Plain "old school" Training

[Lovsexy4]

What ever happened to just plain old school training? I just turned 47 years old yesterday and I feel like I'm 30 years old. All due to just plain old school training. I'm a road bike and mountain bike rider putting in about 12 to 15 miles a day Monday thru Thursday. I do Bodyweight and core body exercises on Fridays, And about 45 to 50 miles on a Saturday group ride. I usually take Sundays off to just chill and rest. I do just three century's a year. I'm 5'9 and I weight 240lbs, very solid for my size, though not what you'd consider a bike rider at first glance. Though, I do hold my own very well. I consider myself a "B" class rider being able to hold a group pace of around 18 to 21 mph. On longer rides of 50 to 75 miles I ride a pace of 15 mph (touring pace). I ride a Tommaso and an Iron Horse Road bike, and a Mongoose hard tail Mountain Bike. I Live and ride in the Washington DC area with two bike clubs. (OHB&T & Big Dogs Cycling Club for riders over 220lbs).

This is how I got by in the 'old days'... just a pair of sneakers and a 10-speed' bike! With all of the technology available today, in an attempt to become the "athletic machine", sometimes just staying plain and simple is the way.

I challenge all of you to go 'old school' on your next ride and train without your various monitoring devices all around you. Instead of focusing on your watts or heart rate, focus instead on how you are feeling and start working to develop a really good sense of your perceived effort. 'Monitor the Gauges' of your body, so to speak, instead of monitoring the meters hooked up to your bike and body.

I can only speak for myself and my personal observations, but I have noticed that the most successful athletes are those who have the greatest sense of self awareness. They know when they are at threshold, when they can push harder and when they need to back off. This self awareness was developed over years of learning how their bodies respond to various levels of training and racing intensities. And you know what... even 10, 20 and 30 years ago, athletes were going pretty darn fast without all of the tech gizmos and complex training methods we have today.

Don't get me wrong...I'm not at all, anti-technology. There is tremendous value in using the new training tools available on the market. In fact, the combination of using technology appropriately and developing your self-awareness at the same time is lethal to your training. My observation is that many age group athletes get way too caught up in the gizmos and data...and they'd most likely get faster if they just put their nose to the grind stone and actually 'trained' a little harder...Like an old school athlete like myself.
Just a pair of sneakers and a bike.

Joe

[Az B]

I heard a radio interview with a famous retired boxer, (I forget which one... Holyfield?) and they were asking him about workout routines. He said all he did was pushups, pullups, situps, jumprope and run.

Of course he did like 3000 of each every day, but it just goes to show that it doesn't have to be complicated.

Az

[slowandsteady]

Riding a bike with sneakers hurts my feet. And what makes you think having technology makes someone work less than someone without technology?

And, sorry, but a 15 mph pace is nothing to brag about. I can do that too and I am an overweight woman with medical problems.

[Lovsexy4]

Please read the thread again...I think you are misinterpreting the point I'm trying to make. By the way...I'm not bragging at all. I'm sharing. Be nice!

Joe

[wfrogge]

I agree with focusing on how you feel vs what the HRM says but damn if im going to wear tennis shoes instead of my SIDI's and Speedplays.

Also your "B" pace is comparable to our "C" group pace around here. Sounds like you need to train a little more

[terrymorse]

I hear what you're saying. I know that I've become dependent on my heart monitor for longer rides. If I don't monitor my heart rate, I end up going faster and faster as the hours go by, and I end up totally cooked at the end of the ride. The HRM is a "governor" that keeps me from working too hard.

There's a nice bit of "old school" training advice that I really like. It goes something like this:

Want to get stronger? Ride more.

Pretty simple, eh?

[supertj]

lol 15mph is nothing? doh! Its my first season of cycling ever. I'm 26 and 5'3 weighing 160lbs. I was so proud of myself that I did a 15mph avg pace in an hour of riding. I was cruising at 18-20mph on flats. I'm really seriously thinking of training super hard this summer and getting into competitive cycling.

I know almost nothing about cycling other then I want to return to my glory days of being athletic when I was 18. What is the average mph that champion amateur riders ride? I'm also pondering every day on whether I should be splurging on technologies to help me reach my goal such as having the proper clothes, shoe, Garmin 305 with HR/Cadence, and trainers.

I have the clothes, shoes, and trainer. I'm pondering away day and night on whether to get the Garmin 305 if it would improve my game and continue my interest. The cost of this sport is so expensive .. I think I spent closed to $2k within the last 2 months. I have put on 250+ miles and hours on the trainer and I feel a lot of improvements already.

