LGHT

Reading a lot of interesting goals and thinking about setting some for myself, but being very new and only having ridden 37 total rides I have no idea where to start.

During the summer I would try and ride twice a week and do around 20 miles a ride. Now that I have a newborn at home and can't ride much after work I try and ride every Saturday if possible and average around 30 miles. My longest ride to date is only 37 miles.

Should I not focus on miles and just focus on time on the bike as @Black wallnut mentioned? Recently read a great article that supported a slower LONGER workouts as being better for over all fitness and training. However the article also compared workouts where the athletes pushed hard for a quick amount of time and showed that style of workout as being almost as good. I plan on doing longer rides at least 1 day a weekend as time allows and maybe start doing quick 45-60min hard and fast rides after work or possible on a lunch break to get more time in the saddle.

I checked my strava account and I logged 36 hours and 233 total miles.

WonderMonkey

Really this all depends on how you operate and what would get you out the door. That has to be the number one thing.

For pure fitness and calorie burning intervals are tremendous. They allow great results in a minimum of bike time. Throw in recovery rides, enjoyment rides, etc. and I think they work. Slower longer rides (steady state) are on the way out for fitness according to many but really do YOU like them? If so then that's for you.

Two years ago I went for distance and time on the bike. Loved it. This past year I did more "training" and did intervals, sprints, recovery, increased pace and also some distance. I mixed it all up and really liked what it did for me.

As for having a newborn that is tough. Hard to focus on yourself when you have a spouse that is probably home and tired. However if you have time then consider night rides. I did that and enjoyed them. Make sure you are riding an area that can support a night ride.s

Willbird

IMHO it is going to be hard to build a solid "base" riding just 1-2 times a week. Unless you do some other Cardio Vascular or weight lifting work other than riding ?

With just two rides a week you can do some intense intervals then just do the rest of the ride however you wish, but memory is telling me that three workouts a week was about minimum to maintain CV fitness ??

The long slow distance deal is for building base, and for recovery days, but there must be a million opinions and training plans out there :-). And some newer stuff should HUGE benefits in older folks who did an all out thrash on an exercise bike for 60 SECONDS (as I recall) on an exercise bike just a handful of times a week (again as best I recall).

Bill

scrming

Congrats on the new baby!!! Our twins will be 9 months old on Sunday!

I'm on the other end of the workout spectrum. I'm a firm believer in HIIT training (High Intensity Interval Training). I used to do the long, lower intensity (70% to 75% of Max HR) workouts due to the idea of the "fat burning zone".... however there are now plenty of sources that have exposed the "fat burning zone" as a myth. Do a quick Google on "Myth of the fat burning zone".

Now read up on HIIT! To me one of the most important benefits is the short duration! As you can imagine have a set of twins, time management is a big thing for me! My typical workouts are only 45 to 60 minutes. During the workouts i will push myself during the intervals to well above 90% max HR, sometime very close to max. Then for the entire workout my average HR will be in the 80% to 85%.

The other BIG benefit to HIIT is the "Afterburner" effect! After a nice HIIT workout your metabolism will stay cranked up for bit, burning extra calories...

I used to be a "miles" guy, seeing how many miles i can get in during the week... now i concentrate a lot more about getting good solid HIIT workout in!

Black wallnut 

Ideally you will do a combination of both HIIT and longer slower rides. If you wait for time to allow, it never will. Plan to make time for riding and you will. In sunny Southern California consider before breakfast rides on the weekends. If you are looking to maintain health a goal of 3 hours a week would make sense. If you want to improve health 5 hours would be reasonable. All 5 hours would not need to be cycling. Pushing your newborn around the neighborhood in a stroller for an hour would be great as well.

