Commuting and building a base

Given how you have described your current fitness level it sounds like a 9 mile commute is a decent place to start. With some diligence I think you will quickly outgrow it and will be taking the long route to work. My commute is about 16 miles and takes me about an hour. I feel that 2 1 hour commute/workouts are effective for me.

Thanks. So 2x 1 hour rides per day could be a legitimate part of my base training? Every day? What kind of rides? Just slow easy ones? Usually I don't feel good on commutes until I am nearly back and then I often feel like going out for another hour. I guess my question is : I need to build a proper base. It would be good to use commuting miles if that's possible but I don't know how to approach that and still be training effectively.

In this post by RDO there is a good hint of how to view if your commute can be used for training.
cyclingforums.comtime course of anaerobic adaptationsOpen ↗

This was the simple summary in the it's killing me thread of training at level (L4) for a minimum of 10 to 15 minute duration. If you have an urban commute that has a lot of traffic stops and cannot get a good 10 minute minimum block of sustained effort it probably will not help and as the previous post suggested if you do this daily commute your body will adapt (probably already has) and is no longer really stimulated by the commute. Your commute each day is better than driving or riding a bus, but it does not sound as structured as a planned out training block based on your thought that you feel like you could do another hour.

Here is a thought, but there could be many other solutions.

Do your commute to and from work with moderate to low intensity. For 2 to 3 of those work days when you get home throw the bike on the trainer or rollers and do a couple of 2 x 20's at L4. The commute home will be a good warm up. As you get adapted to this throw in another day or extend the 20's to 30's if you have time. If you find that the 2 x 20's are too much when you first start this routine then just start with 1 block of 20 minutes of L4.

Since most of us do not know the details of your route to work or home and if you are lugging change of clothes and other items it is hard to give refined advice. I have a hard time picturing doing L4 intervals while lugging a bunch of items on the commute.

If you don't have a power meter and/or you are not sure what L4 is just ask. You don't need a power meter to train at this level. There is a chart by Dr. Coggan that describes how that level feels if one is using perceived effort.

I am just throwing out one solution and there could be many other possibilities.

I asked a similar question in this thread:

http://www.cyclingforums.com/t/491560/l3-x-1-hour-x-2-l3-x-2-hours

I don't bike commute every day. I probably could, but I don't think it is an optimal training plan. I commute 3 days a week, spend one day in the gym, and spend one day resting.

Traffic can be make training very hard especially during rush hour. I would never use my commute route as a training route if I didn't have to. However, I am lucky that 2/3 of it (or so) is long and safe. I could easily see that not being true if I lived or worked in a different location.

Quoted post said:

Originally Posted by Gingerbread Man [IMG]/img/forum/go_quote.gif[/IMG]

Thanks. So 2x 1 hour rides per day could be a legitimate part of my base training? Every day? What kind of rides? Just slow easy ones?

FWIW, I definitely use commuting as part of my year round training plan. Sometimes more, sometimes less depending on things like whether I'm base building or in a race prep or racing phase. Similarly what I do on those commutes depends a lot on the purpose of the ride as part of that period of my training. No hard and fast rules as sometimes the commutes are just part of training workload maintenance, other times I'll do specific intervals as part of my commuting it just depends on what I'm hoping to get out of that time on the bike and how it fits into the rest of my rides.

But for pure base building it depends a lot on what base building philosophy you use. If you're riding a lot of hours per week and on a traditional LSD plan then yes, keeping the commutes in the L2 range fits that plan. But deally you'll be riding 14, 16 or more hours per week, week in and week out during your winter build if you're going with a pure LSD plan to lay base. If you're riding less than about 12 to 14 hours per week, especially if it's a lot less like 6 to 10 hours per week on average then you should think about bumping up the intensity of some of those commutes into a least L3/SST and some even including 10 to 20+ minute SST/L4 efforts if you have the roads for that kind of work on your commute.

-Dave