Pathetically slow? How long to improve?

So I'm 40+ years old, riding a Specialized Ruby Elite (2010) & wearing sidi shoes w/look easy clips. I weigh 135 and am 5'4. Today on a 38 mile ride (which I've done at least 3 times) I average about 12 miles an hour. How long does it take to get faster??? At this rate it would take 8+ hours to do a century (even if I could last that long it just seems ridiculous).

I would like to cycle w/my husband but I know there's no way he's going to have patience for me. Is it just a matter of it taking time for training to work. I'm happy with my progress since July but not thrilled w/my pokiness. :o Am contemplating a professional fitting. It is demoralizing seeing all these guys flying by. Even huge fat guys pass me on the trail. :(

And for the record I've been doing some interval days 1-2x a week. My legs look/feel slightly better/firmer & my butt is slightly higher & obviously my endurance is ok but the lack of speed is just sad.

Thanks for any advice!

It's been a long time since I "trained" on the bici, but I think the principles are pretty much the same regardless of the sport...

I keep reading that to get the greatest benefit from intervals, you need to tailor the intensity and duration to your fitness level. Now, I'm pretty lackadaisical about my own interval workouts, but try doing some of the workouts you read about in the magazines and see if that helps you any.

Besides intervals, there are four other key components to your fitness program: tempo, skills, distance, and rest/recovery. For your tempo days, pick the pace you'd like to ride, and ride at that pace or just a little quicker, for a short ride - whatever that means to you, 5, 10, 20 miles, however long you can maintain the pace.

Skills - smooth pedal stroke, hill climbing, cornering, descending.

Distance - where you push the distance at an easy pace, just to get your body used to time in the saddle.

Recovery - at 40, you're getting to the age where you MAY need more than one recovery day a week. Try taking two (non-consecutive) days off and see if it helps. Cross-training days are NOT recovery days; you can do some stretching, walking, short easy riding, etc., but nothing intense.

Then there's nutrition ... a whole 'nother topic.



ETA ... 12 mph is a GOOD speed for the trail. Save anything faster for the road. /PSA

I don't have a ton of experience in this area but I'd say just keep doing what you're doing! I do the same as you - 1-2 sessions of intervals a week on the trainer (I'm afraid to do sprints near cars), plus once a week I'll do a speed ride where I go a shorter distance than usual, but push myself just a little harder than I normally would. I've been seeing a gradual increase in speed with this method. When I got my road bike in mid-August I was averaging between 12-13mph, and now I'm closing in on 16! So stick with it! Keep your confidence up and don't give up! And don't feel bad about big guys passing you. Just tell yourself that you'll be the one passing them eventually. I actually had a pretty embarassing moment the other day - I passed a big strong looking man on a long climb. I was so proud of myself, then he just whizzed by me on the descent! I was kind of expecting it (I think the big guys have more momentum and can descend much faster) so I just had to laugh at myself.

Also I'd say yes to the fitting. It's totally worth it. It will maximize your efficiency as well as overall comfort.

Happy training :)

I'm that slow too! It's frustrating only b/c I'd like to get more miles under my belt in the time I have to ride! Will be watching your thread

ETA doesn't help that I have a decent amount of hills and am a wimp about going down them! I need to work on the skills!!!

Just to clarify by trail I mean a paved bike path, the W&OD trail in D.C./Northern VA. I really only spend a small fraction of my ride on the actual road because DH thinks riding on roads without shoulders is too dangerous.

Is there a difference between a paved bike trail and road in terms of ride speed?

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Originally Posted by Seal

Is there a difference between a paved bike trail and road in terms of ride speed?

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IMO the trail is slower because you need to be careful of the other people using it.

Hello Seal!

Like you, I am trying to improve my times. I ride rough gravel and average about 10 hph. On paved roads, I average about 13 mph.

That is based upon 30 miles at a time.

Maybe it helps to know that you are not alone.

Best of luck to you!

There really is a difference. First, paved roads are usually better maintained, so it is safer and easier to ride faster (less potholes, cracks, debris to avoid). Second, roads are designed for faster traffic than paved trails.

Is the trail a multi-use trail, or is it intended JUST for bicycles? If it's multi-use, the picture changes significantly. If so, find out what the trail speed limits are; they may be much slower even than your "slow" pace! Why? To help protect the other users of the facility, which may include children, senior citizens, pets, etc etc.

I just took a very good class on bicycling on the road. Most urban areas have groups that sponsor such a thing - may I suggest you and your husband seek one out and take it together?

You aren't the only one :) I am quite slow myself, averaging between 12-13 mph if there are hills - though I have seen my average get close to 15 without hills or much in the way of wind. Granted, my bike isn't the fastest bike out there, but I learned to ride only 10 months ago.

Since I am in the same place as you are I can't add anything constructive, just letting you know that you aren't alone with this.

