Stole Second Base
For cyclists, spring is the time to put in some base miles to get your fitness and stamina back up. It’s a time when your riding ramps up from pretty much zero, increasing to what might be 100 to 200 miles per week.
Of course, on April First you can’t just jump on the bike and ride 200 miles. It’d be a recipe for injury, since your body isn’t ready for that. Instead, you need to increase your workouts gradually. The rule of thumb for both runners and cyclists is to increase your mileage by no more than 10 percent per week.
I’ll come back to that in a sec. Now let’s switch gears.
I’ve always been discouraged by how quickly one loses fitness. Stop weightlifting for two weeks, and your body reverts to its old sedentary self. Stop cycling for a month, and your performance and stamina drop like a stone.
But that’s not the whole story. I’ve been cycling for 13 years now, and each year my body has grown more and more used to riding long distances. While ramping up is still an arduous, painful process, I begin each year with a little more of a head start, at least in terms of my ability to do long miles.
Let me show you what I mean.
2013 has been a very haphazard spring for riding. If I told you how many miles I rode each week (starting in March), it would look like this:
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For the first four weeks, that looked like a fairly okay progression, with mileage increases of 77%, 38%, and 18% (adding about 20 miles per week).
But look what happened next: two really lax weeks, followed by a sudden jump to nearly 200 miles. That’s 300% more than my biggest week this year, and 740% more than either of the previous two weeks! And the best part is that I don’t feel particularly crippled afterward.
So much for the Ten Percent Rule I was telling you about!
But one year doesn’t prove anything. Looking back, last year (2012) was even stranger. With only one 16-mile ride under my belt, my second ride was 57 miles. Coupled with two commutes, the progression went:
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which translates to an instant 638% increase in mileage in week two!
Next let’s look at 2011. After a couple 20-30 mile weeks, I basically took a month off and then jumped into a 63-mile ride:
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Oof. That’s a 336% increase, following a month of not riding at all!
Was 2010 any better? Nope. First ride of the year: 70 miles, with no ramp-up whatsoever. Zero to 70? What percentage increase is that? I’ll tell you: that’s an *infinite* increase in mileage, baby!
Obviously, I couldn’t have done anything like this when I first started cycling, but after years of riding, my body expects-and has adapted to be able to handle-big miles, even after an off-season of complete idleness.
Although that’s not the whole truth. Back in 2009 I bought an indoor trainer from a friend and started working out on that each January and February. Of course, I never did a lot of miles on the trainer, but it’s likely that my indoor workouts made it a little easier to pull big miles once the weather permitted my transition to outdoor riding.
But if you ask me, the Ten Percent Rule is probably a good idea for new cyclists, but it’s not the law. Winter training and the body’s ability to adapt year after year render an experienced cyclist immune to the rules that govern the feeble efforts of mere pedestrians!
Unfortunately, while I might have built up massive reserves of endurance, I’ve never developed the other two main factors in overall cycling performance: speed and power. So I can’t sprint and I can’t climb very quickly, but I can ride at a pretty brisk pace for millenia.
And so it goes…