First Training Ride

Carrera

I was stunned by my reasonable level of fitness given I haven't done any cycling training for many many weeks. I got on my bike the other day and did a lot of hills over many miles and my stamina was fine. The only thing I've been doing due to time restrictions (and a 70 hour working week), is highly intense sessions of squats with a sprinter in my area. It was a question of just getting under the bar and churning out repeated sets of 15 reps to total failure over a given period. Cycling was out as it hardly seemed worth getting the bike out of the garage for 45 minutes.
Anyway, combined with the routine of cycling to work, my fitness is still there. It's a pity the weather is so lousy at present.
As for my boat, I have major problems - I mean big problems. The Waterways Authority has posted various bills for hundreds of pounds, licences, mooring and other red-tape - simply for having a boat on a tiny patch of canal by the farm where I already pay a private farmer.
I have to get it out of the canal and fast.

MountainPro

I have always found that talking a few days or even a week away from cycling can have beneficial effect on power and endurance. You have a chance to re-charge your batteries and rest fully. I remember after a bad crash once i couldnt ride my bike for a month due to several cracked ribs. The vibration was just too painful. When i did get back on the bike i hadnt lost much fitness and i didnt seem to get tired as much as i usually do. I looked after myself when i wasnt on the bike. Good food and plently of rest.

Mind you, my arse was killing me after the first 5 hour ride after illness.!

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Wurm

For me, it's generally good to take some time off the bike every several weeks, but not too much time. A few days usually does it, and then another couple or 3 good hard rides to get me back to the previous state of fitness.

The weather where I am insures that I won't go very long without a "rest" day.

OTOH, I find that if I keep up a steady diet of over approx. 125 miles/week, I'm wanting to do nothing but ride some more! Seems like if I drop below that mileage I get lazy for the bike.

Too bad about your boat situation, Carrera. Apparently, they haven't squeezed the blood totally out of that rock yet.

Damned revenuer's!!

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Carrera

I've had many many weeks off. By rights, that ride should have killed me but it didn't. O.K. I confess I would have been a little slower going up the hills but I got through it all O.K.
The only way I could train with so little time available in winter was to just do endurance weights in order to get real intensity over a 40 minute period. So, I teamed up with a competitive sprinter and we would do squats to total failure and very high reps with a barbell across your back. Puking up under such circumstances wasn't unheard of.
The rides to work and back must have supplied a minimum of cycling, especially as I tried to push bigger gears. This morning I was going uphill on the big chain ring and I noticed the chain was halfway on the middle of the cassette so that was a damned huge gear for a hill. I was faster than ever.
The boat is nearly powered now and the engine being worked upon but the Waterways Board over here apear to be sharks. They want money big time just for having a 20 foot boat moored up on a tiny patch of canal on the canal bank. It will cost me hundreds of pounds unless I can either get it out of the water or just out of the control of Waterways. We cyclists are so lucky not to be hounded by these government bodies but boats and bikes are two different scenarios.
You know, if I can't get the boat powered in time I'm going to have to power it by my own bike and take the part of the old horse in former times - boats were powered by horses you know. Well, imagine cycling the canal paths dragging a boat behind you - that would be like something out of a Rocky movie.

lyotard

don't post on the training forum, where all those in the know decry squats as counter-productive, with lengthy dissertation worthy of a doctorate in...
knowswutzbestology.

good on 'ya.

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