Yen

BACKGROUND: I returned to cycling 5 years ago while working full-time. All last year (2011) I was sidelined with bi-lateral tennis elbow. I'm retired now and I was back on the bike this January, starting slowly to test the elbow pain. Soon, I was back to 20 miles, then 40, 50, 60. Our bike group does 2 hilly (20-mile) rides on Mon/Wed, and a long ride on Saturday -- 40, 50, or 60 miles. In between, I do elliptical, treadmill, spin class, Pilates, or weight workouts at the gym. I rest 2-3 days/week. I'm planning to do a long organized metric (72) in September, a hilly metric in November, and (hopefully) my first century in Palm Springs next February.

I jumped in quickly this year. My fellow group riders are amazed how well I do the hills and long distances. However, I feel fatigued with sore legs on the second half of the long rides and my HR is in zone 4 for most of the ride. My HR does recover very quickly and I feel good the next day, but I am starting to feel the need to slow down a little and do some base aerobic training.

So, today I took my first long slow/steady ride, 50 miles with my HR 130 or below. I learned that my legs have adapted to a 50-60 mile ride with a lunch stop in the middle, so they were sore (but not tired) after about 30 miles. Still, I finished feeling like I could do another 5-10 miles.

QUESTIONS:
1. How "long" is long? Miles, or hours?
2. How many of these rides should I do each week? Should I replace all my current group rides with base-training rides of the same distance, and gradually work back to the higher-intensity group rides? Or, can I continue the weekday group rides but at a low intensity and skip some of the hills?
3. If LSD riding trains the body to use fat as fuel, how should I eat on the bike? Less food, less often? Today I ate what I do on the long fast-paced rides.

I fear that I've missed the best part of the season for base training (winter, early spring) by jumping straight into the group rides and trying to go faster too soon. I would appreciate some guidance about where to go from here.

Machka 

Steady ... not slow.

The fastest pace you can maintain for the distance you intend to do, without slowing down and without being totally exhausted at the end.

If you intend to ride 50 km, what's the fastest pace you can maintain for that entire distance ... without having your speed drop off during the last 10 km because you're too tired to keep up the pace.


1. Long, for the purposes of this subform, is 100 miles. Long for "base mileage" might start at 50 km.

2. When training for long distance rides, I recommend 1-2 longish (i.e. 50-100 km) rides a week, with at least one 100+ mile ride each month. Evening rides during the week are a good time to work on speed and strength.

3. Try 200-300 calories per hour. If that's too much for you, reduce it a bit.

unterhausen

slow means 20mph not fast at 25

Yen

Thank you for your answers.

How do I figure out that pace without actually doing the entire ride? It seems I wouldn't know if the pace is too fast/slow until I have to slow down, or until the very end when I feel good.

Machka 

A bit of trial and error.

If you feel like you could keep going for some time when you finish the ride, pick up the pace a bit next time.

ThermionicScott 

Wouldn't the hallucinations get distracting?

(Somebody had to. )

chasm54

I know from your post in the 50+ forum that you're using a HRM. That's a good way of determining the difference between "slow" and "steady". Call anything in Z1 or below, slow. If you're in Z2 90% of the time, that's "steady". You should be able to maintain that for quite a long time. Experience will soon tell you whether you can maintain a pace closer to Z3 for two or three hours, whereas on a four hour ride you might need to keep it closer to the bottom of the zone.

I don't think you have to cut out all your group rides, though your schedule, including the spin class etc., seems quite intense. I don't think spending six hours a week in Z4 is a great idea, certainly not at this stage. Try keeping one of the shorter, hilly rides but replacing the other one, and the longer ride, with the sort of LSD session you did yesterday. I'd ditch the spin class, too. See how you feel after a few weeks of that and then maybe build another of the group rides back in and check if you are completing it with a lower HR. Over time, you'll find that your average speed while still in Z2 will slowly rise.

For comparison purposes, I have a pretty decent base after years of LSD work. But my schedule still includes one LSD ride of four or five hours per week, as well as recovery rides. I doubt if I'm in Z4 for much more than one of the twelve hours I spend on the bike - certainly no more than two hours.

I agree with Machka about the food. No need to eat if you're going to be out for a couple of hours or less. If I'm likely to be out for more than three, I'll start eating after about an hour and graze my way through about 250kcal per hour thereafter.

Omiak

It's actually rather nice.

StephenH

Here I am on a recent ride. I actually rode down Tripp Road, but didn't make the connection until someone else pointed it out. (And no, I'm not a druggie.)

I still don't know what LSD stands for as related to cycling.

Anyway, my advice is don't overthink this, go ride a bunch and have fun.

unterhausen

LSD has been supplanted by "base miles," but it is the same idea

Yen

Thank you; you answered some new questions I just posted in the 50+ forum before coming here.

I would call yesterday's ride steady, not slow. It was a slight challenge at a low/moderate intensity. However, my legs are adapted to a long stop for brunch/lunch after 20 miles, and then another 20-30 miles back home, so they were sore after 20-30 miles as if I'd ridden at a higher intensity.

I use spin classes for study time on a bike most like my own (compared with the upright stationery bike). I do my own ride, often at a lower intensity. I might even do a recovery ride. They enable me to study at the same time, a big time-saver for me. So, I could do a spin class at Z2, immediately followed by a 60 minutes on a stationery bike at Z2, and get 2 hours of riding + studying.

The Wednesday group ride is the hardest; I'm thinking of keeping the Monday group ride but replacing the Wednesday ride with a Z2 ride at the same distance. That would give me two of these Z2 rides/week.

With respect to eating: I eat little or nothing for 1-2 hour rides, but I start eating soon and often for longer rides, esp. 50-60 miles even if there's a lunch stop in between. I used to eat too little, too often, and ran out of fuel early... now I graze as I ride and I've noticed it helps.

chasm54

Long, steady, distance. You do quite a lot of it, I think.

Richard Cranium

Well there is no lack of misunderstanding and confusion as soon as some one mentions "fat" "burning" or exercise.

So what was question in this thread - what was the answer?

I did not bother with the previous - mostly because -rewriting exercise books in a forum answer just doesn't "rock my world" like it used to.

I guess I hear what you say - "poor me - I did not train as perfectly as I could." Gosh - no kidding, finding the right mix of effort and duration when exercise is "every cyclist's favorite holy grail."

Here's the only deal worth noting -since you seem to wondering whether exercise intensity matters.
Yes exercise intensity does affect how your body will adapt to using energy-substrates during activity. No - this has almost nothing to do with what you are eating while you are riding.

Try to understand this: People continue to confuse what happens during exercise because they mix the contexts of a complicated situation that is sometime described at a metabolic or physiological level and sometime talked about from a "baby-talk" or layman's perspective.

In general when you exercise at sub maximal intensity- a greater proportion muscle fibers that utilize oxygen and fatty-acids are recruited to perform work - and as a result you are said to be developing the "fat-burning" systems.

Whenever you turn up the intensity, additional muscle fibers come into play- these are the muscle fibers that will use only sugars to "burn." But what is key to understanding these systems - is that they are both being used - almost all the time.

The original ideas associated with these training techniques had to do with other factors that I care not to go into right now. But the simple way to look at "base conditioning" is to remember that hours and hours of saddle time are more important to an athlete at the beginning of a planned training regimen than doing max efforts that might end a workout early.......

I know I am really full of it - but most people never train seriously- and those that do - know their status and do not need to ask strangers what to do. All you need to know is that most of the time you should go long, but if you want to develop your full abilities, sometimes you have to go as hard as you can - until you can't. And that hurts.