Finding the time to get quality miles in when training for an event can be a struggle.
By using your commute though these rides can be so much more than just rides to and from work.
We're going to give you some tips to make the most of your cycling commutes.
On your ride home you're in your kit and out on your bike already so why not extend your
commute to make it more worthwhile. You may need to think a little bit about your nutrition
during the afternoon to make sure you're fueled for the ride but adding some quality
extra miles is a very time efficient way to train. Either on your inbound commute or your
ride home you can include efforts or some hill reps. If you are not following a specific
training plan it's important that you understand how to monitor your training. Using either
a heart rate or power to determine the length and intensity of the efforts that you
factor into your commute. Once you understand intensity and have an idea of the area of
cycling fitness you want to target you can tailor your efforts to suit these.
Tabata is a popular form of high intensity, interval style of training that has been proven through
research to dramatically increase fitness. Incorporating it into your commute will give
you the best bang of your buck fitness returns. To perform this session warm up well for at
least ten minutes and find a quiet stretch of road without any junctions or sharp bends.
If you can find a moderate gradient hill it can help you to keep up the intensity.
Perform the same twenty second sprints with ten second recoveries. If you're not used to this form
of high intensity workout it would be a good idea to start with just three to five reps
and then build up to the full seven to eight reps. Once you've completed this warn down
for the rest of your commute. If you're commute is between thirty and sixty minutes in duration
riding carbohydrate fasted is an excellent way to develop riding economy, enhance your
bodies ability to burn fat as a fuel and facilitate weight maintenance or loss. Don't eat before
setting off on your bike ride but you may have some water or a black tea or coffee.
In your bike bottle you can have a protein drink to sip during the ride. This won't impact
the benefits of the session but will help you to recover quicker from it.
You should ride in zones one to two as with low blood sugar levels you will not be able to sustain
any harder efforts. Make sure you have a good breakfast ready when you get to work as you
will feel very hungry. It's essential that you don't attempt too many high intensity sessions.
Ignore this and you'll reduce your training returns and risk over training.
A good rule of thumb is that a hard day which can be demanding regarding intensity or duration
should always be followed by an easy day. A genuine recovery ride is an excellent use
of a morning commute, especially when you've done a tough ride the evening before.
It will speed up your recovery from a hard or long ride the previous day or give your
legs a gentle reminder of what you expect from them if planning a big ride the next day.
Ride a flat route, keep the bike in the small chain ring and spin super easy.
You should barely feel as if you are applying any pressure on the pedals at all. The entire
ride should be in zone one. So make sure you allow some extra time on your commute if necessary.
The so called sweet-spot zone is a great intensity to train at. It is found at the point between
the upper end of tempo and the lower end of threshold. This translates into upper zone
three and lower zone four. After warming up for ten minutes ride efforts of up to twenty
minutes at this intensity and you'll soon notice the benefit. Using this zone is a great
way to incorporate some focused training into a commute.