[veloGeezer]

I hear you.

Sometimes I hear guys talk about heart rate like the whole point is to get a certain heart rate zone. I've learned alot about myself and how I ride from HRMs, but I gotta agree with you. There are times of the year I like to take all that stuff and leave it at home and just ride lots.

[edbikebabe]

My 2 cents... Enjoy your summer, ride lots & remember how much fun it is. Then when you start to get tired of riding your trainer next winter, start thinking about gadgets & gizmos to make it more interesting.

Some days I "forget" my HRM just so I can go and enjoy the ride.

[asgelle]

I can only speak for myself and my personal observations, but I have noticed that the most successful athletes are those who have the greatest sense of self awareness.

That may be, but it's also true that the most succesful athletes, at least in endurance sports, are the ones who have adopted the most modern training methods including advanced techniques for quantifying, modeling, and predicting performance applied both in training and competition. So do whatever you want, riding is supposed to be fun, but there is little controversy these days on the path to maximizing performance.

[Lovsexy4]

How funny it is to hear that a 15 mph pace riding 50, 75 or even 100 miles is something to laugh about.
Please help me understand why this sounds so funny to folks? I ride circles around guys have my age on very long rides. It's funny to see all these young guys; 20 to 30 years of age not being able to finish even a 50 miler, because their riding 0-23mph out of the box and then end up blowing up and not being able to finish. I believe that is a very respectable pace for longer rides. On shorter rides of 25 to 45 milers my average pace is around 19 to 24 mph. Please read the thread carefully to understand the point I'm making.

Joe

[veloGeezer]

My 2 cents... Enjoy your summer, ride lots & remember how much fun it is. Then when you start to get tired of riding your trainer next winter, start thinking about gadgets & gizmos to make it more interesting.

Some days I "forget" my HRM just so I can go and enjoy the ride.

that's funny, I'm just the opposite. I'm more likely to gadget up in the spring and summer and take all the junk off the bike in the winter. I look at it like in the winter I'm mostly doing long endurance rides, so I really don't need to be very precise. Pulling all the gadgets off my bike from October to mid January or so sort of gives me a mental break right at the time of year when I really need one.

[caloso]

It's funny. I came to cycling from triathlon and I used to read all sorts of books like Dave Scott's book and Joel Friel's Triathlete's Training Bible. Fine, fine books, but very dogmatic about times and distances and efforts. I could never get the details right and I usually ended up just doing a lot of junk miles (too hard to recover and not hard enough to improve).

When I started riding with a buddy and then on to group rides, I just wanted to keep up and I had to learn how to bury myself and then recover at speed. No time for looking at an HRM or computer, just the wheel of the guy in front of me. And I started getting a lot faster. And having a lot more endurance.

So, at least in my experience, just going out with the fast group and trying not to get dropped is the best old school training I've used.

[akarius]

When I think of old school I think of just going out having fun sweating and going hard. No worries about getting faster or losing weight, I like to go out and feel like a kid and get high as a kite on my favorite drug, cycling.

[terrymorse]

How funny it is to hear that a 15 mph pace riding 50, 75 or even 100 miles is something to laugh about...I believe that is a very respectable pace for longer rides.

I was thinking the same thing. I'm considered by many a fairly strong recreational rider, and on most of my rides I barely break 15 mph on average. For example, here are yesterday's ride stats:

Distance: 53.9 mi.
Vertical: 4980 ft. (92 ft/mi)
Av. Speed: 15.2 mph
Av. Heart Rate: 131 (72% of max--endurance pace)

My fatigued, early season legs were very unhappy with me during the climbs, so I couldn't have gone much faster if I had wanted to.

[slowandsteady]

Please read the thread again...I think you are misinterpreting the point I'm trying to make. By the way...I'm not bragging at all. I'm sharing. Be nice!

Joe

So, what exactly did you mean by this? Sounds insulting to me. You are insinuating that just because someone has technology that allows them to objectively measure their effort, they are in some way lazy.

My observation is that many age group athletes get way too caught up in the gizmos and data...and they'd most likely get faster if they just put their nose to the grind stone and actually 'trained' a little harder...

Since you are advocating using old school training methods, as in, just ride with no purpose(according to you), as superior to having a plan with objective measurments, you might want to bolster your argument with better stats than 15 mph.

[slowandsteady]

I agree with focusing on how you feel vs what the HRM says but damn if im going to wear tennis shoes instead of my SIDI's and Speedplays.

