Fun & Fitness over 50

I recently downloaded this eBook from roadbikerider.com by David Ertl titled, "Training for Busy Cyclists". This is right up my alley. While I don't particularly consider myself an overly "busy" person, I am frustrated by my limited amount of time that I have to ride.

The premise of this eBook is that especially with limited riding time you have make every ride count. Every ride must have a training objective. While this is no revelation for those of us who have been riding for awhile and are literate and aware of the cycling literature available both in traditional print media and on the web, it does help me to have a "coach" even if that coach communicates somewhat generically to the cycling masses through electronic text.

I also find it useful that David Ertl supplies examples of training regimens depending on how much time you have for each ride. The idea, again pretty standard, is that you workout really hard 2 or 3 times a week followed by days of rest and then, if you can, do an endurance ride of at least 2 hours on the weekend.

You can say I started this on Sunday with an almost exactly 2 hour ride amongst the hills and rollers of south Bethlehem (NY).

Yesterday, after work, I squeezed in a 1 hour hard ride after work and before dinner which pushed my limits.

The plan was this: 10 minute warm-up, 10 minutes of slamming it, 5 minutes rest, 10 min slam, 5 rest, 10 slam, 10 minute cool-down and end. Total, 1 hour.

I was able to ride harder for the 10 minute intervals than I expected. As you may remember, I have recently been riding the 2 miles of Meads Lane up around 85-87% of maximum heart rate and thinking that was pretty hard. I don't know how long that takes but it's not 10 minutes. Yesterday I was hitting around 155 to 166 bpm, 89 to 96% MHR over the 10 minute interval. Harder than I thought I could sustain. It wasn't easy. I was really panting hard and by the third interval almost whining with every breath. It's not at the level where you can't do anymore but you don't want the pain anymore. And I don't mean any bad pain like chest pain or joint pain but leg muscle burn!

I rode "Dunkin' Donut" for this training venture and it's not the best route for it. There are stops, intersections and traffic during each 10 minute segment but it's hard to find straight unbroken stretches of road outside of the state thruway where you can ride uninterrupted for 10 minutes.

Today I was somewhat sore. Not terribly so but enough. The next 1 hour workout in David Ertl's book (you don't have to do them in order) consists of 15 second intervals followed by 15 seconds of rest over a period of 20 minute segments! Sounds like that may be a hard one to do on the road because of the need to frequently check the time. I may do that one in the gym on the stationary.