No pain, no gain, we've all heard that before. Far to many cyclists take this to heart. They believe if they aren't killing themselves with super hard efforts, they are not going to get faster. I'm sure in some instances, no pain no gain is correct, but in cycling, it couldn't be further from the truth. Pain and suffering are, of course, huge parts of what makes competitive cycling so beautiful. To do well in this sport, you have to be willing to suffer. Yes, if you didn't know, there will be suffering. You have to put your body through sometimes excruciating pain, dig deep, as they say, into the suitcase of courage, ignore the pain, and keep pushing. I hate the pain, yet I love the pain. I can't really understand that love-hate relationship, but if you're reading this, you know what I'm talking about. So, to win, yes, there will be pain, guaranteed. But, to make gains, to get better, to become faster, more efficient, more technically sound, more tactically smart, no real pain is necessary. Oh, it requires plenty of hard work, a little dedication, perhaps a pinch of insanity and an almost unnatural love for riding and racing, (having an understanding wife helps, too) but it doesn't have to hurt. At least not all of the time, not yet.
We've all also heard about building the base. This is the time of the year when we should be working on building our base. I think most people know that, but many aren't sure the best way to go about it. Some people will take this to an extreme and do nothing but long slow rides for a few months, and others will totally ignore the concept, saying base is a myth, and just ride hard. In certain instances and situations, both concepts could be correct. For most cyclists, finding a bit of a happy medium if probably the best approach.
To help understand why base building is important, it is helpful to know a little about the adaptions that take place within the body as a result of this base training. It is important to know that, yes, you can get faster by riding slow. Why? Because you are training your body to work more efficiently. Cycling is an aerobic sport, meaning most of the energy required for you to make the bike move comes from your aerobic system. To train the aerobic system, you have to keep the intensity somewhat low. Aerobic training starts in zone 2, which is a fairly easy intensity that you can sustain for several hours, but the aerobic system continues to see benefits from higher intensity training as well. As you increase the intensity of the workout, the rate of most of these adaptions also increases, up to about threshold or so. The trade off is that the higher the intensity, the more recovery your body needs to reap the benefits from the workout, and be able to train again. So, you can ride zone 2 every day, recover easily, and see some improvement. Or, you can ride a little harder, for a little less amount of time, get the same benefits, but, you have to take more time off the bike to recover. You can't just go out and do threshold intervals without working up to that point, otherwise your body will be cooked after one session, leading to several days off the bike as you recover. This is another example of how you can get more benefit from a couple of easier rides, than one hard ride that forces you off the bike for a couple of days. Finding the right mix is the critical part.
How does this all work? As you cruise along at a fairly easy, say zone 2 pace, your body is adapting. There are several things that happen, here are just a few in fairly simple terms. Your heart is actually getting bigger, increasing the stroke volume and maximal cardiac output. Basically, your heart pumps more blood with each stroke, which means more oxygen is delivered to the working muscles where it is needed. You are also increasing the size and number of the mitochondria in your blood. The mitochondria are basically little power plants, converting oxygen into energy. The more of these little guys, the better. You are teaching your body to use more fat as fuel. We all have plenty of stored fat (even Frank G and Scotty H) to supply our bodies with energy for a very long time, but as we increase intensity, less and less of our energy demands are met with the stored fat. So, by riding somewhat easy, the body becomes more efficient at using the stored fat. This spares the use of the muscle glycogen, which is needed for higher intensity efforts and is depleted faster. Once depleted, it has to be replaced in the form of consumed carbohydrates. These easy rides also increase the muscle's ability to store glycogen. By using less glycogen and storing more, you will obviously have more available for longer periods of time when you need it to supply the muscles with energy. Even while riding easy (no pain), your body is adapting to the training. All of these adaptions lead to a more efficient aerobic system, which will lead to you becoming faster rider (GAIN!).
But what about the many higher intensity efforts that are required in a bike race? They, too, benefit from this aerobic training. Even when you're going all out, some of that energy is being supplied by the aerobic system. Once any efforts gets past about 30 seconds, you've used up all your stored or readily available energy and the body has to produce more, some of that is supplied by the aerobic system. The bigger your aerobic engine is, the harder you can go during those higher intensity efforts. Sure, later in the season you will have to start doing some of those harder, pedal until you almost puke efforts to get you ready for the demands of racing, but for now it's best to focus on your aerobic base.
My recommendations for this time of year are to mix things up, but keep it pretty easy. I do as many long, fairly easy rides as I can make time for, but I also do plenty of shorter tempo paced rides. Consistency is important. Make every day count, whether its a training day or a rest day. Throw in some cross training, do a little on the bike leg strength work, build up to sweet spot and eventually threshold intensity efforts, and by the time spring shows its face around here, you should be pretty fit, and ready for the pain.
