Limited time to train - can I use the commute to train?

[Sore Thumb]

I am a member of a cycling club and do the usual 50 to 70 mile saturday ride. I also do a 16 mile round trip, commute 5 days a week.

I am thinking about doing a circuit training class once a week at the gym, but apart from this I don't think the wife would approve of me doing extra training in the evening during the week due to family commitments.

So I would like to use the 30 minute commute time as effective training and not just a standard commute.

I use a fixed gear bike for the commute with a 48t/16t gearing.

Has anyone got any training ideas, or could you provide a link to any sites that give any advise regarding the above.

Many thanks.

 

[GrasB]

I train on my commutes. On the way to work I do a longer tempo ride usually 20-25 miles, that's around the hour marker. On the way home I do a 15 mile route the middle 10 miles of which are fairly traffic & turn clear so do fairly short interval training, the first & last 2.5 miles are used for warm up/cool down. It's not ideal but does work. The key is to getting in good recovery, part of that is getting high quality protein into you very quickly after the ride ends.

 

[fossyant]

Course you can. Treat traffic lights like interval training.

 

[BSRU]

Do you have to go straight home or work?
I leave the house early so I can take a much longer route, instead of 4km it's between 24km and 36km depending on how early I can drag myself out of bed.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

Of course you can, but don't let your training goals make you ride in a way which is illegal, say by RLJ'ing, or which might endanger you or other road users.

 

[subaqua]

Course you can. Treat traffic lights like interval training.

great for sorting out the lactic problem.

 

[ushills]

Do what I did, get some decent dynamo lights and head out when the family is asleep.

I find the roads pretty much deserted by me after 9:30pm so set out then for an hour, or extend your commute although that would'nt suit me. I have been known to go out at 5:00am for a training run, back before the kids and wife are awake.

 

[VamP]

Commuting is a GREAT way of eking out extra training time. Work out some loops that you can add to your commute, to give you some options for structuring your training, as you'll want to vary the mileage and intensity over the course of your training plan. I tend to treat my morning rides as recovery rides (Zone 1/2) and evening rides can be anything from tempo, threshold, and a multitude of different interval structures. You may want to reverse that pattern if you have domestic duties in the evening.

 

[fossyant]

great for sorting out the lactic problem.

Oh yes. I suffered like hell at first with the stop start - lactic doesn't half build up until your body get's used to it. I used to do a 20 mile commute which was mainly rural - very few stops, but switching to an urban 10 miles was a killer at first.

 

[nhoj]

You can either use the commute to train or the train to commute.

 

[Willo]

Do you have to go straight home or work?
I leave the house early so I can take a much longer route, instead of 4km it's between 24km and 36km depending on how early I can drag myself out of bed.

I do the same. In the summer, rather than the gym in the morning, I take a scenic route to the train station (I commute up to London). I squeeze in anything betwen 30 mins and an hour, which is better than noubt when there's no other time to get out on the bike.