Willbird

In the summer time I see a younger guy and a younger gal (20's they look to be) pushing a double (2 little babies/toddlers) athletic oriented stroller, I always kid them that they get to log TRIPLE the miles :-).

scrming

That's the beauty of HIIT training.... got an hour of HIIT in this morning (SufferFest video) while the twins were sleeping!

ray.garza

I concur with Black Walnut. Make time for short workouts (an hour or less) during the week (start with 2 x week) and a longer ride on the weekend. Can't go out of the house? Try using a trainer. Go for brisk walks during the week. Use stroller or swap days with wife (one day you go out for brisk walk and the next day the wife goes out while you stay behind). The possibilities are endless but you need to plan it together with wife.

Have fun!

WonderMonkey

Great thoughts.

Jarrett2

Sounds like a solid plan.

TerraCottaGamer

IMHO - more short rides is way better than a few long ones. Doing 5 days of 10k per day per week is better for you physically and mentally than 2 rides of 25k. It builds confidence, gets you out more, builds comfort level with riding and makes it easier to build riding into a habit vs. a necessary evil or just plain exercise.

Whether you are more motivated tracking time, distance or both is a personal decision. What is of universal importance is frequency of rides.

Black wallnut 

+1
That said reference the discussion in T&N about Zone 2 training. Longer rides at lower intensity give great benefit and the majority of the time you spend riding should be at zone 2. So it seems that the jury is still out on how to balance HIIT and LSD. Base miles makes you stronger and faster, HIIT improves your cardio and your speed of recovery but for building strength for longer sustained efforts is not so good.

LGHT

Personally I started off doing quick 1 hour all out sessions and went from 3 miles to over 20 over time, but it was all flat. I love to go fast and push myself, but I quickly realized I wasn't getting much time on the bike as the rides were only around 60 minutes. Then I started doing hills and the pace went from 17mph to 5mph. Now when I do hills I can maintain around 7mph on the hills, but that ride still takes me almost 3 hours to do the full 30 miles with about 2000' of climbing.

Now I'm kinda in the middle where I try and do around 30 miles 1000' in about 2 hours with a quick break in the middle.

I'm going to try and do 1 lunch session a week, 1 night session, and 1 long ride on either Saturday or Sunday for 3 rides a week.

So if I set a goal of 4 hours of ride time a week and try and do at least 30 miles that would put me at 208 hours on the year with 1560 miles as my goal.

Does that sound about right?

As my son gets older I should be able to get more time in to exercise with him in the stroller for long walks or slow pace runs and during the winter, I'll also get a trailer so I can pull him on the dedicated bike paths as well.

TerraCottaGamer

Another thought on this - people tend to set goals that are way too high/hard. Some people thrive on crazy hard, even impossible, goals. I personally would rather set goals I know are very reachable - hit them - then readjust midway through the year. So I try to set goals that are reachable if I remain consistent.

It feels way better to hit mid-October having hit your yearly goal already and having to set a new goal for the last couple months of the year than to hit mid-October and realize the only way you make your yearly goal is to channel the spirit of Greg Lemond.

If you think that a goal is not lofty enough - prove it!

dagray

Solution for you. Get a Burley trailer which has a good harness system for a kid and even allows you room to take a diaper bag and a seat that reclines for when baby needs to sleep and go riding.

I put my four year old in the trailer and pull him around to different parks in town (we have three parks in our small town).

ride three or more times a week if you can, and get a trainer for indoor riding for when it is too dark or other conditions won't let you get outside and ride.

Dave

scrming

HIIT is also good for fat loss!!!

IBOHUNT

I would lean more toward time in the saddle versus any distance.

Ride as often as you can.
Make your hard rides hard
Make your easy rides stupid easy; mix up the hard and easy rides.

End of the day you need to decide what YOUR goals are.

LGHT

That's a good tip, but the wife won't allow me to pull him until he's at least 1 so that's 10 months away and even then she said I can't pull him on the street since most people in Cali drive like complete idiots. Luckily we have tons of bike trials so it's not a huge problem.

