The first step is to set some cycling goals. Keep in mind a cycling goal doesn’t have to be a race or event; it can be anything related to cycling fitness that is measurable, anything that stretches you without breaking you.
Why you should set goals
Helps you to focus your attention on your priorities.
Encourages you to keep going, maintains your motivation.
Makes you accountable - goals help you move from thought to action.
And takes you out of your comfort zone, push back the self imposed limits, making you a better cyclist.
Next, self assess.
Asses your work and family life, training history, diet, sleep habits, psychological strengths and weaknesses and general health.
And do a test!
The reason you test is to determine your current fitness level, calculate your sustainable and or maximum values, set a benchmark for future comparison to track and measure your progress, and lastly to determine accurate training intensity zones for purpose of using the data with essential tools such as gauging devices which will help in guiding your training sessions i.e. power meters and heart rate monitor.
Then, plan phases and workouts in detail, and then schedule your training.
Knowing what workouts to do and when to do it is important, but having clear instructions on how to perform the workout is even more important, create your own training plan. Use TrainingPeaks, it is great for building your workouts and planning your training. It makes it easy to know what your daily workout is - you can receive daily workout emails, check the TrainingPeaks mobile app (available on iOS and Android), or log on to the full site. Keep it simple - It is easy to become so focused on creating or finding the best plan that you never get around to taking action.
Alternative is to hire a coaching or invest in a tailored or pre -built training plans, either one will give you direction, step-by-step instructions on how to prepare for your goal.
Really important, take those rest days and recovery week/s.
Build these into your training plan and if you have a coach, work with them and choose a day/s that would work best for your schedule. You will not lose fitness if you take a few days off - if you allow your body to rest and recovery then you will progress.
Also, aim to build consistency first.
If there is one thing that is going to help you achieve your goal, it is consistency. It doesn’t matter if you are training with a power meter, heart rate monitor or RPE, have the lightest bike, fastest wheels or best indoor trainer; being inconsistent with your training will do little for your progress.
Lastly, ride your bicycle!
Without hours on the bicycle, no amount of planning and obsession off the bicycle will make a difference.
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That is it. Thank you for reading. I hope you found it to be a useful resource. Questions, comments and high fives! Drop them here.