First Month of Training

Although we picked up our trikes at the bike shop in February, the weather did not get good enough for any serious riding until the second week of March. As a result, our "official training" began with a 10-mile ride on March 11. The ride took 1 hour 45 minutes. Wasn't too bad. Our old legs took it pretty well. That ride established 10 miles as a good starting point for our training.

Our training goal is to turn our couch potato selves into athletes who can pedal at least 50 miles per day over extended periods of time. We plan to make our first extended tour later this summer. It will be a 900-mile trip to Albany, New York to visit our son, his wife, and our new grandson-to-be. The trip will take about 18 days of riding at 50 miles per day. We are using a modified "periodization" training system to help us get our bodies ready for the ride. The first period (base training) will involve about three months of long, slow rides -- low-intensity workouts at maximum volume. The purpose of this phase is to patiently build up our aerobic foundation while minimizing the risk of injury or over-training, an important consideration for old codgers like us. We will gradually ramp up our miles and riding time during this period, adding about 10 percent each week. We will follow each three weeks of training with a week off for recovery. These recovery periods, according to the experts, are crucial. Training stresses the body and tears things down. Recovery give the body time to respond to the stress of training and rebuild itself at a higher level of fitness.

We completed our first three weeks of training last Saturday. Our total distance in 16 days of riding was 167.4 miles. Our total riding time was 22 hrs 4 min. Our average ride was 10.5 miles, with an average duration of 1 hr 23 min. Our longest ride was 14.8 miles. Our longest duration was 1 hr 52 min. Our average speed for the entire period was 7.6 mph. Hopefully, we will get a little faster in the future! Nevertheless, we were quite satisfied with our first three weeks of training. Our physical conditioning has improved considerably (which isn't too hard when you start out with none at all). Our first out-of-town ride, on March 11, was 10 miles in 1 hr 45 min. On March 26, we rode 14.7 miles in 1 hr 42 min. The times were almost the same. However, we added 4.7 more miles in that time, an increase of 47 percent. That, in my humble view, is a significant improvement for a couple of out-of-shape 60 year-olds. 

We currently are enjoying our recovery week. Our next three week training phase will begin next Sunday. We will begin with 15-mile rides and hope to ramp up to 20 miles by the end of the three week phase. We are not shooting for more speed at this point. We intend to make a conscious effort to keep our average speed down to 8 mph, while focusing on increasing the length of our rides. If all goes well, we should ride about 217 miles and spend about 27 hours in the saddle.