The biggest training mistake that we all make

If we were honest with ourselves and asked “am I training too hard” what would you say? In our experience many of you would say that you wouldn't know. The reality is that we all tend to ride too hard too often. Maybe hard is the wrong descriptor. Sort-of-hard would be better. This makes everyone “feel” like they are training and accomplishing something. Ask them to go hard though, drop the hammer when it matters, and they often can’t do it. They are too tired.

On the flip side of always riding sort of hard is that no one actually does endurance rides. Riding with friends always turns into something of a pulling contest. That subtle half-wheeling that drives up the ride to that sort-of-hard pace.

Our tendency to ride sort-of-hard is rooted in our mindset and ego. We treat every ride as a measure of our progress and fitness. We always have to be performing, which means always pushing and seeing if we are fit in comparison to others. If we are first up the hill that means we must be fit.. What happens is that we always ride at the top of the zone which inevitably lead to fatigue and sort-of-training.

In training it is important to vary your efforts: train hard when it matters, tempo when it calls for it, and an actual endurance pace on the other days. Don’t underestimate the value of endurance. It may seem to be easy but that is only because your endurance system isn’t developed and you can’t actually push any watts there.

The endurance system is the basis on which the rest of your fitness is built. Most of our rides are done at an aerobic pace, so a stronger endurance system will make your rides more manageable. Even when you are doing a super hard ride, full of hills and sprints, your endurance system is working overtime. The person with the better endurance system recovers faster, and so in the end will be the strongest as those with weaker endurance systems recover less and less on each subsequent effort.

Riding sort-of-hard makes us feel like we are training. But in the end it doesn't provide us with any sort of adaptation to make us a better rider. If you really want to train you will have to let go and not worry about always measuring yourself against others. Save that for the days that matter, the goal events that you have set yourself for the season.