Bike Ride 29 – Week 2 of the Bicycle Fitness Plan
Well, today starts week two of my fitness plan that will take me until the end of the year. You can read about the plan here. I’m still in the base fitness phase and will be for another five weeks when I accumulate 500 miles of easy cycling. I should reach that 500 mile milestone the week of 6-Oct.
Last week I got in 57.8 miles which is about 12 less than I had planned. I was short because I needed to take a break after riding for two straight days and didn’t want to ride for four straight days. It was a good decision so I’m not too upset about it.
I was up at 5:00 AM again this morning and was riding by about 5:15. It had apparently rained during the night, and probably not long before I came outside, so the roads were wet with an occasional puddle. Overall they weren’t bad. It was dark outside though. We’re in new moon so there was no help from Artemis.
I wondered how I would feel after riding 31 miles on Saturday and I was surprised that I actually felt pretty good. I intentionally took Monday off (due to it being a holiday and to take two days of rest after Saturday) and it looks like it paid off. I actually felt that I had to hold myself back from pushing too hard but I didn’t do too good a job of it.
Whenever I ride I always have problems with my hands becoming numb and/or tingly. I read an article in Bicycling Magazine this weekend that talked about bike how riding can cause prolonged pressure on the ulnar nerve and can cause the “pins and needles” feeling that I’m experiencing. The article said to try and change your hand position often (which I do) and to try and build up some strength in the wrists. A couple of exercises were provided that I’m going to have to try out.
I saw several runners this morning..even a couple that were obviously out before I was just based on where they were. More power to them. In the coming weeks, I may have to start earlier too. My wife is going in for surgery next week and I’ll be playing Mr. Mom for a while. That means I’ll take over getting the kids ready for school in the mornings and stuff like that. That means I need to be back home from my morning ride no later than around 5:50 so that I can get their breakfast cooked. It’ll be a challenge but I’m not worried.
Anyway, that’s about it for today. I road my 13 miles in 55 minutes today.
Read MoreBike Ride 27 – Cycling through the pain
It’s 5:00 AM again and the alarm is blaring. I probably should have went to bed earlier last night. Whatever. I resist the temptation to hit the snooze button (actually, I accidentally hit the off button instead of snooze) and crawled out of bed. I was out the door quick this morning.
Once outside I immediately noticed the humidity. There was a little fog as well. The streets were wet in spots from a thunderstorm last night. The moon was low in the east (barely above the treeline) and looked like a fingernail. Pretty cool. See the kind of stuff you miss when you sleep in? I reset my bike computer, crawled on the Cannondale, and rolled out of the driveway.
To say that I was uncomfortable would be an understatement. I could tell I had had way too much time off the bike because I was really feeling yesterday’s ride. Especially in my rear. That could be because of one of two reasons. First, it was unaccustomed to this abuse after the layoff, and second, it could be because of the shorts I was wearing. I had on a cheap pair of Nashbar shorts that don’t have very good padding. I really need to throw them out. I’m not saying all of Nashbar’s stuff is bad because my favorite set of bibs are Nashbar brand and they’re great. You just have to be careful with the chamois insert. The shorts I wore today are nothing more than some padding sewn into the crotch of the shorts. My bibs use the Trico Sports gel chamois which is much better. I know there’s better stuff out there but I can’t afford dropping a ton of cash on bibs. I’m making due with what I have.
Anyway, as I rode I was able to work out some of the kinks but the thing that really started to bother me was my triceps. They were pretty sore about half-way through.
As I pulled up to the intersection near my house, it was nice to see the school bus on my right (in the lane going straight), and the truck behind me (in the left turn lane with me), stay several feet behind me to give me room. I appreciated that. I’m always uncomfortable at this intersection and they made it easier for me today.
That’s about it. A nice simple ride of 13 miles in 58:30. Again, nothing hard while I’m re-acclimatizing to riding.
I saw no other cyclists today and only a couple of runners.
