any tips.

iPete

Having a power meter has made my pacing for a 5 day week real easy but you should be able to manage that with a HRM. Stick to those zones, have easy days, surf the tailwinds etc. I also hold back on Mondays when it's easy to get carried away with burning up the fresh legs.

Then consider how you can make it easier by reducing drag; avoid panniers, buy better fitted clothing and so on. What about your gearing, can you fit a cassette with a wider range for that final hill?

term1te

I do 23 miles each way, although if its raining or I need to be off-site I catch the train. I take it easy in the mornings and enjoy the view, and put a bit more effort into it in the evening, mostly because I want to get home. If I have an event coming up I'll use the evening commute as more of a training session, but I do most of my "real" work at the weekends.

In the summer I bring several day's worth of clean shirts, etc. in on a Monday in panniers on the commuting bike, then ride in with a small back pack on the road bike for the rest of the week. Makes it more pleasant for four days a week. I'm fortunate to have showers at work, and 23 miles of mostly deserted cycle paths/ small roads.

Also make sure you eat something before the ride home. I normally have a banana 15 minutes before I leave. I find though, that if I have a large lunch my blood sugars are all over the place during the afternoon and I tend to run out of energy mid ride. Sounds counter-intuitive, but a small lunch works better for me.

prawny

Cheers for the replies, I've been thinking about a power meter long term but the cost is prohibitive at the moment. I've tried a backpack this week and it's been no faster than a pannier or two, it hurts my back after an hour and I think I spend more time nursing that than pedaling. Pannier on a Monday and bringing a weeks worth of stuff might be a good idea, then I'll only need a very small bag and I've got a seat pack that will hold my lunch etc.

The light lunch point is a good one, I've suffered in the past eating too much before I set off in the morning so will experiment with that, Id like to lose a bit of weight if I can so if I can get by eating less by eating better it will be useful.

I'll get the foam roller out tonight and put myself through it a bit tonight. Weather looks awful for tomorrow!

Strith

In addition to the pacing and diet suggestions I would suggest just making sure you keep to it. I used to have a similar but probably shorter commute (1hr 30min each way) and provided I ate healthily and maintained a sensible pace, after 3 of so months I found my commute provided basically no training stress, letting me train and race quite well.
Once your base fitness increases a little I guess it becomes part of your daily routine, junk miles some might say, where you're just burning a few extra calories but not really imposing any real training stress. Anyway I found keeping my commute effort consistent was the best way to make sure it made no impact on proper training. However if you're only commuting just take it easier initially and you'll get to a level where you're comfortable.

ForumNewbie

[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19753644#p19753644]prawny[/url] wrote:

Morning all.

I've just started back on my commute into Birmingham building up to 5 days starting straight after Christmas.
It's 20 miles each way and fairly lumpy I've tried riding in HR zone 2 in the mornings but with the traffic it's almost impossible. According to strava I'm a training impulse of about 160-190 per day at the moment.

Does anyone have any tips to structure the rides in such a way that I'll be able to recover better and get faster? I won't have any other travel options either so I have to ride five days straight and I need to get a shift on on the way home everyday to get the kids to bed. I'm not riding at the weekends at the moment so have two full days recovery at the weekend. Also my house is at the top of a 9% 1km hill so no chance to spin it out for the last mile either.

Cheers for any tips.

Commuting 20 miles each way, 5 days a week at this time of year with the weather and lack of light is pretty impressive.

pastryboy

I'd recommend fruit an hour or so before your ride home after a not too heavy lunch. Personally I find no matter how much fruit I eat I get zero digestive/bloating issues and no energy crash even when it's well over 100g of carbs.

daxplusplus

[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19753688#p19753688]iPete[/url] wrote:

Having a power meter has made my pacing for a 5 day week real easy but you should be able to manage that with a HRM. Stick to those zones, have easy days, surf the tailwinds etc. I also hold back on Mondays when it's easy to get carried away with burning up the fresh legs.

Then consider how you can make it easier by reducing drag; avoid panniers, buy better fitted clothing and so on. What about your gearing, can you fit a cassette with a wider range for that final hill?

+1 All of this (esp PM and cassette)

Get as much sleep as you can (or by Friday you'll be toast)

Mine is a 46 miles round trip with 2600 ft of climbing.

prawny

Right oh, two weeks in it seems to be going ok. Light lunch has been a good call, an all you can eat Indian buffet last week made for an interesting ride home.

One issue I've been struggling with is saddle sores, any tips?

meanredspider

Are you using a proper chamois cream? Also clean shorts each day and make sure you get a chance to dry them properly during the day.

The problem with long commutes is that your glycogen stores are only worth an hour or so of hard work and take 24hours or more to properly replenish so you can't rely on them too heavily else you'll get "Friday legs". That's where pacing yourself is important so you don't need to rely so heavily on glycogen. The added benefit is that you'll build the capability to burn fat more effectively so it becomes a virtuous circle. Go too hard and all you do is grind yourself into the ground. Theory has it that you should eat carbs soon after finishing your ride as the body will preferentially store these as glycogen. This makes some evolutionary sense and I've seen clinical studies that shows that there's a peak of insulin released in this period so it may make scientific sense too.

Try to take a week off the bike every two or three months. You'll be amazed how much faster you are. I used to worry that a week off would mess with my fitness but the exact opposite was true.

Try to keep your ride as uncluttered as possible: no bags if possible and no baggy clothing - it just saps energy and pace - and choose easy-rolling tyres. Getting properly organised really helps. I used to commute the entire Highland winter (Nov - April incl) doing a 35-mile RT commute on an MTB with studded ice MTB tyres - so I learned the hard way.