I started cycling at 46. I was quite slow. The first year I rode with a club, I was almost always the last rider or at least in the last five to get it. I just decided to keep with it and ride a lot. (That year I rode 6000 miles, and since then its been about 4500 per year.) It is now about 5 years later and I can finally really keep up with DH. After about year two, we could ride together without him being really grumpy at my plodding, but this year I felt I could hang on when he tried a break away.

My advice: Just ride a lot. Find others who are about your speed and train together if you can. Also, ride with some folks who are just a tad better than you are, as they will push you.

Have fun too!

Cheers,
Hirakukibou

First of all, I am a total advocate of getting a bike fit. It won't necessarily make you faster (but could). However, as you up your intensity, you want a well-fitted bike so that you don't cause injuries.

Training:

With some hard work and dedication, you will get faster. I started riding a few years ago and was slooooow. For a while (a couple of seasons), I just worked on my endurance, steadily building up my mileage. As a newbie rider, I also saw a big jump in my speed as I did this because I was seeing big fitness gains.

By the end of my 2nd year riding, I was hanging with the big boys on club rides (but not contributing much to the pace-setting) and decided that I wanted to get into racing.

Fast-forward to year three: racing and training regularly. HUGE gains in speed. My training plan involves 2-3 days/week of intervals, one long endurance ride, and some easy recovery rides. Intervals, done right, will hurt, and will leave you totally shattered. They are also tough mentally, because during the workout, you have to train your mind to let you push through the pain to finish the effort. So, it is imperative to take at least a day off after a hard workout, ride easy or don't ride at all.

What kinds of intervals?

A lot of people swear by 2x20s. I did a lot of these in the spring. To do these, ride as hard as you can for 20min. The last 5min will be excruciating, and when you are done, your legs won't really want to turn. But ride easy for 10min or so, get your heart-rate down, spin out your legs, and you should be good to go for another 20min (make sure that you go just as fast in the 2nd 20min as you did in the first!). These are often referred to as "threshold intervals" because if you can maintain the effort for 20min you are pretty much training at your lactic threshold. The other thing to keep in mind with these is to try to keep the effort steady. Don't go out so hard that you cannot maintain the effort, and blow up before 20min, or slow down during the effort.

You also want to train above your lactic threshold. This involves shorter intervals at a higher intensity. 3x3min/3x2min. Again, these are the hardest efforts you can maintain for the allotted time. Recover fully between intervals and repeat. These can be done on flat roads, if you can find a stretch that allows for this type of effort, or on a hill. These intervals will increase your VO2 max (oxygen consumption).

I structure my training into "blocks" which means for about a month or so, I will do only threshold work. It can get boring, but it really targets a particular system and allows you to see gains. Then transition into VO2 max work. Over the course of your training block, you should see that it gets easier to do the interval at a given speed because your body will adapt to the effort and get stronger - it is a great feeling, but also means that you have to up your intensity to continue to see gains! The last day of your training block should feel as hard as the first one, you will just be going faster!

Which part of the trail are you riding? You will never have a high average speed on the eastern half because there are too many intersections. West of Herndon it's possible to ride faster for longer periods, but I still never average more than 14-15 mph. But then I don't average more than that on the roads, either, because that's just how I ride.

Seal, I am in a similar kind of position you are in. I just started riding a bike recently. One difference is that I am younger than you. But i struggle with the speed and skills and endurance nonetheless. I've never done anything so purely endurance based. I think that the advice you are receiving is really good. One thing I would say is that the type of training chicagogal is talking about is a lot easier if you have a heartrate monitor (and even better if you have a bike computer, too).

One thing i just started using... since my bf already had it is something called PCCoach. I thinks its about $70? It takes into consideration your age, max heart rate, goals, level of activity, bicycling experience, and some other things to make a training program for you. You can choose your long ride days and rest days as well. It then starts you out SUPER EASY and builds your endurance and strength and speed from there.

For example, This week I have short rides of 50 min and "longer" rides of 1hr 5 minutes at a certain heart rate. I also have 35 min of crosstraining at a certain heart rate. In the next couple of weeks I will start to add intervals, time, and whatnot. However, the intervals don't start at 20 min... or even 3 min, they start at like.... 1 minute. depending on the type of interval training i'm doing.

It also has days where you do muscle tension intervals up hills, standing start intervals, and low-rpm intervals that build leg strength but not really leg speed. So you can push harder gears.

These plan all depends on what you answer on the first questions and what your goal is. Since i'm such a newbie, My stuff is really easy and short right now. My bf's starting week is more like what my workout will be in a month.

Its hard to explain the plans since they make sense in the entire scope of the specific plan, i guess.

I don't know if anyone else uses this program or what they think about it. But I just like being told what I'm going to do, and not trying to figure out what I'm going to do on my own.

