The NON time crunched cyclist thread

That’s what I’m thinking id like to add is at least one long z2 ride per week. I race xc mountain bike. My races this year will be about an hour and a half long.

I am time crunched but still manage to get in moderately high volume when I need to. I do so my adding 3-4 one hour rides at 40-50% ftp. I found this allowed me to still manage with hard workouts (both bike and run) on the same days.

Typically I’d do these types of rides early in the morning. Sometimes fasted other times after breakfast.

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This is what a usual week for me is more or less at the moment. I am doing basically a traditional base/build type of plan high volume. I split long workouts if I really have to but try not to do that.
In January I’ll transition into a more VO2 type of stuff with maybe 1 SST or Tempo ride.
Mon, Wed ,Fri, Sun is stretching for 30 min + 1,5hr yoga on Wednesdays

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If the goal is being a better cyclist and you’re on a LV plan then the priority has to be figuring out how to spend more time on the bike. Which would include:

  • Cutting back on the strength training, or at least reduce the amount of leg lifting you’re doing to leave your legs fresher for the bike
  • Supplement your plan with Z2 riding. You could also try gradually working your way up to the MV plan e.g. by substituting a workout from the LV plan with the longer equivalent from the MV plan
  • Sleep! If I could get 8 hours a night and a 40 minute siesta I could handle a lot more volume
  • Make sure your healthy meals have plenty of carbs to fuel the training
  • Yoga or pilates are good for maintenance, injury prevention and recovery
  • Foam rolling, massage sticks, etc can also help with the recovery
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I have all the time in the world atm to spend it on training but have a hard time handling anything more than mid volume.

I was curious what you guys think about splitting the endurance work into 2 workout throughout the day. 1 in the morning 1 in the evening. II have tried it in the past and handeled it really well.

I guess I would qualify myself as pseudo non time crunched. I work from home so I’ve got time to ride during the week. I think 9-11hrs/week is the best I can do without digging too much into my work time, and on weekends I ride in the morning while my wife is still in bed and our son is old enough to just hang out on his own watching tv while I ride. I do sweet spot but would be curious about putting in mega hours of endurance over the winter.

i’d make your endurance rides longer. If you added some endurance riding to make 1 midweek ride 3 hours and have two weekend rides 4 hours +, you’d get amazing aerobic adaptations and then can use the other hours to recover with foam rolling, stretching, and yoga!

Also, core core core core.

Good luck!

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Full time job, three kids, wife seems happy (well, she works strange shifts in a hospital).

Despite this:

grafik

however, I don’t have any other hobbies. Actually, I’m not interested in anything else. Being super flexible and willing to leave the comfort zone is key. And the special circumstances of my job (virtual office, project driven). And I’m not interested in a corporate career. Wife has a good job, I have a good job. No need to climb the ladder.


Two-a-days is a great way to build slowly volume. Runners do this all the time, otherwise they couldn’t handle the volume.
But I consider it even extremely helpful for more experienced athletes.

Apart from this, if you have the time but can’t handle the volume: slow down. really slow down. do long rides in zone 1/2. And build from this.

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Jealous lol. When the kids were in MS/HS, doing 8-11 hours a week resulted in an unhappy wife and her calling my bike “your girlfriend.” Now that she is working a demanding full-time job again, and the kids are gone, I can do 8-11 hours/week. But beyond that I cannot keep up with my job (telecommute from home, no mgmt responsibilities) and keeping up the house. With the kids gone I could probably squeeze in a few 12-14 hour weeks.

From November to May, I’m not very time crunched. I work a swing shift (4-12:30) and usually get up fairly early still; 8am.
My week usually looks like this:
Monday: 2-3 hours in the gym doing leg, core, explosiveness
Tuesday: 2 hours muscle building low cadence intervals at SS
Wednesday: 2-3 hours in the gym. Same as Monday. 90 mins z2
Thursday: Yoga
Friday: 2-3 hours in the gym. Same as Monday. 2 hours z2
Saturday: 3 hours muscle buidling intervals, low cadence
Sunday 2-3 hours z2
Rides are all on the trainer. Once the weather gets a bit nicer, weekend rides will consist of a spirited group ride of 4-5 hours.

My wife leaves the house at 6:15am and returns 12h later. When it is a short day. Typical man, I have a more pragmatic approach with the kids :slight_smile:

Today was one of the days where flexibility was key. All my work appointments were scattered across the day.

4:45am get up, coffee, start working immediately

6-7am: long breakfast with kids, making them ready for school/kindergarten

7-10:45am: work

10:45-12:15am: 90min tempo/VO2max session (Gimenez)

12:15 - 13:30: cook lunch for kids (here they start early and don’t have school in the afternoon), have lunch with kids; lunch was special for me because my second sesstion today should be low: steak only for me

13:30-16:00h: work

16-18h: 2h “low glycogen training” with 90min at tempo
grafik

Breakfast/lunch/dinner is vital for my family. And I feel really privilleged to see my kids so much. Therefore, my attempts to do intermittent fasting and these things backfired for social reasons as well. Having lunch with your kids and not eating is no fun.

However, keeping flexible allows me to do this high volume. Not a single day is the same, work, family set the frame. I have to to fit in my training. Tomorrow I will do a 2.5h trail run and 90min easy spin in the basement in the afternoon.
18-19h: family dinner (wife is back and will bring them to bed afterwards)

19-21h: work

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mines starts with something like
5:15am: let the cat out and prepare coffee

and ends with
6:30-7:00pm get off trainer and make dinner

in between I’d love to have a no-noise cycling desk to rack up hours - a lot of vo2 adaptations are possible from a little breathing elevation and easy muscle contractions. With such a desk I figure its possible to get 4-5 hours/day. I’ve explored the cycling desk concept a bit, but haven’t been able to implement it unless I move my home office to the one-car garage.

Only had one race a month ago. Can’t compare it to previous years as the weather conditions were so brutal. So I don’t know if those positive indications from training translated to improved race performance.

Just overall feel. This is a pretty good indicator.

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Gotcha. I’ve basically stayed on what I had planned for this year since I was already pretty far in, but I think next year I will probably loosen my structure up a little and do something along the lines of what you did this year. Which to be honest isn’t a big departure from what I am doing now. Really having a little more day to day flexibility and judgement on what to ride versus hard rest weeks probably the only real change.

Curious how you went with Gimenez workouts? Did you do a progression or just sprinkle them in?

I don’ really qualify as pro/elite, I shouldn’t be a topic in this thread. Briefly, haven’t really done any Gimenez this season. With lockdown did plenty of grey zone/happy hard/tempo endurance rides. We could go out here. Gimenez did not really fit in there. Later, when “icing the cake” for my race I did too much intense stuff, G would not fit in again. And now, prepping for two races I’m into a threshold block. Once again, G does not fit in.

You are right, getting on a bit of diversion. @mcneese.chad can you move these last couple posts to the NON time crunched cyclist thread?

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I will be one of the non time crunched cyclists for a while now. I have been training for three weeks since I had a two weeks off the bike, including having a cold for a week. Right now I am just trying to get back into riding so I do a lot of junk at the moment. I have moved back to the high mountains so I am adjusting to the altitude and environment.
My plan is to do base training all of December, at least. I prefer 4-5 hours outdoors steady in zone 2. Where I live now it’s not so easy: the roads are few and it’s so hilly. So my question is how should I ride my long endurance rides? Tempo up the mountains? I have a smart trainer so I will try to do longer steady zone 2 rides if I can handle it mentally.

kids can help take away that free time

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Helpful :+1: