The Marginal Gains of an Age Grouper
As with many athletes, sport is not their main source of income, they’ll most likely have full time occupations and families to support. This creates a multitude of elements to work around to try to fit training in. Sometimes small changes allow you to be more efficient, both during training times and in your life, freeing up more time to train. Below are a few of my ways of marginally gaining and getting more from my training time.
Now I’ll pretext this by saying whereas I do not have to support a family, so I have more free time to train than most, I still have a 35+ hour working week, and since my office relocation, a 1+ hour commute (both ways) to compete with. This is also by no means an exhaustive list of ways to make more of your time.
I have heard coaches say that cycle commuting is not to be counted as training time, as it does not sufficiently raise the heart rate or push the body out of its comfort zone. But there are ways to make more of your commute even in crowded cities where it is difficult to get any real speed up. One way to improve your riding ability is to permanently ride everywhere in the smaller chain ring. This requires the rider to increase their cadence significantly, whereas this can up the heart rate which is not always ideal on a gentle ride to work, it breeds the habit of continually keeping the legs spinning. High cadence cycling is something Team Sky has used to great effect in Tour de France campaigns, getting their riders to hold higher, less tiring cadences in harder climbs. Getting into this habit shouldn’t be kept just for riding on your weekend rides, doing it all the time will improve your cycling manner at a greater pace. This works best in cities when low speed riding is common. See image below.
Some people will not be happy about riding in cities due to the level of traffic or lack of location to lock up a bike when they reach their destination. Another alternative providing you have sufficient showering facilities and you don’t have to carry too much to your place of work, is to run. This is ideal for distances between 4-10km, depending on the level of runner. To begin with only run one way, i.e. into or back out from work, planning an alternative method to get home, this will allow you to check your route and to build up to going both ways. After a while you could be running both in and out of work 3-5 times a week – a journey of 4km could mean an extra 24km a week. I suggest you take it easy on these runs, focusing on your running form especially when you feel tired at the end of the day. There is no shame in walking when you are feeling tired or legs are feeling sore.
The key to keeping your life in balance is good preparation. This applies particularly to nutrition as to get the most out of your next session you need to have the fuel to burn. Planning what I will eat at work starts well before I leave for work, ensuring a good mix of carbs, protein and other nutrients is important. A good way to save money is to meal prep in batches. Take one base ingredient that goes with a few items; rice, pasta or bread, then prepare a variety of different additions to provide variety throughout the week. I tend to use tins of different types of fish or tins of beans in different sauces to add flavour. I also mix up the meal adding a bit of chicken or sausages. Don’t forsake flavour for the perfect meal; if you can’t bear to eat what you’ve made it’s a waste of money and time. Plus the money you save can be put towards that new bike you’ve had your eye on. (I wish my prep was half as organised).
People are time strapped so long sessions are not always the ideal or the best use of your time. This is where HIIT sessions come in. HIIT stands for High Intensity Interval Training, and it focuses on using explosive time determined sessions to make big steps forward in fitness levels. It relies on you sticking to the programme and pushing through the pain barrier when the routine requires you to, knowing that the interval won’t last forever. Training tools such as TrainerRoad for cycling work are brilliant at giving you specific plans to follow and providing programmes which are time determined. Cycling indoors on a turbo trainer is not the most exciting thing to do but during the winter it provides me with regular hard workouts which are focused and beneficial.
The biggest way to improve is to focus on the discipline you find hardest or are weakest at. In the past I have struggled on the bike in comparison to the swim and run. As a result I am focusing my efforts this winter on raising my biking ability. Admitting your weaknesses is just part of learning and improving as an athlete, don’t be the individual always complaining about not being good at something but not doing anything about it. It’s no good being a phenomenal runner if you can’t swim well or struggle on the bike, you’ll just reach your speediest leg with no energy as you’ve battled up to this point.
My final piece of advice is to involve others in your journey. Get your kids, friends and family involved, take them running, riding or swimming. Let others help you. For example if you are looking for a new bike but don’t know where to begin looking, ask around within your circle of friends for recommendations. Triathletes love kit and bikes so you will no doubt be flooded with responses, someone may even know a shop owner who could get you a discount. If you train alone currently then it can take extra time to plan sessions and learn about types of workout. I would suggest you look for a local team to join, removing the need for you to be responsible for every minor detail.
