long rides



jim gravity

New Member
Feb 10, 2003
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I've been forced into doing a monster long ride on the weekend, and a few shorter rides / runs during the week. I'm sort of in a "base" mode, and I don't forsee being able to increase the total number of hours per week until there's more daylight.

This past Sunday was my longest ride ever, 6.5 hours of saddle time, with a few 15 minute breaks (in 29F weather too) in between. I've been getting in about 2-3 rides of 4.5-5.5 hrs per 4 weeks since October, about 10 hrs/week total. There were a few scattered rest weeks, where I only managed 2-5 hours of riding/running due to the holidays or the weather.

I wonder if I get the same advantages from these rides as I would get if I were to do more hours/week, but more evenly distributed.

As a relatively green cat4, I figure there's lots of room for improvement, so any riding will get me somewhere.
 
Maybe I should have more clearly asked:

will I get the same advantages from these epic rides as I would get if I were to do more hours/week, but more evenly distributed?
 
Hi jim gravity, welcome to the forum.

In response to your question let me firts quote Vo2 (if I may).."what you need is TITS (Time in the Saddle)".

You have seemed to get more than the average time in the saddle than the casual cyclist with your 10 hours a week. I for one am struggling just to get 5 due to working constraints.:mad:

It also mostly depends on your training program i.e short distance sprints, high cadence, intense workouts or slow long distance rides. My recommendation would be to find a suitable training program and work your hours according to that, depending on what you want to achieve, weight management or race fitness.

I know that our pro teams do averagely between 3 to 5 hours trainging per day, but again, they follow a strict training program.

Whatever you do, more time in the saddle cannot be bad..as long as you take time off to rest in between. (Very important). There are also a few training tips on the forum from all the cyclists on what they do and when they rest.

Hope this helps. :)