Originally Posted by
merlinextraligh
Intervals. Going out and essentially time trialing for 15-20 miles is a slow, painful, way to get faster. After a bit, you'll plateau and see little gain.
Instead of going hard for the hour. Take that same hour and do intervals a couple of times a week. Then in a month, do your same 15-20 mile loop and I guarantee you, you will be faster.
I'm going to give this a try. The evenings are getting shorter and soon I won't be able to ride during the week (unless I get lights.) The weekends should start opening up again however, so maybe I'll be doing longer rides again. I was doing 50-60-70 miles on Saturdays and 20-30 on Sundays through June.
How long should the intervals be? I've done them in the past, but with no particular program, just all out for as long as I could (or to a pre-picked landmark) and then rest. And hills, if you can call my hill a hill? Prospect Park is pretty limited.
I should mention that I'm no youngster here, if that makes a difference. I should be posting in the 50+ forum but I refuse to give in.
And this forum just goes too fast. When I first started here it would take a few days to fill a page with new postings. I had to scroll 3 pages to get to this a day later.