you need to slowly get there. don’t try to jump up a ton.
Races count…so do warmup and cooldowns. A 20 min extra ride can do wonders bringing up time. Can you commute to anything? Church stuff?
Easiest way is going to be finding a longer ride in your weekly schedule. You need a 3:30+ IMO
Interesting having monday as a rest day, I’ll try to figure out if I can add a longer workout on sunday afternoon. Thanks!
Thanks a lot! Do you feel that those 10-15 minutes on cooldown will actually help? They’re usually pretty low in watts, but I’m not sure if they’re counting as recovery or a bit more.
Regarding longer rides, what percentage of moving time I should target? I feel like I’m more used to going hard, resting & eating and going hard again.
Since I’m doing structured training I’ve seen how hard is to go slow and how much it’s tiring both for the mind and the body, so… should I target to get to 3h30+ moving all the time? If I do 4h30 in time but 3h30 moving time is ok?
Thanks a lot!
I set a goal of 220Km per week on Strava, as a way to keep me motivated with no racing happening. That would give me about 8 hours at average ride pace.
I’m averaging 9.5 hours per week for the year and changed to a polarised plan (experimental on my side). I find it’s much easier to do a 8-10hour week this way. However, my racing form is unknown.
All I know is that it’s fun, and hard (on the 2 hard days per week).
My coach assigns 8-12 hour weeks, one version of 10 hours looks like this:
Lots of variations, and the long Saturday ride is progressive and can go longer.
This week was scheduled as off, 1.5 hours, 2 hours, 2 hours, off, 2.5 hours, 3 hours for a total of 11 hours (plus another hour for resistance/conditioning).
Jose,
I wake up at 4 AM Tuesday, Wednesday and Fridays. I am on the bike by 4:30, which allows me to get in between 2-2.5 hours on those days.
On Saturday, I let myself sleep in (until 5), which typically allows me to get in 4 hours and be done by 9:30 or 10.
The biggest thing is prepping everything the night before. Have all of your bottles ready to go, and any fuel that you need. If you drink coffee, make it the night before so you can just put it in the microwave. The other big thing is prepping your breakfast the night before. I usually have an omelet and oatmeal post-workout, so I pre-cook my veggies earlier in the week, then add the egg whites in the morning. Obviously eat whatever works for you, but the main point is to prep everything in advance.
Also, last suggestion, place your alarm clock on the other side of the room so it forces you to get out of bed.
Good luck!
I don’t have much specific advice but I think they key is to go slow and to clearly lay out expectations with your partner (and any other stakeholders in your life). If you only hit 5 hr right now then maybe 10 is too much of a jump. Go to 8 (add 15 min to 4 weekday rides and then 2 on Saturday) and then further optimize from there to reach 10.
And maybe that further optimization requires some trade off from your partner (You do extra child care/dinner stuff on Monday (a day off) then they do extra on Tuesday so you can add an hour to your ride). Fortunately for my situation I don’t have kids or anything so it’s just my fiancé I neglect if I ride too much (lol) but I make sure to let her know when I want to have an extra big week of training and I try to do stuff either for her or around the house either the week before or after to make up for it.
you’ll be building up this along with your hours. I wouldn’t over think it. set the auto pause. ride, listen to your body. Eventually 2 hour rides feel like 1 hour rides and so on and so on.
Personally- since Covid I’m working say 4 days a week from home and I’ve turned quite a bit of my old commuting time (35-60 mins each way) into cycling, and still got time back… I do most of my workouts over my afternoon “commute” because I will never be the kind of person who gets up at 5 for a workout (or even 6 unless I actually have to for some reason - like a work call or an organised ride or something - not off my own bat though).
But I don’t have kids. And don’t do church stuff. I do work moderately long hours, probably averaging 45hrs a week but it changes.
I do a TR low vol plan, plus club rides Wednesday and Saturday in a typical week. Fridays off. A Z2 ride Monday or a steady easy one with my wife etc., if the weather is nice.
Averaging 11.5 hours a week according to strava.
When I had the commute I still followed, or tried to follow, the LV TR plan, but I would often be doing the midweek rides at 8 or 9pm. I did a lot less riding in total though as I didn’t do the midweek club ride or the Monday ride. The killer then was the work travel, in 2019 I was away from home over 40% of the nights in the year for work. That’s died a massive death though and I couldn’t be happier about it in general.
Oh and I did an MBA part-time while working full time that finished in 2018, that played havoc with training too.
