hernandez.amie

I borrowed my partner's bike yesterday and today and decided to give it a try.

I could barely do a full lap around my neighborhood without having to stop to catch my breath or drink water. I swear, I felt like my lungs were gonna burst.

This morning I attempted it again and only did a little less than half a mile before I started feeling the burn.

Are there any tips on what I should be doing?

DrIsotope

Do exactly what you've been doing, only do it more.

RISKDR1

slow down to a pace where you are not "feeling the burn". If you are feeling the burn you are overwhelming your muscles with lactate. If you want to build endurance ride longer at a slower pace for six weeks or so. That will develop your aerobic base and then you can throw in some rides with faster pace to develop stamina at speed. If you push for burn on every ride you will not go very far and will burn out on the sport.

DrIsotope

I dunno about that. When I started I was 50lbs heavier, had no aerobic fitness whatsoever, and rode as hard as I could as far as I could every time. Sure, it was a physical strain to manage even 40 miles a week, but it was fun. If I had started off with day after day of tooling around at low speed, I'd have gotten bored and moved on to something else. You see the biggest gains and improvements in the first 3 months. I went from 16-18 miles in 90 minutes and being wiped out, and within a few months it was 16-18 miles in an hour... and being completely wiped out.

OP, just keep it fun. Push yourself some days, take it easy on others. If you start structuring rides too quickly, riding can seem a chore, and it shouldn't.

RISKDR1

your experience is anecdotal. The conventional wisdom is base building first. Lots of miles at an aerobic pace. The OP is riding at an anaerobic pace or so it seems. I think he would be better off to do most of his miles aerobically. That is without lactate buildup which will drive him to exhaustion before he develops his aerobic system. You found a method that seemingly has worked for you but I wonder how fast you would be if you had maximized your aerobic system first before layering your anaerobic system on top of it.

DrIsotope

Dunno. But it did apparently make me more powerful. My Z1 tooling-around rides are over 200w average. I think I spent the first 3-4 months just bouncing off of my lactate threshold. I would regularly have rides with my HR averaging 150-160bpm. When I first thought to test for my LTHR, it was 154bpm. I just attacked every ride like a big dumb animal. Pound every hill until I could make it to the top without a break. Sometimes it took ten tries. But even with it feeling like the lungs were going to come out my mouth, getting to the top without stopping that first time felt really good.

So perhaps sub-optimal. But I did do my first 70 mile ride less than 3 months-- and at most maybe 50 rides-- after getting on the bike. I'm not saying it will work for everyone. I'm saying I've read threads on here where people have been riding 2+ years and never done a metric century. I just don't see how that's possible... other than by reading too many threads that advise caution and "building a base." We can all go farther than we think. My first double metric was done on a whim, and solo.

I still stand by the notion of "think less, ride more."

sstorkel

When I was in my 30's every training method worked well for me. Now that I'm in my 40's, I have to pay more attention to training properly if I want to get the same results I did when I was younger...

With that said, it sounds to me like RISKDR1 is on the right track. My experience climbing hills suggests that once you start riding into the "red zone" it becomes very difficult to fully recover. One solution to this might be for the OP to buy an inexpensive heart-rate monitor and make sure that riding efforts are solidly aerobic, but not past their lactate threshold heart-rate (LTHR). That does not mean that rides should be slow or without effort, however. If you don't push your body to adapt to higher training stress, it never will.

RISKDR1

every ones adaptive ability is different. At 71 I can't get away with training methods I used at 30. I was in that "train till sick and then rest" mode for a long time. Age and genetics is a big factor in what we can adapt to. We don't know the age of the OP or his goals if any. For me it takes a LOT longer to adapt to a given training regime than it did even 5 years ago.

CliffordK

According to the OP's other post, he is young, and not super heavy.

Many people report a pretty rapid response to early training. So, get out and do that 1 mile or 5 mile ride daily for a month or so, and it will become much easier.

A little muscle pain is not uncommon with training. Just keep at it. A few rest days aren't bad as long as you're not taking more rest days than exercise days.

Height?

Assuming you are carrying around an extra 70 pounds that isn't pure solid muscle, then a longterm solution will also include dieting + exercise. And expect it to take some time for the extra weight to come off. Maybe a year?

In the future, consider also mixing in a few long, hard rides. 20 miles? 50 miles? 100 miles? Get used to doing 100 mile rides, and those 10 mile rides around the neighborhood will just seem easy.

tpadul 

HI There Amie!! I'm new here too!! I just got on my bike for the first time last week, after not riding for years and years. I was only able to ride around our neighborhood for about 15 mins before I got all winded too and I felt like I rode 500 miles up hill and was certain I was going to have an Asthma attack.. the next day I stayed in our parking lot of the apartment complex, it's flat and not hilly like the neighborhood was. I did better, but still baby steps, then the 3rd day I went out and rode for about 25 mins, and felt a little better.

I say just work your way up slowly, just baby steps, a few more minutes each day and if your riding in an area that has slight inclines to the road, that was too much for me, and I got winded really fast.

I think it takes time to build up the stamina for those of us that have not been on a bike in a while and if we don't get much exercise to begin with. I know for me that is the case. I've got about 50 pounds I would really like to loose.

jethro56 

Really the key to this is to still be riding consistently (3 or more times a week) 5, 10 , 20 years from now. Few people (no one?)quit an exercise program because it's too easy, but just 20 minutes a session 3 times a week will do wonders. Whereas one 1 hour session once a week not so much.

Black wallnut 

3 20 minute sessions of riding a bike will do nothing for your overall health. It may actually be worse for you than sitting on the couch if your brain fools you into thinking you can add calories because you are "exercising"

Health benefits from cycling begin at 5 hours or more per week. Improve greatly at >7 hours a week.

Build a base slowly and incrementally. Adding duration each ride. Once you have a base add intensity. To add to much too fast too soon will risk injury and over training leads to mediocrity.

SpikedLemon

This.
Keep at it.

For an interesting read: look up a training plan for a Couch to 5K running program (C25K) online. Apply similar methods to riding a bicycle.

Nstoltzner

My advice is to just keep at it. My first ride was 2 miles and it KILLED me. I am now doing around 20 comfortably and 25 just wears me out for the rest of the day, depending on the conditions. I have not progressed as fast as some but we all do it differently and some progress is better than sitting on the couch.

jsigone

don't forget to enjoy the ride and look at things to the right and left of you when safe to do so.

and yes the first month will suck, stick to it!!

Nstoltzner

Excellent advice.