Andy from the Daily Cycle website asked me to write something about winter training. Now obviously being a cyclist and one that rides my bike a lot - even / especially in the winter - I know quite a bit about training. I'm not a qualified cycling coach however, though I could point you in the direction of several different people that I would recommend. Anyway, here's the article.
Best and Worst
Winter training can be one of the best and worst times for riding your bike. It's often cold and can also be wet, but it's also a time when many cyclists ride more sociably as the next race season is some time away and so people often simply ride their bike without worrying too much about doing more than enough to stay fit. The winter can therefore be an enjoyable period of the year for riding your bike, however it is a time pivotal in the progression of a cyclist; a time when riders can lay the foundations for the coming year. What many people I believe fail to consider is whether they have reached their current level because of the training they have done or in spite of it! In order to progress a rider needs to be open to change - to look at the training they have done and be prepared to approach things differently, rather than simply using the same methods of years passed expecting greater results.
Structure
A structured approach with structured goals over the winter months will help with progression and motivation throughout the winter and set you on the way to achieving your objectives come the summer months. The key is to be realistic - you may read about the top pro riders doing 20 hour plus training weeks on a regular basis, but for the very large majority of cyclists a weekly volume of anything remotely close to that amount is not attainable. A qualified cycling coach will discuss your goals with you and plan out your training whilst considering the daily factors of your life such as family and work commitments. However if you do not have a coach and are intent on working to your own plan then be sure to consider these factors. A balance is required: it's important that you don't ride continuously too easy or too hard - riding too easy will see you fail to progress, and continuously too hard can run you down and suppress your immune system. This is probably one of the biggest reasons to have a coach - the advice and direction of a qualified professional can be priceless.
Enjoy
The biggest factor though really is the most basic one - to enjoy yourself. The reason I assume all of us started cycling in the first place was due to an enjoyment of cycling. Make sure that you are enjoying your cycling, as ultimately if it stops being fun, then what's the point?
The challenge now is to think of / find regular material that will provide interesting reading for some articles :-) I'm just hoping that my articles are more popular than my old DJ sets from before I took up cycling, as it will mean that at least two people like them (I'm joking here, kind of)!
Regarding 2012 season, well it's almost 2012 the year! An update coming up on that shortly. Seeing at the majority of this post is regarding winter training I'll talk about it some more. Mine is going ok - I did several decent weeks of what I would call informal training when I was going out and getting the hours done but without worrying too much about specifics. At the end of November (as I was due to step it up a bit and include a lot more structure) I caught a really nasty cold / virus that was going around and so that messed things up for a couple of weeks, but since that's passed I've been doing ok. There's various things which I'm working on but I feel good and so I'm happy for now.
Only one week now until Christmas, then NYE will quickly be here and before you know it we'll be into January. The traditional British season opener the 'Perfs Pedal Race' is on Sunday 12th February this year, which seems quite close but at just under eight weeks away is really not that close at all!
Cheers for now. Have a happy Christmas.
Rob.
