How to Customize a Training Plan Around My Commute

Hi all,

I am looking for some advice and suggestions. I have been riding my bike to work since March or April. It is around 30-35 minutes each way and I get close to 20 miles in total. It is a flat route. It has been good enough for me to build back my base fitness after being off the bike for a couple weeks while on paternity leave. The time has come for me to start training again to improvement my overall fitness and stamina. I have enjoyed using TrainerRoad in years passed when most of my riding was in my basement on a trainer. I am now trying to structure a training plan around my bike commute to work. The general issue is the duration of most plan’s workouts are 60+ minutes. In reality I am doing a total of 60 minutes of riding during my commute, but it is broken up into 2 separate rides. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to restructure a training plan to accommodate my breaking up my workouts during weekday rides? Weekends are at home so those workouts wont be affected.

Thanks,
Tom

I am only in the office one day at the moment, its a 11mile each way hilly commute. With Endurance rides on perceived effort at the moment its easy to extend it to that at night. My plan if I need to go in more is to make use of the alternates and try to find 30min work out alternatives. Thats roughly my section out of town, and again doing them on perceived effort.

So first things first, try to get at least 45-50+min on the bike when you’re commuting. This will make a huge difference in not only total time per day commuting, but also the fact that your body actually gets quite a bit of stimulus.

If you’re doing only 30min, even if its 1 hour total, its pretty low continuous stress for the body. If you cannot fit it time wise doing one hour to work, maybe you can do 30min to work, but then extend the ride home?

If you are commuting a total of 3-4 hours a week, then it might be enough to do 1-2 hard sessions to add to that, and if you have time, a longer endurance ride on the weekend.