2008 Bicycle Riding Goal
As a followup to my post last week on Setting Goals, I thought it was time that I established my 2008 goal. I know, it’s already August but I failed to set proper goals back when I started and I thought I should go ahead and do it now. I started in April and rode between April and June. During that time period I managed to ride 300 miles. I felt better physically and my clothes were fitting better every week. Once July rolled around my riding came to an abrupt stop due to a couple of injuries that have kept me off the bike for more than a month. The progress I had made from April to June was good considering I was just basically out riding with no set purpose but with the time off the bike recently I have basically destroyed the fitness and gains that I had made. Because of that, I’m going to start my 2008 over again here in August and use the rest of the year to get myself ready for 2009.
When I attended Officer Candidate School back in 1996, the Drill Instructors had us on a rigorous training plan that was very well planned out. By doing that, they knew what days were long distance running days, which ones were sprint days, and so on. At the end of the 13-week school I had lost over 30 pounds and reduced my 1.5 mile run time by over 3 minutes. If it worked for me running (which I can’t do anymore due to ankle problems) why won’t it work for cycling? Because of that, I believe that I would benefit from following a regimented bicycle training program to help me build my fitness and lose weight. So, for the past week I’ve been developing a schedule to improve my cycling fitness. I knew several things going in:
- I knew what I was capable of riding per week based on my bike riding earlier in the year.
- I knew what my normal weekday mileage was for my morning bicycle ride.
- I knew I was basically starting over again and needed to build my fitness base back up.
Armed with this information, I designed a small spreadsheet that displays some mileage totals based on the number of weekdays I ride and how far I ride on Saturday. Sunday will always be a rest day. The result is this table.
The number of weekdays I ride (3, 4 or 5) are in the first column, the second column is the distance of my morning ride (13 miles), and the remaining four columns are what my weekly mileage would be if I did a 30, 40, 50, or 60 mile Saturday ride. For example, if I ride my bike 3 weekdays, plus 40 miles on Saturday, my mileage for that week would be 79 miles. The color coding will make sense in a minute.
The next thing I did was determine how many weeks were left in the year (18 full weeks) and determine on what days I would ride my bike and how far. I again went to Excel and developed the table below:
The weeks until the end of the year are listed in the first column with the total mileage for that week in the third column. The next seven columns are the days of the week and how far I will ride on each day for the given week. The days I ride are easily adjusted due to inclement weather, lack of sleep, etc. The key, for me, is getting the required mileage in each week. You’ll see in the weekly mileage column (column 3), that I started at 69 miles for my starting mileage for the week of 25-Aug. I knew going in that I’m capable of doing that so it’s a good starting point. You’ll notice that the 69 cell is shaded a light blue. That corresponds to the light blue shaded 69 in the top table. This means I’m supposed to ride my bicycle on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (three weekdays) at 13 miles in the morning and ride 30 miles on Saturday for a weekly total of 69 miles.
When determining how much I would ride each week, I tried to follow the rule of not increasing my mileage more than 10%-12% each week. In my plan I decided to do that for each three-week period and for the most part I did. The only thing that bothers me is the Saturday miles. I’m not going to have a problem riding 30 or 40 miles but getting up to 50 and 60 miles on Saturday, with only short 13 mile rides on the weekdays has me a little concerned. I’m hoping my plan to be in each “phase” for three weeks will help with that.
Finally, you’ll see that there’s a red line after the week of 6-Oct. That line splits my base fitness and interval training phases as seen in the last column. Cycling Performance Tips says that you should have a solid aerobic base of 500 miles of steady pedaling before adding intervals to a cycling training plan so as to prevent injury. Even though I have already ridden 300 miles earlier in the year I decided to follow this rule in my new program. Why? Because, let’s face it, I’m overweight and not ready for intervals yet. After finishing the week of 6-Oct I will have accumulated 526 miles of base fitness. As I get closer to the interval phase I’ll make another post on my plan for the intervals.
If I follow my plan as it’s set, I’ll ride 1,608 miles between today and 26-Dec. This should get me in good shape, help me lose some weight, help me get into some of my smaller clothes, and prepare me for some hard training in early 2009 so I can do some local rides or charity events.
