A Primer on Recovering as an Athlete
This year I’m way faster on the bike that I was last year. I’m not talking a few seconds, I’m talking minutes faster with lower effort on the same hills. Here’s the funnier part, I’m training with less focus this year than I was last year. I’m mainly just riding my bike for fun. I…
Beginning Cyclist Training – Training to Train
If I could do one thing when I meet a new cyclist, it would be to impress upon them the need to rest when training. In fact a new cyclist needs to rest much more than an experienced cyclist. Their body has not even learned how to train yet. Your first year (maybe 2) of…
Again, Take a Break or Burnout
Certainly not the first time I’ve mentioned the need to take a break and risking burnout but here is another note. I once knew a pro triathlete who I came to coach who decided to skip recovery weeks and press on regardless of how tired he was. He was never the same again. Overtraining took…
June Monthly Goal 2011 Edition
For the month of May I set a goal of 1000km of riding in the month. This month I’ve decided to up the ante a bit by going for 1000km and 10,000m of climbing. I managed to get 6700m of climbing last month. So it will be a bit of work. The reality is that…
RunKeeper Review
If you’re training with any amount of seriousness you start tracking the distance, time, heart rate and anything else that you can. For a while now I’ve used RunKeeper to do all my tracking and workout comparison so let’s take a look. The Good RunKeeper starts off with a great design and lots of information.…
Train Where You’re Weak
We all have areas in our sport that make us cry (well at least parts we don’t look forward too) like hills, headwinds, group rides…and part of progressing as a rider is learning to love the things we hate. Typically the things we don’t like are also the things we’re not all that good at.…
Getting and Staying Hydrated
Inspired by this thread I figured I’d share a trick I use to drink water regularly. Like many people today I have a job that doesn’t really demand much of my physically. I sit at my desk all day and type or click a mouse and that’s about the extent of my physical activity during…
Motivation It’s Dang Hard
So I’ve got something to admit, I’ve barely got on my bike in the last two weeks. Sure one week I was sick and swamped at work so I just took it off but that was two weeks ago (Hrm I guess its been 3 weeks). I could blame the snow locally (we have had a…
5 Minute Splits – Cycling Interval Workout
5 Minute splits are a pretty standard interval and can easily be fit into an hour long workout. they should get progressively harder and your 8 out of 10 effort should yield diminishing speed the farther into the workout you get. Warm up for 10 minutes Jump to 8 out of 10 effort for 5…
Best Resources for Cycling Training Information
Since I’ve been reading lots about training lately in prep for possibly racing in the 2011 season I figured I’d round-up the list of resources I’m looking at for the latest information on training. I have a preference for sites that are using actual scientific research when commenting on training. VeloNews VeloNews is not only…
