Originally Posted by
Gramercy
I'm looking to see how people here get back into a schedule from time off. I took 3 months off the bike and went for my first brief ride yesterday. Starting next week, I get 4 weeks paid paternity leave (new rule, my company is very generous).
I don't expect to do a bunch of intensity right away. The races I plan on doing this summer will be all Crits. Is it too ambitious to jump into a 10 hour week right away? Would you ease into it?
These rides will be generally unstructured, at least in the beginning. Do you think there's a difference between riding every day for 1 to 2 hours, instead of 4 days a week, 2-3 hours a day?
I'd do longer rides personally. For me there's a difference between the 1-2 hour rides and the 2-4 hour rides. Each have their benefits. The longer rides force you to go beyond the glycogen stored in your liver or whatever so you have to eat or be burning fat or whatever. Also the fatigue on those rides forces me to use different muscles, so I end up sore with muscles I forgot I had. Well I used to, now it doesn't happen as much. With 1 hour rides you can do weird stuff (bad form, bad position, bad pedaling, etc) and get away with it. 2 hour rides, not so much. 3-4 hour rides, not really at all. You want to be smoother and more fluid the longer you ride.
One of my best years I did just 2 rides a week in the winter, sometimes a short 3rd one, but the 2 were super long (120 miles, all day for me). That might be a bit much but if you can do some 3 or 4 hour days that would be nice.
On the other hand you're a new father. Other than riding for your sanity it may not be very important to get "super fit". Enjoy being a dad and enjoy riding the bike.
Congrats.