Does commuting affect your training?

[chutch]

Hi, this is my first post but I have been lurking for a while. I've been riding bikes for almost 10 years now- I've raced and ridden in centuries. I want to start commuting to work by bike and am working out all the little details. But one thing keeps nagging at me.

Are you still able to put in a good road ride after commuting home? My commute won't be that long so time is not the issue until the time changes. I don't want training to be negatively affected, especially as I get started because I am probably going to do a century in about 7 weeks. My road bike will not be my commute bike.

Any tips, ideas, reassurances? Or am I over analyzing and concerned for no reason?

Thanks ladies!

[onimity]

Hi and welcome!

I am training for a century too (Aug 25) and commute by bike. I find that it is a great way to get a lot of mileage in and it takes away all of the stress and hassle of driving to work. As soon as I leave the office I am on a bike ride, and granted I'm on a heavier bike, carrying stuff, but that only makes you stronger. I commute 10 miles each way, some days I'll keep it quick and other days I take a longer route. It's also really easy for me to just throw down my stuff and get on my road bike for a ride when I get home; I'm already dressed and warmed up. Longer morning rides are great too if you have showers at work because the mornings are cooler and I really like that this time of year!

The only problem that I really have with it is finding the time to take rest days. I like to get in longer rides on Sat & Sun, so I generally try to work from home one day a week or take the bus all but a couple of miles a day. The best part of commuting by bike to me is that I have so much energy during the day.

Good luck, bike commuting is fun!

Anne

[KnottedYet]

commuting is good.

I think I get a much more intense work out commuting than road-riding.

[chutch]

Thanks, that helps. I hadn't thought about how it would be a good warm-up and that you'd already be dressed and ready to switch bikes. I appreciate it!

[bikerHen]

Commuting IS my training. bikerHen

[RoadRaven]

Yes... it does... but only in a good way

I assume your training continues to be for racing and centuries, and if you look at any semi-pro or pros training schedule, you will see that a significant part of their training is at low intensity.

I think the only way it will affect your planned 'training', per se, is if you run out of time at the end of the day because commuting can take longer then driving.

If i lived in town, I would commute to work and still do a 'training' ride as well several times a week - this is what many of the cyclists I know do.

However, I am in the country and my drive to work takes 24minutes and to bike it takes me between 40-50 minutes there (depending on whether I have a tail wind) and about an hour to get home (its uphill to get home). So I do not commute this every day ... yet

[Geonz]

What they said. In my limited experience, it's the hardest thing for lots of people to get in those "warmup" and "base" miles. Some of it's scheduling but lots of it is psychology - wanting to WORK OUT all the time you're riding and not wantoing to "waste" time.
I strongly suspect that one of the reasons I do surprisingly well in race-like situations is because I've got that built into my riding routine.

[chutch]

Some of it's scheduling but lots of it is psychology - wanting to WORK OUT all the time you're riding and not wantoing to "waste" time.

That is exactly why I asked the question. Because in my mind, I was thinking that it would be a waste of time, or would hinder me, if I was not out on the road bike, hammering away. But, everyone here is right. We need warm-ups, we need rides that are low intensity. I don't know why that's so difficult to put into practice. This discussion has helped motivate me.

[susiej]

Commuting IS my training. bikerHen

Biker Hen stole my line!

I have such a short commute (1 to 3.5 miles, depending on which train station I ride to), that I do try to "hammer" so that I feel I got a bit of a workout. And so I don't miss the train.

[Geonz]

It's pretty well-documented that "recovery" rides and "base mileage" are important. The summer I was free-lance writing, I did lots of miles with our slow groups and wondered if that was helping my speed. It did, absolutely. Those 50 mile rides at 13-15 mph (tho' the effort was more like 15-17 'cause I was on a hefty hybrid) really paid off. I'm not tooting my horn - these are objective observations that happen to be about myself... I got on a light bike and did a double metric ... and at mile 75 my riding buddy just got in back and drafted for about 15 miles, 'cause I was just plain stronger (we averaged 16.9 for that). I won the indoor time trial that winter, too. It sort of "blew my cover" - I hadn't been out on *any* of the "fast rider" hammerfests (because I had no idea I was doing this whole ugly-duckling-to-swan thing and was absolutely positive I couldn't keep up, and also had no idea how to do all that stuff they do and didn't know the culture or the code), though I had done a *lot* of interval training on my own because I wanted to get faster. I'm not *that* fast but it's fun :-)

[onimity]

I didn't mean to imply that bike commuting is *just* a warm up, BTW, though if your commute is short and flat, it may be. I mostly meant to say that I am usually excited to keep riding when I get home and I can really go for it out the door. But it's really easy to get a *great* workout on the commute, too. Sometimes I'll try to get home at 2MPH over my usual average. Or I'll take a hilly, longer route using only my largest rings. A few weeks back I had to pick up a bunch of (big!) books from the printer (8 miles Northeast of my house) for work (10 miles Southeast of my house). So I plotted out a route on the map and rode about 20 miles in, books in my panniers and laptop in my messenger bag. I didn't know it had a 12% incline in one part, though that hurt! But compared to that, there isn't much that looks scary on a road bike. It's kind of like running with weights, really.

My coworkers actually ridicule me a bit on the rare occasions that I ride my road bike to work [instead of my usual racked-out MTB]. They call my road bike 'the bike that rides itself.'

Anne

[JmcG]

I use my commute to work as a training ride. It's 19 miles each way, and sometimes I feel like adding on extra mileage on my way home. Yesterday I was able to get in 50 miles between my commute to work and home b/c I had to extend the ride home to stop at the bike shop (past my house) then come home. I also focus on different things each day I commute. Today's commute was a small chain ring, lots of spinning workout. Yesterday was a grinding gears, faster workout. What I also sometimes do to try to get in more miles is to ride at lunchtime also. I can get in a good 15 miles at lunch with people here at work who also ride. I'm not sure if you have that option, but if you do, that's definitely an easy way to get in more mileage. And that lunchtime ride can be a different type of workout than the commuting mileage.

I'm not sure if you said your mileage to and from work, but my DH also commutes to work and his ride is shorter than mine (8 miles each way). He rides a fixie and tries to push hard most days - and that's an excellent workout! Since he started riding the fixie, he's so much stronger of a rider.

[LadyDian]

For me that is my work out. I don't do it everyday, because I have to get up at 0330 to leave by 0400 to get to work at 0600, shower and change. I don't get nearly enough mileage at home between scouts, soccer etc. (for the kids), so I get it to and from work. I generally ride to work once or twice, ride a loong day on my days off, and do short rides (14 miles) in the mountains above my house. If I didn't have a job, kids, husband etc. I could probably bike more, but we all have to squeeze in what we can , when we can. (Besides I love the kids and hubby to much to give them up).

Dian