mike868y

i'm not expect but as a cat 5 (?) I think you'd be much better off focusing on less hours and more specificity but hey do whatever you want.

miyata man

By specificity you mean?

Keeping in mind you have no insight into my training plan other than a single facet, hours. In particular you have no way of knowing if I'm capable of supporting that many hours or, more importantly, have accustomed myself to a diet of them.

mike868y

by specificity i mean training rides that more closely mimic the races you'll be doing. how many 3-4 hour races are you going to be doing as a cat 5? unless the racing in your area is significantly the regions i have experience with my guess is not many. but like i said, keep doing 4 hour group rides if you want.

rubiksoval

If you haven't figured it out by reading most of his other posts, he's already pretty much an expert on most things and will be sure and argue that point with as many random words and phrases as he can muster until you just give up and go away.

I mean, sure, what cat 5 shouldn't be doing 15-20 hours a week?

miyata man

41<----- you've been asked twice now.

caloso

6 KOMs this morning in the confines of the resort/retirement community in the Dominican where we are visiting my aunt. I created a few of the segments myself. So childish but I don't care. I'm going out again tomorrow.

grolby

Do any of you guys remember the dude who was going to take the whole summer and fall off from actual racing to build a MONSTER BASE so he could tackle Gila the following spring?

tetonrider

how does the rest of the joke go?

rubiksoval

Is that where you get most of your material?

rubiksoval

Sounds like the best of plans.

aaronmcd

Ugh, accidentally worked a full day today (we have a meeting tomorrow for an end of month design development plan set). So now I gotta study and no time to ride. Looks like I may have to restart base training lol! Whatever, I guess such a big career move is worth dropping 20 CTL points.

grolby

Well, I'm pretty sure he was roundly mocked and didn't end up winning the race, so.

miyata man

Say it takes 90 minutes round trip getting to an hour long hammerfest. Tail end of return trip lands you at start of a two hour group ride that is purely 1'-5' intervals. Adding 15' minutes to get home equals four hours. Locally that is a proven way to punch your ticket up to the higher cats. Make good use of the other six days that week and the hours add up.

I get why you questioned a vaguely stated claim that went somewhat counter to what I should be doing. But hey, this is my first rodeo and my license was born yesterday! BF is always going to be full of predictable BF inside jokes inexorably lost in the pile of truly stupid and cleverly trolling. Very base humor underlies it all.

rubiksoval

What you'll come to find out in all of your infinite wisdom, is that trying to do that type of stuff on the regular is a sure-fire way to utterly destroy yourself.

You just got dropped like 4 times in a cat 5 crit. 15-20 hours a week is not what you need because to do 15-20 hours a week will require you to ride very, very slowly. You're not going to be able to handle "riding to the hammerfest and then the group ride and riding home" and all of that jazz on a regular basis. Your body will absolutely shut down. Ask me how I know (and I was already a cat 1 with a couple of 12,000 plus mile years when I tried).

Mike is right. You need to work on what's getting you dropped. Riding around slowly for 15+ hours a week is not that. All the other cat 5s/competitors will love you for trying, though.

TheKillerPenguin

Dig the enthusiasm, but you're going to need race punch before you're going to need to be good 4hrs deep. With respect, you are biting off more than you can chew.

edit: what rubiksoval said.

TheKillerPenguin

We're telling you this out of experience. I spent like 8 years as a perma3 because I did that kind of garbage and raced tired and with crap fitness.

aaronmcd

Ok, riding 15+ hours a week CAN make one "perma-tired". I've done it, I know. I also hit some best all time powers during that time and blasted my way out of cat 4 in like 2 weeks (but that was the spring after, so I should argue the perma tired is a good base and good for practice racing while tired, but not good for results concurrently). But sooner or later one can't get away with perma-tired. I would still argue that one can do 15+ hours without being perma-tired. I'm 100% positive I could do it now, after learning by experience for a few years. But alas, I haven't the time. And it may not be necessary, although I may rethink that claim after Saturday. But still, I don't think there is anything wrong with 4 hour rides as a cat 5. I want to be a cat 5 forever... said no cat 5 ever. Start the big miles early, if you like em. I like em, I don't have time for em that often. And 4 hours really isn't that much. I recall doing the 7 am morning hammerfest, riding across the peninsula to the coast, riding back just in time to join the noon hammerfest. Yeah I was tired, but it was crazy fun to be chasing down attacks and then telling guys I did the morning ride and then a few hours of hills first! Anyway, it's cat 5, the supposedly big miles will help in cat 3 significantly when the entire competition dies at mile 55, and iit's fun. And it doesn't take fitness to escape cat 5 anyway!

TheKillerPenguin

You totally can do 15-20hr weeks without being rekt, but it takes a while to get to that point and a lot of discipline once you're doing it. You don't just decide you're going to start smashing out that sort of volume and expect it to go well, n'ahh sayin? I certainly wouldn't do a 20hr week while racing on the weekends and I have the rest of my life revolving around bikes.

miyata man

You bet it will rip me to pieces. I may have come by that suggestion from numerous sources that saw I could contribute on hard group rides but didn't have 'race fitness'. Hard to fault laughing it off if you don't have any plans to show up in some podunk town 5 hours away Sat. morning. For the parents and those with cellphones that keep them on the clock 24 hours a day those 4 hours are a proven way to make decent gains outside of trainer rides.

No way most people can stack that much workload day in and day out. I got dropped because I am shifting from putting the bike away by mid-July until it's below zero with enough snow on the ground to be fun playing in. By this time of year I'd have been fine in that crit. Admittedly I'm winging most of this with more concern for long term debilitating effects than it might appear here. Hours of riding on ice and snow in heavy layers ingrains a lot of subtle technical schemas that require long rides in the Spring to get away from.

Seeing the back end of a field or two was fully taken into consideration. If you aren't accustomed to seeing that it's as humbling as it is comical. Realizing you look as bad on the bike as everyone else back there but you have all synapses firing orders for the front lines. I expect to spend a lot more time fighting for position and closing gaps far from the sharp end if my racing career continues. Might as well embrace it with a smile before the misery of relentless intervals begin.

miyata man

Ding ding ding. Large part of joining a team who understood this was my lot in life and would let me know when enough was enough.

hack

Yes ... and not having to deal with the reg board exams a second time is the preferred route. As a PG, our exam wasn't as tough as the PE, but still not a fun way to spend 12 hours or so.

mattm

Yup.

It depends a ton on what you did in months (and years) leading up to the big base, as well as how much intensity you do during it.

Wylde06

A little over an hour last night. Easy ride...much needed after the beating on Tuesday night.

mike868y

triggered

Doge

Do you have a coach?