Well, that’s it. I started the plan this morning with my 13-mile ride on Bike Ride 26. I’m in no way a trainer, or accomplished cyclist, so I’d like to hear your opinions and/or recommendations.
Read MoreBike Ride 26 – New Bicycle Route & Fitness Program
Today is the day I started my new bicycling fitness plan. I haven’t posted my plan yet because I’m still writing that article. Needless to say, I took inspiration from my own goals article and developed a cycling plan that will help me accomplish 1,600 miles of bike riding before the end of 2008. But that’s another post.
Today was day 1 and it started at 5:00 AM as all my weekday rides do. I was up, dressed, and outside pretty quick this morning. I was motivated to start my new plan. The temp was fine this morning but it was a tad humid. The sky was very clear with just a sliver of moon in the East. Just to the right of the moon was the constellation Orion. Unmistakable when you know what to look for. I got off at about 5:15.
I noticed in the first mile or so that I felt really uncomfortable. I think I’m still trying to acclimatize to being back on the bike after my 1.5 month layoff. My hands felt very uncomfortable and soon my shoulders were a little sore. I felt better about three-quarters of the way through the ride (about 9 miles) which was good. It should only get better from here on out.
My overall ride was just fine. Because I’m basically starting over again, I intentionally didn’t push it at all. I wanted to say in Zone 1/2 (I’ll be talking about training zones in a future article) so I intentionally kept my pace no higher than 14 mph. This made for a pretty easy ride that wasn’t taxing on my endurance. It was basically a break-in ride. Keeping my pace this slow is very, very hard for me. I’m the type of person that feels like they have to push it hard on every ride. I’m starting to learn that that’s not the case.
I did change my route a little this morning. Normally I head out to a certain point and basically do a u-turn and head back home. On one of my previous rides I realized there may be a way for me to loop around at my turnaround point when I saw a rider who was behind me magically appear in front of me about five minutes later. The key was that he took a different route where I made the u-turn. So, this morning I decided to find that loop. I knew where the entrance was and thought I knew where the exit was and I was right. The new loop area is actually quite nice and has a bike lane too. So, it looks like I’ve made a new route for my morning rides. The only disadvantage to this route is that it cuts about four-tenths of a mile off my 13 mile route. To compensate I just took the long way around my neighborhood to my house. No problem. Here’s a map of my new route:
I saw one other rider this morning who I’ve seen before. He was walking his bike from a side road. I called out asking if he needed any help and got no response. I waived and he waived back. I’m guessing he was ok. I also saw a couple of runners I had never seen before and also saw a guy walking his two ankle biters. It was also nice to see that the bike lanes were, for the most part, clear of debris from Tropical Storm Fay.
This was a good bicycle ride and a great start to my new fitness program. Mileage was 13.06 in 59 minutes. Told you I didn’t push it.
Setting Goals for Improved Bicycle Riding
Do you know where you’re going with your bicycle riding? Do you know what your current mileage is and how much you’re planning to ride this year? Do you have a target weight? How do you plan each bike ride you do? Do you roll out of the driveway knowing what the plan is for that ride or do you decide when your tires hit the pavement? Are you planning on riding in an upcoming charity event or race? If so, what’s your finish expectations? In short, do you have a goal, or goals, to accomplish what you want to do on your bicycle? If not, you dramatically increase your chances of failing or not performing as well as you wanted to.
Why do we have goals?
We set goals in order to achieve something important. Goals are our recognition of a problem, or opportunity, and serve as a target for us to focus on. Without goals we risk wandering aimlessly in our bicycle riding. Setting goals requires that we establish our baseline and determine where we want to be in the future. Setting goals puts the proverbial carrot out in front and keeps us moving towards the completion of that goal.
A goal properly set is halfway reached.
-Abraham Lincoln
Defining your goals
There are several factors that must be taken into account when you want to define your goals.
