What should I be doing right now, and why am I doing it?

What should I be doing right now, and why am I doing it? 

The eternal questions I’m sure all bike riders have been asking themselves repeatedly recently, and for good reason. 

I guess the best place to start is to ask yourself why are you hungry for what you do? What even is hunger? I guess there’s no right or wrong answer here, and it’s purely an opinion. My opinion is hunger equals your ‘reason’, why you do what you do? Do you just love riding / racing your bike? Do you just enjoy being successful at something? Could it be you just want to get better, and push yourself to your limits or possibly your getting paid a small fortune to do what you do! (If your lucky enough, it could be all of the above).

I think once you’ve answered that question, you’ve put yourself in a good position to motivate yourself, and should be ready to start building your plan. 

So, what exactly should you be doing? The outlook is so unclear right now for everyone, and there are so many unanswered questions. When will bike racing return? When can you train in groups again? When can you travel? These are all questions nobody can answer right now. One thing is sure, once the curtain is raised we all want to be ready to go and get stuck in to the endless opportunities that WILL return as soon as possible. The key right now is making the most of the current ‘opportunity’ you have. That’s making the most of no travel, no race tapers, and potentially no work, college or school (reduced at least) and building the biggest aerobic endurance base as possible in the time you have. Then, when you have a clear date to aim to be super fit for, you switch the focus around a little and start to build in some more anaerobic capacity & threshold conditioning to bring that fitness up another level so your ready to race. 

Aerobic Endurance - the key to everything we do. The thing that doesn’t take days or weeks, we’re talking months or even years to build up. Without this underpinning we will never reach our maximum potential. We are simply building your body's ability to produce energy. How do we build it right now? Lots of time on the bike, steady state work at Z1-2. You should touch Z3 a few times a week and can nudge the lower end of our ‘threshold’, but not for long, keep this to a minimum right now. Consistency is important here, so don’t try to do too much that’s both physically and mentally unsustainable. We want to have the max amount of hours in the saddle as possible at the end of it so don’t get to het up on crazy long rides at the moment. Think about sitting at 70-80% of your mental and physical capacity - this should feel easily sustainable and will ensure that you come out of this time in the best shape possible. 

Strength - something we should never really let slip. Again without the racing to get in the way we can really use this time to build on our S&C work. Use what you have available and make the most of it. I’d aim for 2-3 sessions per week as an end goal, but build up to this slowly and give yourself time to adapt. On the bike we can be adding in some standing starts, big gear sprints and low cadence intervals in the climbs - this will all help maintain and build muscle strength. 

So, to summarise: Endurance, Strength & Consistency. Simple right :-)

Have fun, and remember your “reason” for doing something !

Nikki