Thread: endurance ride
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Old 07-26-09, 05:02 PM
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ericgu
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I'd suggest getting a copy of Friel's or Carmichael's training book.

You don't mention where you are starting out. When you first start training, it really doesn't matter what you do - you're going to get better. But if you want to get beyond your initial training, your training needs to be specific - you work to get better at specific things.

I see three issues with what you're doing.

First, with rides the distance you're doing, you can only ride "kindof hard". That won't be enough to put training stress on your body, so you won't get better very quickly.

Second, racing has very particular demands on your system. You will need to have a lot of base aerobic power, you will need to be able to ride well at your aerobic threshold and you'll need good anaerobic power to handle short bursts (less important in TTs, more important in group races).

Finally, fall is a really hard time to start racing. Everybody is at their best in the fall. It's a lot easier to start in the spring when people are just coming off the winter and everything is a lot slower.
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