wonderboy

so this will be my first year of a structured training plan. since the beginning of december, i have been developing a base, I will continue through the end of january at least. i ride 2-3 hours each day on the weekend, and 45-75 minutes (for now, this will increase in the coming weeks) on the trainer during the week with 1 day off each week.

This month my focus is form and muscle endurance, 2 of the days on the trainer I am doing "intervals" of very heavy resistance/slow cadence and 1 leg drills. All workouts I keep HR in the zone 1-3 range (on a ~5-6 zone scale).

Anyway, finally to the actual question. my legs are tired and sore all the time. not so much on the bike, I always feel great on the bike, but the rest of the time during the day, my muscles just feel sore. Not enough to impact my life in any significant sense, just always like I did a good workout the day before. I am thinking that perhaps this is good; I never feel exhausted or spent in the full-body sense. Is this how I want to feel? Does this mean I am building a good base or what?
Thanks!

chillyc

I like Carmichael's approach to cycling. Build up the cardiovascular first, with a focus on form and then start hitting the muscle building and interval workouts. This helps the body get used to the ride as well. A good read is "The Ultimate Ride" by Carmichael. There is a lot of good ideas there.

ecnetsixe

I took up cycling not that long ago and I just decided to ride my bike as much as possible for 12 months to see what i enjoyed about the sport the most. Its going ok so far. Im trying all sorts of things and experimenting and just testing myself under different conditions and trying to pick up some skills along the way. I know how boring and tiresome a details training plan can become so ill worry about that next year

Good Luck with the base miles though!!