- Where are you now? You have to have a starting point which means you need to make an assessment of your current situation. If you’re looking to lose weight you need your current weight. If you’re looking to improve your health see your doctor and get a complete checkup. If you’re looking to improve your riding record your most recent workout data to set as a baseline. Only by knowing where you are now can you plot a course to get where you want to be.
- Where do you want to be? Do you know where you want to be with your bicycle riding, weight, or overall fitness? If you don’t, you need to figure it out. Do you want to ride a certain number of miles per week, month, or year? Do you want to drop a specific number of minutes off your weekday loop or commute time? Do you have a target weight you want to be at? Do you need to drop your cholesterol, blood pressure, or resting heart rate? Do you want to complete your first century ride or compete in a race next year? These are the types of questions you need to answer before you can figure out where you want to be.
- How do you measure your progress? In order to determine if your bike rides are doing you any good you have to determine how you’re going to measure your progress towards your goals. Setting a goal and not measuring your progress leaves you wondering if you’ll ever achieve the results you wanted. So, how do you measure your progress? Some are:
- Going to your doctor and getting your blood work checked periodically.
- Measure and record your resting heart rate when you wake up each morning.
- Use a bicycle computer to track your ride statistics (mileage, average speed, heart rate, etc.)
- Weigh yourself periodically.
- Are you able to keep pace on the group ride?
These are just a few ideas and I’m sure you can think of others.
- How do you get to your goal? This is where the rubber meets the road. Literally. If you want to improve your bike riding, fitness, or health, you have to define, specifically, the action required to get there. For example, if you want to put in 5000 training miles this year you need to determine the number of miles you need to ride per month and per week. In this example, you’ll need to put in approximately 417 miles per month or 104 miles per week to achieve that goal. You’ll need to measure your progress periodically to ensure your on track to meet that 2000 training miles goal. If you find yourself trailing behind you’ll need to re-adjust your plan (increase the daily/monthly mileage) to achieve your goal.
SMART Goals
SMART is a common method used to help in defining goals. SMART stands for:
- Specific
- Measureable
- Action-Oriented
- Realistic (yet challenging)
- Time-defined
- Specific and Measureable. Your goals must be specific and you must have a way to measure them. If you simply say to yourself, “I’m going to ride my bike more this year” what do you think the chances of you actually following through on that are? How would you know if you were riding more than last year? It would be better to write your goal as, “Increase my training mileage this year by 30 miles per week.”
- Action-Oriented. How are you going to increase your mileage by 30 miles per week? Expand your goal by defining exactly how your going to do it. How about, “I will increase my training mileage this year by 30 miles per week by commuting to work one more day per week”, or, “by increasing my Saturday training ride to 50 miles”, or, “by participating in the Monday night group ride at the local bike shop.” Writing your goal this way reminds you exactly how you were going to achieve it.
- Realistic and Time Defined. You’ve got to look at your goal and make sure that it’s both realistic and can be achieved in the time you allot for yourself. If you’ve only been putting in 500 training miles per year how realistic do you think it is to set a goal to ride 5000 training miles the next year? Not very. You have to make an honest assessment of your abilities and use that to help set your goal. Additionally, you’ll need to propose a realistic time scale to accomplish the goal. If you’re looking to lose fifty pounds and give yourself twelve weeks to do it you’re setting yourself up to fail. Healthy weight-loss is 1 to 2 pounds per week which means a fifty pound loss should take, at a minimum, 25 weeks to accomplish.
Write your goals down
Can you remember everything without writing it down? I know I can’t. That’s one reason to write your goals down. Another is that writing your biking goals down allows you to refer to them often as a motivational tool to keep moving towards that goal. Another is that being able to refer to your written goals allows you to make modifications if necessary. You can’t make modifications if you can’t remember what you were trying to achieve. Written goals help hold you accountable as well. Put your goals on the mirror so you see them every morning when you get up. Share your goals with your spouse, friend, or riding buddy. If you’re comfortable doing it, you can blog about your goals as well. Sharing your goals lets others know what’s important to you and perhaps they can help you achieve them. Who knows, maybe they have goals of their own that you can help them with.
CONNECT WITH BTL
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