I like the 3 points, but I know if I make an annual goal I'm more likely to push harder to toward reaching that goal which is why I ride and that's to get back in shape. However like @TerraCottaGamer mentioned I don't want to make a goal of 10,000 miles that I know I can't reach. I want to set a goal that is attainable and hopefully I'll push myself hard until I reach it.

I think I'm going to go ahead and set my annual goal at 1500 miles with the hopes that it's not too much since I've still somewhat new to cycling.

dagray

okay, next solution is buy a BKool Pro trainer/simulator and ride inside your house. This is a trainer that automatically adjusts the resistance based on the GPS data of the route you selected. You can input your own routes, ride other people's routes, race other people, ride with other people and even have voice communication if you have a microphone hooked up. The software will run on a computer, tablet, or smart phone. This is one of the quietest trainers I have used. I am 375 and six foot three. This trainer also has a great warranty (but it is $650.00 through Amazon or you can try it one month free and buy from BKool for $721.00).

I do not work for nor am I associated with BKool other than using their product to ride as it is dark when I get home and we are in the season of cold..... it warmed up to 22 degrees outside today.

WonderMonkey

That's why I went towards it and I'll stay on that path.

TrojanHorse

Hm, we need to drag you up GMR one of these days. keep your eyes peeled for a Clyde Ride up GMR post in Jan or Feb. It's 44 miles and 6k feet if you go all the way to the village and back, but only about 18 miles and 3.5k feet if you turn around at the maintenance shack (which is where first timers typically turn around). Harder than Santiago Canyon but not by a lot.

OK, the reality is you're still a newish rider so do NOT feel compelled to develop some extreme training plan and set goals in granite. Make sure you're enjoying your time on the bike or you'll give it up. And make sure you spend some time on your bike - I always used to suffer from the need to do a "significant" ride, and I'd run out of time and do no ride at all. Well, that's not very useful. 10 miles around the neighborhood 4 times a week will have you at 160 miles for the month, which is pretty good, and not terribly time consuming either.

As for goals for the year - the hard part about that is towards the end of the year if you realize you're just not going to be able to get to your goal it gets incredibly depressing. You might be better off with a monthly goal (say, 160 miles) that will exceed your yearly goal if you hit them all. Odds are, you won't. Something will come up, but with a monthly goal it seems like it's OK to miss one or two and know that you can get the next one. Well, it seems to work for me at least.

WonderMonkey

This may be out of line but remember it's your child also. The "won't let me" stuff will hopefully taper off as the new mom fear goes away.

jsigone

first few months w/ a newborn is rough, but you will get more time out. Set a schedule with your wife and family and do your part to stick to it. She will never complain to have you home if you miss your ride.

Once you have your schedule set, you can see how much real time is on the bike per week and set up a training plan to it. Until than, ride your bike whenever you can get a chance!!!!!

LGHT

That's great advice and something I considered, but with a newborn and saving for a new house in my area has pretty much left me with little to no budget for hobby spending. I think as a work around I'm going to hit up the cheap workout bike in my complex. Not much of a bike, but it does let me connect my HRM and tracks miles etc so it's better than nothing.

I really think I need a lot more time in on the bike. This is the 3rd week of riding once a week on Saturday morning and the 3rd week I've been sore for 3 days after. Week 1 was 37 miles, week 2 34 miles, and I got a flat this weekend without a spare so I did 17 miles before the flat and had lunch and did another 15 after the flat. Sadly my legs are yet again very tender and sore.

LGHT

Not sure what GMR is, but that's almost twice the climbing of Santiago Canyon that only has around 2k incline so I'll need to gear up for that ride if I ever plan to do it.

Great tip my current schedule now is Sat morning and I try and do between 30-40 miles each week. I still look forward to the ride so I'm not burnt out yet, but yeah I agree I need to just get out even if it's only to spin around my 1 mile block a few times.

I'm sort of doing this now with my current goal. Although I do have a 1500 mile 2015 goal I'm also looking to add in smaller monthly goals that will help me move toward the overall goal. Once the son is older I'm sure I'll have more time to ride especially during summer.