Also your "B" pace is comparable to our "C" group pace around here. Sounds like you need to train a little more

+1 That ain't a B pace where I come from.

[Lovsexy4]

What! are you kidding me? It's obvious that you are not going to get this.
I now understand why you call yourself Slow & Steady. It's plain and simple. Right in your face.
Keep trying...You'll get it. lol!!!!

[slowandsteady]

What! are you kidding me? It's obvious that you are not going to get this.
I now understand why you call yourself Slow & Steady. It's plain and simple. Right in your face.
Keep trying...You'll get it. lol!!!!

I am slowandsteady because of my less than stellar bike riding speed that interestingly enough seems to match yours. I took offense to your post, and I only have a cyclocomputer and a HRM that I use occasionally.

Instead of personally attacking my intelligence, perhaps you can actually address the points in my post.

[terrymorse]

To add a bit more perspective, I averaged 16.3 mph on last year's Climb to Kaiser.

Mine was the same pace as the overall winner. The difference was that I stopped at the rest stops. The winner didn't stop.

[slowandsteady]

To add a bit more perspective, I averaged 16.3 mph on last year's Climb to Kaiser.

Mine was the same pace as the overall winner. The difference was that I stopped at the rest stops. The winner didn't stop.

That is certainly impressive. Let me just say that 15 mph is a decent pace if you are riding up a mountain.

[Lovsexy4]

Give me in idea of your training and riding schedule. And tell me a little bit more about your present level of fitness. You appear to come across as being very bothered by something in your life. Tell me about your health issues. I have read many of your replies to other post, and you seem to look for the negative.
Sometimes you should just stop trying to read between the lines, and just take some of the post just as they are written. I'm not going to began breaking down every little detail that I write. My passage was very plain and simple to understand. Take from it what you want and leave the rest as objective as it was written. As for being insulting toward you, I apologize. No disrespect. It just seems like, you don't get it. I didn't write it to offend anyones training methods or to tell anyone how to train. Just to make a point, that "Old school methods have always worked for me and some of the folks I know. I laugh sometimes at some of the young guys in my area that rely mainly on all the fancy gizmos and gadgets, and still can't hang on some of 50, 75 and even the 100 milers me and my crew,(45 and older) take.

My thread was more of a personal observation with a little advice and "Hey try this" thrown in.

Old school...Plain and simple!

[Lovsexy4]

Terry, you seem to be a very level heading person...Help me out here!!!

Joe

[bigskymacadam]

Just a pair of sneakers and a bike.

i can totally appreciate and applaud the down and dirty "get on your bike and ride"; but it's not fun for me. i need structure.

when i played music, i practiced to a metronome, bought great sounding tube amps, high end guitars, tapes, books, listened to my teachers ... slobbered on myself practicing scales when i was in the zone. when i make espresso, i measure, grind, tamp, use filtered water all to spec (or as close as i can get). when i shoot events i meter the light, setup off camera lighting, white balance cards and have all these different piece of gear.

when i ride i have a heart rate monitor, power meter, full kit, powders, gels ... i don't ride any more than my "plan" tells me to. nor will i ride any less.

part of the fun for me is the process. the metrics. from setup to teardown my passion for analysis and structure translates to athletics now. it's what makes my cycling experience fun and complete.

[slowandsteady]

Give me in idea of your training and riding schedule. And tell me a little bit more about your present level of fitness. You appear to come across as being very bothered by something in your life. Tell me about your health issues. I have read many of your replies to other post, and you seem to look for the negative.
Sometimes you should just stop trying to read between the lines, and just take some of the post just as they are written. I'm not going to began breaking down every little detail that I write. My passage was very plain and simple to understand. Take from it what you want and leave the rest as objective as it was written. As for being insulting toward you, I apologize. No disrespect. It just seems like, you don't get it. I didn't write it to offend anyones training methods or to tell anyone how to train. Just to make a point, that "Old school methods have always worked for me and some of the folks I know. I laugh sometimes at some of the young guys in my area that rely mainly on all the fancy gizmos and gadgets, and still can't hang on some of 50, 75 and even the 100 milers me and my crew,(45 and older) take.

My thread was more of a personal observation with a little advice and "Hey try this" thrown in.

Old school...Plain and simple!

I didn't read between the lines. I quoted an actual line of text. Do you care to explain what you meant? If I don't get it, then clearly you need to explain it...not the whole post, just that line I quoted.