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Transitioning from riding every other day to daily

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Transitioning from riding every other day to daily

Old 06-02-20, 07:54 AM
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SlvrDragon50
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Transitioning from riding every other day to daily

I currently ride every other day for approximately an hour, doing a range of speed/climbing/endurance rides on Sufferfest. I'd like to shift to riding daily, but I'm not really quite sure how to adjust my training. I always feel pretty wiped on the day following my rides, especially if it is a climb with low cadence/high power. Any suggestions on how to adjust accordingly? I am thinking of going down to 45 minutes endurance or 30 minute climbs. Or is this a bad idea and stick with my every other day? Or perhaps stick with the hour long every other "difficult rides" and stick in 30 minute drills on the other days?

Appreciate the help
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Old 06-02-20, 09:35 AM
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Why? What you're doing sounds fine to me. Depends on what you're trying to do. Firstly, it's really hard to track what's happening with your body without data. I know, our forebears didn't have data, they just went by feel. That works once one has years of experience, but it is quicker and in many way simpler to track our inner workings with data. I'm saying TrainingPeaks Premium, Golden Cheetah, or something like that. I use TrainingPeaks. I get numbers to watch. Recommended.

Anyway, and be that as it may, and so forth, the most effective training tactic I've found is to first figure out where your training week begins and ends. For most folks, the start is either Saturday or Sunday. Then load the heck up at the start of your week, like really kill it, and then spend the rest of week training at gradually decreasing levels until by the end of the week you feel OK again. For example my typical summer week might look like this when I was in my 50s an 60s::
Sunday: 60 mile hilly ride, ridden hard
Monday: 4-5 hour hike in the mountains
Tuesday: off (hard to even walk)
Wednesday: SS intervals of if still really cooked, an hour of endurance Z2
Thursday: VO2max intervals or SS intervals or an hour of endurance Z2
Friday: 30 minutes recovery on the rollers
Saturday: off

If no mountains or one prefers just to focus on cycling, long moderate ride on Monday. Of course one could start the week on Saturday or any other day. We used to take Mondays off.
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Old 06-02-20, 01:15 PM
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Hard to give advice if your goals aren't clear to us.

I sometimes ride everyday, for a week. Some weeks I might do nothing. Depends for me on what else in my life is going on.

But for certain, you probably need to mix up what you are doing. Don't get in a rut of doing the same amount of time or mileage each ride. Nor do it at the same pace every time. Your body will think that normal and fool you into thinking that is all you can do.

As for being tired, I don't know, you ruled out medical issues? If none, then are you getting enough carbs during and immediately after your rides?
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Old 06-02-20, 10:36 PM
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I only ride for fitness so no goal other than to improve my cardio. I just know a lot of people are able to do cardio daily, and I'd like to be able to do the same. I feel like I'm hitting a wall of riding at most 1h so I'm wanting to change up my routine a little bit. I don't ever do the same ride twice, not yet anyways. I'm trying to knock out every single ride on Sufferfest.

Ignore the doubles, but this is what I've done the past month.
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Old 06-03-20, 10:43 AM
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If you want to ride for fitness and you want to ride longer, just ride longer. My usual advice for this sort of thing is to ride outside. Ride away from home until you are quite tired, then ride back. Endurance doesn't start until you start to endure. Do that a couple times/week, supplement with trainer rides, so cycling maybe 5 days/week. If it were easy, everyone would do it.
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Old 06-03-20, 11:05 AM
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Originally Posted by SlvrDragon50
I currently ride every other day for approximately an hour, doing a range of speed/climbing/endurance rides on Sufferfest. I'd like to shift to riding daily, but I'm not really quite sure how to adjust my training. I always feel pretty wiped on the day following my rides, especially if it is a climb with low cadence/high power. Any suggestions on how to adjust accordingly? I am thinking of going down to 45 minutes endurance or 30 minute climbs. Or is this a bad idea and stick with my every other day? Or perhaps stick with the hour long every other "difficult rides" and stick in 30 minute drills on the other days?

Appreciate the help
My advice is to take the bike off the trainer and go for a ride. Leave your computer at home or at least stick it in your pocket and don’t look at it till you get home.
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Old 06-03-20, 11:11 AM
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Unfortunately I differ from 99% of the riders here, and I get pretty much zero joy out of riding my bike outside. Probably because I'm in the cornfields and the roads are terrible due to salt/snow wreaking havoc on the roads. I only ride indoors as a means of maintaining cardio and to keep my body moving while I watch lectures.

I'll start doing longer rides on the trainer then and go from there.
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Old 06-03-20, 11:47 AM
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Looks like you are riding 2-4 hours a week which isn't that much. Increase your duration ~10% a week until you get where you want to be.
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Old 06-03-20, 03:03 PM
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Originally Posted by SlvrDragon50
I currently ride every other day for approximately an hour, doing a range of speed/climbing/endurance rides on Sufferfest. I'd like to shift to riding daily, but I'm not really quite sure how to adjust my training. I always feel pretty wiped on the day following my rides, especially if it is a climb with low cadence/high power. Any suggestions on how to adjust accordingly? I am thinking of going down to 45 minutes endurance or 30 minute climbs. Or is this a bad idea and stick with my every other day? Or perhaps stick with the hour long every other "difficult rides" and stick in 30 minute drills on the other days?

Appreciate the help
Add 10% riding time per week on the days you do ride, except one week in 3 or 4 when you need reduced load for adaptations to occur.

When total time divided by one day more allows a pleasant ride length, revert to your previous mileage and add a day.

Stop adding time when you're happy.

Note you should limit intensity most days. You're not fresh enough to ride hard and force training adaptations in your fast twitch muscles, but are going hard enough to recruit them and unload your slow twitch fibers so they're not getting better either.

I like VO2max Mondays (3-4x10 minutes as hard as possible, over 110% of FTP), Threshold Thursdays (ride at 90-95% of FTP for 1-1.5 hours), and Not Short Saturdays (at least double the weekday time) with pleasant endurance rides except Sunday which is for rest.

Last edited by Drew Eckhardt; 06-03-20 at 03:15 PM.
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Old 06-03-20, 03:17 PM
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Originally Posted by Drew Eckhardt
Add 10% riding time per week on the days you do ride, except one week in 3 or 4 when you need reduced load for adaptations to occur.

When total time divided by one day more allows a pleasant ride length, revert to your previous mileage and add a day.

Stop adding time when you're happy.

Note you should limit intensity most days. You're not fresh enough to ride hard and force training adaptations in your fast twitch muscles, but are going hard enough to recruit them and unload your slow twitch fibers so they're not getting better either.

I like VO2max Mondays (3-4x10 minutes as hard as possible, over 110% of FTP), Threshold Thursdays (ride at 90-95% of FTP for 1-1.5 hours), and Not Short Saturdays (at least double the weekday time) with pleasant endurance rides except Sunday which is for rest.
Thanks everyone. I think that might actually be the main thing. I went from never riding to straight into hour long rides and ramping up the intensity. I was assuming that the FTP profile was keeping it in check, but I think my body just isn't really used to cycling yet. Especially since I've been tweaking my bike setup the past month. I actually had to drop down the resistance in one of the climbing sessions I did because I could not keep up with the wattage.
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Old 06-05-20, 10:02 PM
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I’m similar in some ways. I started last August and, taking into account the winter interrupting my riding almost completely/very sporadic riding for a few months, I have ramped my time from 45 minutes to averaging an hour fifteen to and hour and a half and incorporating intervals. And I ride every other day but am going to add a day.

You could add a day at first as opposed to just immediately going to every day.
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Old 06-09-20, 09:57 PM
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Did three 30 minute rids the past 3 days, but my left calf was feeling a little funky with some foot pain so I had to take a day off today. Plus my neck muscles are insanely tight (likely due to studying, not biking). Otherwise I'm hoping to finish off the rest of this week with a daily 30 minute ride. Then next week I'll try to step it up to 35-40 minute rides. I definitely think the hour long rides were just taking way too much energy out of me to ride consecutive days.
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