Good luck on figuring out what works for you! I think it just takes time to build that speed and endurance.

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Originally Posted by m.eliza

IMO the trail is slower because you need to be careful of the other people using it.

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You need to be careful of other users on the road, too. ;)

Average speed depends on many factors. Some of the slowest rides I've done have been on-road, because they were in urban areas with frequent intersections.

The trail in question here is 45 miles long, from Arlington, VA (just over the river from DC and heavily populated) out to Purcelleville, VA (less crowded suburbs/exurbs). Some parts are crowded with other cyclists, joggers, dog walkers, etc. while others are pretty empty.

You call 10, 12, and 13 mph slow ?? :confused:
PFFFT!!! You guys are a bunch of amateurs!!

My average over the past several years is a proud 9mph. I rock!
Come back and complain when you're really and truly slow. ;)

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Originally Posted by BleeckerSt_Girl

You call 10, 12, and 13 mph slow ?? :confused:
PFFFT!!! You guys are a bunch of amateurs!!

My average over the past several years is a proud 9mph. I rock!
Come back and complain when you're really and truly slow. ;)

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Yeah, I'm generally not bothered when people pass me. That's just life. There will always be someone faster.

Well I hadn't thought about the other users slowing us down. That is a factor to an extent. We ride West to East starting on the outskirts of Purcellville through Purcellville which is usually a mob scene and onward to Ashburn. We have to stop for a lot of traffic crossings. Leesburg can also be mobbed.

My aerobic fitness is not amazing. I did a couch to 5k several times on the treadmill last spring but got sidetracked w/achilles problems whenever I tried to go outside on pavement or hills or did any speedwork. And we are talking a very slow couch to 5K like average running speed about 4 miles per hour. I also worked my way up to riding 30 miles on the indoor bike at the gym over last winter but that was taking 2 hours. I've ridden bikes since I was a kid but the bike prior to this sat in the garage for 8 years before I dragged it out and almost instantly decided I needed a new one. I have only been riding in earnest since July adding a few miles a week to the long ride. First was on my sucky hybrid and now on my lovely Ruby.

I essentially walked in and took the Ruby off the shelf after trying a billion different bikes and not finding anything that worked w/my short torso and longish legs except that bike. They offered to send me to a fitter who works with triathletes but they didn't offer a professional fitting at the shop and I got the feeling it would be extra.

My core isn't horrible. I did private pilates last year 1-2x a week. I'm now doing the pilates on my own and doing fewer exercises but doing the main core ones more frequently. I also take two horseback riding lessons a week. The biking started as a way to just improve conditioning/leg strength and thigh tone for riding the horse. Occasionally I get to the gym for some inner and outer thigh machine and leg press but I prefer to be outside if at all possible.

My fitness goals were to have stronger quads and actually be ready for ski season for the first time in my life and to not feel like I was having a heart attack when biking with my 30 year old friend who actually has asthma but who also usually somehow manages to kick my ***.

So what I'm hearing is maybe I need to figure on it taking years to make a very pronounced dent in the VO2 max and that its a cumulative effect. I had sorta hoped it would be a fast learning curve but will just keep plugging away and will probably give the bike fitting a try too. Also those 2X20 intervals sound very doable for lunchtime rides while teleworking which as the sun goes down earlier and earlier will be about all I can get in during the week. I had been doing all out sprints for 30 seconds at a time with a few minutes of recovery in between. the 2X20s sound like a different beast.

Are you doing any group riding? Intervals are great, but riding with people faster than you will also help with speed. I spent all summer riding with kids (literally, interns and the 17 year old son of a friend) and trying to keep up with them made me a lot faster! Like 4 miles an hour faster. Find a group of people, 2-3, that you can ride with who will truly push you (and be there to pick you up!) And ride with them if your DH won't. I push my DH, as his pride won't let him be beat by a girl! I do intervals as well, and really focus on form as well as speed/heart rate, but when alone, we can slack - not when with other people! It helped me tremendously.

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Originally Posted by Seal

all out sprints for 30 seconds at a time with a few minutes of recovery in between.

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I've always read that the interval (i.e. the recovery) should be no longer than double the repeat (the effort). The interval workouts I do are one minute sprint/one minute recovery; three minutes at about 30 sec/mile quicker than 5K pace/three minutes recovery; ladder intervals going in 30-second increments from 30 seconds to 2:30, up and down the ladder twice, with recovery duration equal to the effort.

Twenty minutes is kind of long to be considered intervals anyway, IMO - valuable work, but more like speedplay or tempo work than intervals. You might add those workouts to your weekly routine rather than substituting them for interval days.


On your other implied concerns:

Here's a great video about riding in traffic. There are certainly roads in my area that I wouldn't ride on (narrow, busy, poor sight lines), and I have no idea what the roads are like where you are, but even in Florida there are some roads that are safe and appropriate for cycling.

If the bike lanes you refer to are off-limits to pedestrians, then great, go for it. But if you're talking about shared use trails, then you need to take the other users into account for your safety as well as theirs, and that means keeping your speed down unless you're way out of town with no one else around, and no adjacent homes or parks from which someone might wander onto the path without looking. There are many threads here about appropriate speed on MUPs. Four times pedestrian speed is already approaching unsafe, but it's generally agreed that it's a reasonable compromise for an unreasonably designed facility.

Seal,

This is an issue I myself have been struggling with since I started cycling more seriously about six months ago. I trained to ride a metric century which was a couple of weeks ago. I averaged 11.5 mph on that ride. The truth is that I actually love riding 12 mph. The problem is that on distance riding like that it translates into hours in the saddle (for example, it took my husband only one hour more to finish the 104 ride as it did for me to finish the 64 ride!) Go ahead and laugh!

So, I've started to ask myself...why do I ride? What do I want to get out of it? I have definitely figured out that I don't want to make myself miserable focusing so much on increasing speed that I stop enjoying cycling. I ride to be with others, be outside, stay in shape. Every once in a while I like to push myself to achieve a specific goal but most of the time I ride for pure enjoyment.

I guess what I'm saying is don't get too stressed about it. From what I can tell there is lots of obsessing about speed that goes on in the cycling world and that can make you feel external pressure to get faster (I've certainly struggled with that this year and sometimes started to feel I shouldn't be cycling or wasn't "good" at it) but there are also lots of different kinds of cyclists. So, find your niche and enjoy it!

amen

The thing that has helped me the most is riding with better riders than myself. Learning from them as well as drafting occasionally (where appropriate) helped me to increase my MPH.

PS: You are not pathetically slow!

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Originally Posted by BleeckerSt_Girl

You call 10, 12, and 13 mph slow ?? :confused:
PFFFT!!! You guys are a bunch of amateurs!!

My average over the past several years is a proud 9mph. I rock!
Come back and complain when you're really and truly slow. ;)

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BleekerStGirl, you ARE my hero! :p

Riding with a group has increased my avg speed by 2-4 MPH for a 2 hour-ish ride.

I am lucky in that Austin has the largest all-women's cycling club around. There are more than 100 women in the club. Some race, some don't.

In August, I finished a century with my club with an average at the end of 100 miles at 17.8 mph.

There is no possible way I could do that alone, or just with my husband, but also my solo rides are faster now. I'm just stronger, and my technique has improved which also increases speed.

Riding with a group provides an incredible motivation to keep up. This pushes me to go harder for as long as I can. The threat of getting dropped is a big motivator to dig deep and find a little more power.

I began riding 3 years ago. My average on a 2-3 hour weekend solo ride has increased from working hard to squeek out a 13 to easily averaging 15, sometimes higher, depending on terrain and wind.

The things that have made the most improvement for me are:
1)Ride with a group that is faster than me
2)Ride a lot
3)Drop some weight

I also participated in several clinics put on by my club which have taught me technique that has helped improve my speed as well as handling, comfort, and enjoyment.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BleeckerSt_Girl

You call 10, 12, and 13 mph slow ?? :confused:
PFFFT!!! You guys are a bunch of amateurs!!

My average over the past several years is a proud 9mph. I rock!
Come back and complain when you're really and truly slow. ;)

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Longer duration/lower intensity
Not just for cycling. ;)

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Originally Posted by malkin

Longer duration/lower intensity
Not just for cycling. ;)

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Yeah baby! :D

The year that I rode 2500 miles about 3 years ago, my top biking year, I went from a 9mph average to a 9.5mph average. Woo-HOOOOO!! LOL!
But hey, I could ride 50 miles then, or even 70...and I knew much faster riders who would totally poop out after 30 miles or so. It's all relative. Plus I'm 56 now- I deserve to enjoy myself and thumb my nose at what others might think.
Last year and this year I'm not riding nearly as much, but I do all kinds of stuff- walking, snowshoeing, dancing, gardening... it's all active and all good.
And I still love riding my bike. :p

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BleeckerSt_Girl

Yeah baby! :D

The year that I rode 2500 miles about 3 years ago, my top biking year, I went from a 9mph average to a 9.5mph average. Woo-HOOOOO!! LOL!
But hey, I could ride 50 miles then, or even 70...and I knew much faster riders who would totally poop out after 30 miles or so. It's all relative. Plus I'm 56 now- I deserve to enjoy myself and thumb my nose at what others might think.
Last year and this year I'm not riding nearly as much, but I do all kinds of stuff- walking, snowshoeing, dancing, gardening... it's all active and all good.
And I still love riding my bike. :p

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You rock!

I am still shooting for 2500 miles this year - have it up to about 1800, it depends what happens with my hamstring. They are not very fast miles, but they do pass and I enjoy them greatly!