I get up at 4am 5 days a week, ride 1.5-2hrs, have a coffee, home before 7am to get the kids organised for school. Then a long ride on Sunday (3-5 hrs)
Also work 45-50 hrs/wk, 2 young kids, on the local cycling club committee organising crits and CX races
This is me below. I have 40-45hpw career job, wife and an infant. I ride 1-1.5hr before the Tuesday night club ride doing some intervals then ride 1.5hr w the group (usually do 1 hr of PTO or work extra some other day to make this happen). I do a heavy weight lifting day at lunch on Wednesday. I go out on Saturday and do intervals within my 3-4hr ride. Then the other days are either z2 easy endurance or literally a ‘side walk ride’ (<50% ftp) just to relax. I will take a day off or two per week depending on how I feel.
M 1-1.5 easy / off
T 3hr w intervals
W weight lift 30min
R 1-2 easy (z1 or 2)
F 1-2 easy (z1 or 2)
S 3-4hr w intervals
S off
Riding and being fit is a big priority for me and my wife knows it. She’s not always super happy about it but so be it. Used to ride a century every weekend or so before the baby but that’s not really in the picture anymore. I average just about 10hpw w the lifting included.
You’ll make it happen if you want to. Might have to let some thing go tho if that’s worth it for you. I’ve been riding consistently for about 10 years tho so this isnt a sudden change - that helps. Goodluck!
I have been able to manage 8-11 hours per week with…
• Monday — AM intervals (1 hr), PM strength training (30 mins)
• Tuesday — AM Z2 (1 hr)
• Wednesday — AM intervals (1 hr), PM Z2 (1 hr)
• Thursday — AM strength training (30 mins)
• Friday — AM intervals (1 hr), PM Z2 (1 hr)
• Saturday — AM Z2 (1 hr)
• Sunday — MTB ride 1-2 hours
That gets me 8-9. I have to sneak in extra here and there to get over 10. But I balance a hectic work schedule where I’m pretty much always “on” even away from work; plus I have a pup that is currently in chemotherapy, and it’s just me and her, so I don’t feel great about leaving her for more than a couple hours each day outside of work. For all those reasons, that is why I do so many 1 hour rides indoors. Sunday is my only off day from working in the office, so I feel better about hopping on the MTB.
I’ve learned to cut myself some slack and also remind myself what is most important right now. I bury myself when I can so that I can ease back as needed. Also, been challenging to sacrifice strength training over time; I’m a strength coach who is used to lifting 4-5 days per week! 
No kids and a super supportive wife means I get to structure everything around my training/riding…I’m very fortunate that way.
LV plan during the week with an hour of extra Z2 thrown in at the end a couple times normally so 4-5.5hrs there. Saturday group ride is a 40-60mi B ride so it’s mostly Z2 with some Z3 mixed in when I’m on the front…I’ll normally ride to and from the meeting point to add extra Z2 (96mi total this past Sat). 4-6hrs. Plus Sunday I lead a D ride for beginners/not as fit riders which is Z1 and again I ride there and back, most of the time adding 30-40mi at Z1/2. 3-4hrs. 11 to 15hrs total depending on weather and how I’m feeling. Off Monday and Thursday…sleep a bunch every night.
Cycling covers all three for me 
More seriously, being a serious cyclist is a lifestyle choice, where you live, type of job, length of your commute, extent of social life etc etc…those things can take time to get into place and it might not be for you but for me it was definitely worth it…the only caveat is that I really cut back riding when my kids were very young due to constant fatigue and need to support my wife…that lasted a couple of years
I’ve been holding roughly 6-15hours every week for the last 2 years, the trick was to get my fiance to do some workouts with me. I usually do 3-4hours of intervalls and 3-7hours group/distance riding, then with my fiance 1-2 hours of running and 2-3hours of strength/core workouts. And also added 1hour of horsebackriding this year, boy that is hard!
What I found is that if I slowly increase the amount of time spent training it was fairly easy to find a balance between training and everyday life. When I commute by bike to work I get “free” bike time that I use for intervalls and recovery rides, easy to do at least 3 days a week 1-2hours each ride.
The key for me was to not sacrifice time with my fiance for training, and instead do any workouts together that we could do.
Thanks a lot!
Your schedule matches more or less what I was planning but… I see I need to have those really long saturday rides.
If I may ask, how do you balance those long rides with chores and resting as the day before is friday and sometimes you’ll be doing some kind of socializing. Do you get up very early saturday morning?
Thanks for all the tips! I think having everything ready the night before is really important.
One thing that makes me prefer indoor training is that it takes much less time to prepare.
Wow! That’s really impressive! What things have you renounce to? Sleep? Social activities? How do you guys make it happen?
Currently in Sydney so in lockdown but am able to sustain 10-12 hours week normally. I typically do a low volume plan and supplement with outdoor rides My week goes something like this.
Monday 1 hour Interval Session
Tuesday 2:20 of commute
Wednesday 1 Hour Interval
Thursday am 1 Hour interval pm commute
Friday am Commute 2 hours optional 1 hour ride in afternoon
Saturday rest
Sunday 2-3 hour ride
I also will do S and C on Mondays and Wednesdays