Pathetically slow? How long to improve?

[chicagogal]

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!

[ny biker]

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.

[FunSize]

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.

[ginaleah]

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!