I’m thinking of starting a training program on the road bike over Autumn and Winter, the first phase of which mainly involves weekday rides of 2-3 hours (at various HR levels/cadences) etc. with longer rides at the weekends.

My question is whether I could split the week day rides over my commute without losing too much of the benefit? This will most likely manifest as 45 minute AM and the rest on an extended route home. The alternative is to ride the full session in the afternoon and use AM commute as a recovery (which will probably push AM time to closer to an hour).

I appreciate I will probably lose something in increasing endurance, but I’m not too bad (relatively speaking) in that respect and looking to bring my ‘default speed’ and power/cadence output in line with my endurance.

For info I am generally less fit that the average person, not training for a particular event/discipline have chosen road training due to not wanting to lose the fun from riding off road and for simplicity of longer routes with relative ease.

Sorry for the waffle, ta in advance.

I think you are over-thinking the plan. Any decent commuting will provide enormous increase in fitness, so do not worry about three hour endurance training. Intensity will train for endurance, but not vice versa.

Hammer that ride into work, and take a steady ride home.

Hammer that ride into work, and take a steady ride home.

That’s what I do, sprint from lights, to lights, to a lamppost etc, then a good extended ride home.

Difficult to say not knowing the details of the program. Though if you are just starting out with regular training and are “less fit than the average person” then that’s potentially a lot of hours each week on the bike.

Yeah, that’s what I’ve been doing (although often the other way round) but I feel like the benefits of that have levelled out. I’m at that point where I feel like I’m fit enough for a fast commute but that’s the limit of it.

Need to be very careful not to overtrain if you are commuting every day. Make sure a one or two days a week are easy recovery rides, have at least one day in the week as a rest day, but no reason why a couple of mid week commutes can’t be hard sessions IF the road and traffic conditions allow.

Training in traffic is potentially deadly.

@mrblobby

If necessary I have the option to cut down the bike commuting to as many days as necessary although I can’t do five days in the car, it drives me nuts! Commute is 11.5 miles each way straightlining it.

Without blathering on the plan is basically in three phases; fitter (general baseline I guess you would call it), further (endurance) and faster (power/sprinting etc.) each phase being between 8 and 12 week, nowt fancy.

I’ve had some success recently with nutrition and fitness by following plans to a greater extent than I would naturally, hence the interest in the training plan.

I feel like I’m fit enough for a fast commute but that’s the limit of it.

Time to try a 4th cat road race. That’s what I did.

The time crunched cyclist has a training program specifically for commuters. Endurance rides do not really feature in the commute because it is assumed that rides of up to an hour constitute a commute. You do have to push yourself, however.

Time to try a 4th cat road race.

Oh no no no, you vastly overestimate me, sir!

Any other thought? All contributions appreciated!

Does your commuter have racks/panniers? If it does then load them up and weigh the bike down, it’ll make the ‘normal’ commute much harder and any sprints etc will hurt more.

My commuter is heavy (but comfortable), when I get on the MTB or road bike they feel very fast all of a sudden.

Does your commuter have racks/panniers?

Steel Croix de Fer, no rack fitted currently but I do take a rucksack with shirt, underwear break fast lunch etc, so I am weighed down.

I guess the consensus is that the commute time should be enough to make improvements, think I’m just slightly surprised that six months of doing it hasn’t seen more improvements.

Hopefully if I put a bit more structure into the time on teh bike I’ll see more progress.

don’t over think it, it sounds like you’ll benefit from any training without being too specific from the outset.

work with the terrain you have on your commute.

I tend to TT the 7 miles into work on a morning being fast and consistent. On the way home I extend the route to 10-14 miles taking in all the bumps I can and making a concerted effort on each of them (i.e. threshold), with some sprints thrown in if I’m feeling strong.

are there many people on your commute? someone to chase down always helps.

Sounds like you need some STRAVA in your life! 🙂