Fat Boy

You're in the wrong place for that gripe, teeny-bopper. Off the lawn, NOW!

Spartannia

Done. Send me your Quarq first.

teamtrinity

Awesome! I'm going to try your plan! It's gotta be better than what I've been doing (nothing) or what I planned on doing (just riding around)!

mike868y

you specified that you just started racing, but if you just started riding as well, you'd probably be better off riding as much as you can, hitting up the fast group rides, and racing as much as possible rather than doing a structured program.

teamtrinity

I've been riding recreationally for years. But, as I do every winter, I stopped riding (or exercising) altogether for the entire winter. I just started riding last week and put 235 miles in the past 9 days. Before that, I'd been averaging less than 10 miles of bike/trainer time per week.

I'm signed up for a bunch of races though! And I'd like to join some of the faster group rides if time/location match up! So you think I should skip the structured stuff for a while?

topflightpro

Aren't you like 16? Just cut your jerking off time in half and that should give you another 16-20 hours a week to train.


And OP, I'll sell you my PowerTap.

mike868y

it's up to you, but it sounds like you're at a point where you're going to see gains just by riding more/harder and worrying about a structured training plan is probably not worth it. even friel admits that his book is intended for people who have a couple years of "serious" riding under their belts.

rkwaki

Nice!

grolby

Oh, kids.

You'll never have more time to train than you do now. Unless you find yourself unemployed in the future, I guess.

shermo

A college racer I ride with thinks he'll have more time to train next year when he starts working fulltime.

wens

I have at least as much time now as i did in college...and i get more consistent sleep to boot.

echappist

back in grad school, i was doing 60 hrs/week, though i may only be half efficient. Ended up averaging 8-9hrs/week.

Now i have a full time job at which i'm 80-90% efficient and end up able to train 10-12 hrs/week avg, 15-16hrs at the end of base.

shermo

Guess it depends on the job/degree. Admittedly final year law students don't have much free time, but first year lawyers have much much less.

grolby

I'm not great with time, so finding time to train while under the insane time demands of grad school was really tough for me. I was able to manage 4-5 hours in a good week. Now I'm seeking jobs and have all the time I want, but my sanity and general capacity has allowed ~10 hour weeks for the most part. As I adapt to greater volume, maybe 15 hour weeks in base will be possible someday (but it is necessary and important to balance the bike stuff with relationship stuff, and long base weeks and lots of race weekends test that balance!). Fortunately: a relatively small increase in training volume can make a big difference. When I finished my thesis at the end of July last year, I upped my riding to 6-8 hour weeks and went from nowheresville to being able to race competitively in Cat 4 crits within a few weeks, a few months later I was able to ride well in Gran Fondo events and was very competitive in the local cyclocross scene.

Anyway, relevant to the OP: a lot can be done with limited time, but if endurance base is a weakness (for new racers, it usually is), it's a lot harder to work on that with really limited training hours. Luckily, it's possible to do okay in crits on limited training. Road races are harder, unless you're talented. Look around the Internet for training plans and tips for time-limited racers, as I said it will be harder to get the base you need but it's better than noodling around without a plan.