Originally Posted by
chasm54
It's true that the old pros used to say "distance builds speed". But those guys spent at least 20 hours per week on the bike, racking up 2000 miles per month in training. And in season, they raced three or four times a week, going very hard. I have seen my fitness and speed increase significantly when doing lots of long, steady distance, on tours for example. But that involves five or six hour days, five or six days a week. Most people don't have the time.
Hi,
I don't disagree. I used to do a lot of running, always pushing hard.
A younger chap joined the company and wanted to get into running.
He was keen enough to want to run every other day, or thereabouts.
So I went out with him on the next seven or so runs, showing him
my routes and necessarily I hardly broke sweat figuratively speaking
doing the mileage with a new runner, younger but still somewhat slow.
Thing is, afterwards, the first time I went out on my own, pushing
hard on one of of my routes, I relatively slaughtered my best time,
I've changed my attitude ever since.
Just doing the mileage is IMO more important than how fast
you do it. Mess around with cadence, spin and mash up hills,
hammer it occasionally, but generally IMO for a lot of the
time just make comfortable good progress, and do as
many miles as you can fit into your timetable.
rgds, sreten.