How fast on endurance rides??

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by g8000
For the once a week long endurance ride, should I be pushing myself to the limits of my comfort levels or should I take it easy and focus more on the length/time of the ride?? From what I've read, you only get faster by pushing yourself, so is this done on the weekly rides or the endurance ride?

Some background: 23y/o, not fat, cycling for 1 month. Bulding my base, 300 miles so far. My endurance ride is only 40 miles long, and my bi weekly ride is 20 miles and 10 mile rides in between those.

You need both.

You know you need to build base, so focus some days on DURATION and some on SPEED and some (much less often) on BOTH. Don't do speed/duration too often, too soon or you risk injury.

"only getting faster by pushing yourself" is ancient training history. Ultimately though, one thing I don't see above is your goals... what's the goal here? Racing? Off Road? Triathlon? Each has it's own subtle needs... and those needs will help answer your question above!

My long term goal is racing. So far I'm trying to build my base and continually increase my avg speed. thx

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by g8000
My long term goal is racing. So far I'm trying to build my base and continually increase my avg speed. thx

Ok, how far? Basically if you are doing any real distances (not super short sprints) then you need a combination of distance vs interval (speed) work.

So consider 75% endurance riding and 25% speed work, although that's certainly subjective. If you ride 4 days/week do 3 days distance only (at a reasonable HR but not above 65-75%) and then 1 day do a shorter distance, but with interval work - meaning go fast, real fast, for short periods like 30 seconds and get up to 80-85% HR. Recover down to 65% HR (hopefully wont take long time to get there.. a minute or two..) and then repeat.

Don't do more than 1 hard interval session/week and follow it with a rest day or a really light workout day. Don't do more than 4 weeks in a row without taking a rest WEEK (or light workouts).

Don't forget... REST is when your muscles repair and grow stronger. EXCERCISE is the organized destruction of them :p

Good luck!

p.s. I've been following this plan since Jan and I've taken my mile time from 5:30 (slow!) to 3:25. All while training for a Triathlon, so if you are not swimming/running you can improve faster I bet

g8000 said:

My long term goal is racing. So far I'm trying to build my base and continually increase my avg speed. thx

on endurance rides keep your HR in zone 1 or 2 i think. killing yourself for speed wont build endurance.