Originally Posted by
hobkirk
I had become frustrated by how slow my riding is. A 15 mph average ride (30 miles, 50' ascent per mile average) was good. There is a radar speed display on one of my routes - it follows a 1/2 mile slow ascent, but the final 1/10 mile is flat. My Garmin displays my speed, of course, but the radar display was a nice spur to crank it up. How fast?
18 MPH. ARGH!
I started riding 5 years ago. I've ridden 20K miles despite New England winters and hospital stays for two cancers and two new leg joints. Many years back, I was a decent runner (4:40 mile in high school, all marathons around age 40 under 3 hours).
How could I be so slow? Could I improve my speed potential?
After two months of intervals, when I hit the same radar display on the same route,
my speed was 21 MPH. My effort seemed less, my "lead out" effort shorter. Hot damn!
So maybe there's hope, even for old geezers! Obviously I am bragging, but I hope that this anecdote might help someone….
Details:
- My intervals are 4x8. That means four 8-minute "as hard as I can push" efforts, with 2-3 minute recoveries in-between.
- I average about 17.8 mph, my average HR is 145, max HR is 150, and I am working damn hard the whole way
- I do "4x8" because that's what the study I read suggested.
I would consider suicide during the intervals if I knew I had to do six! So I am really glad it's only four...
Originally Posted by
volosong
Congratulations. Thanks for the explanation on how you ride intervals. I assume you 'warm up' first. How long is your warm-up?
Originally Posted by
trainsktg
I just started doing intervals a few weeks ago and I agree, they work.
Congrats on your accomplishment!
Hi hobkirk,
Dittoes to the above congratulations, especially in view of your medical hurdles. We are both Metro Bostonians and made acquaintance on a
thread you started this summer. Similarly this summer after years of mileage-based training I decided to emphasize intensity/speed, partly based on intervals, with this premise,
Originally Posted by
Jim from Boston
So on my ride this morning, I formulated for myself my “Time-restricted, Personally Ambitious, but Non-competitive Cyclist Training Routine.”… My basic premise was that I wanted to get significantly fit, within a busy work/family time-crunched life, but not suffer so much that I would abandon the program…
I do have the advantages of a very nice minimum 14 mile one way commute that is easily extended; and a high end, very comfortable carbon fiber road bike that encourages riding. …
My training program is pretty homespun, using Relative Perceived Exertion as my guage of intensity, and as noted above pretty modest. Basically, on a scale of 0 to 100, with 50% my usual riding pace,
- warmup of 6 miles at RPE=50
- training pace=60%; about 15-20 miles on weekdays, as much as I can find time for; weekend ride of at least 40 miles
- Hills (and beyond) at 70% for at least two minutes.
ADDENDUM: The verbal descriptions of the relative perceived exertion for my 0 to 100% scale:
- resting...10 to 20
- very, very light...20 to 30
- very light...30 to 40
- fairly light...50 (my usual happy-go-lucky pace / exertion)
- somewhat hard...60
- hard...70
- very hard (lactate threshold; breakpoint between hard but steady breathing and labored with gasping)...80 (my max HR)
- very, very hard...90 to 100.
I use these sporadic intervals because I found on my commute the terrain did not conform with a schedule of intervals, e.g. downhills on the intervals, uphills on the rest periods, and interspersed traffic lights. I actually now look forward to the uphills.
An adage I once read on BF is
“My 15 mph (40 mile ride) is to me, as your 23 mph (double century) is to you." Nonetheless I am enjoying the virtually intoxicating “thrill” of increased speed and crave my rides more than ever.
One other point of reference, [MENTION=195498]hobkirk[/MENTION]. This summer you also
posted to a thread from a Pennsylvania roadie requesting routes around Boston. I too had replied, and even showed that roadie around, and wrote,
Originally Posted by
Jim from Boston
…This summer I was able to show a hard-core roadie around Boston, something I would have been reluctant to do in the past for fear of slowing him down, but I did feel somewhat compatible on that ride (of about 8 miles).
FYA, one ride was from Beacon Hill to Great Blue Hill. You had
posted,
Originally Posted by
hobkirk
…
This is the best urban ride I've done. Do some repeats on the hill at mile 15 - that'll put hair on your chest….
I think you were referring to the hill on Brush Hill Road, but we inadvertently turned on Neponset Valley Parkway, and he was not impressed.
