I had a 90 min recovery ride to do outdoors today. Took me all day to get on the bike and get it done - sooo boring.
Hey there,
Ideally, in my mind, training shouldn’t be a grind – it should be something we choose to do because we enjoy it – even if it’s hard to do in the moment at times.
I know you mentioned having an event on your calendar already, but don’t fall for the sunk cost fallacy if you’re not enjoying your training and feel like you need a break. If you need a few months off, there’s nothing wrong with that – you can always get back into it in the future if you start to feel some motivation for it again!
Move somewhere with more interesting roads and scenery
This spring training and riding were starting to feel like a grind so I made a couple changes over the summer.
The biggest change was switching to masters plans. I move the Saturday intensity day to Thursday and make it an hour rather than 90 minutes. Then my weekends are solo or group rides with no structure. I typically only commit to one weekend ride now but might do a second if I feel like it.
More recently I’ve also switched to low volume and am doing other things; running, hiking, SUP, and simply chores around the house I’ve been putting off. It was raining Saturday so I didn’t do anything productive and watched a movie in the middle of the day 
I’m much fresher on the bike and really enjoying riding a lot more lately.
I think the most useless term coined is “junk miles”. Oh, don’t do junk miles, they are irrelevant!
There’s no such a thing. If you are tired of intervals, chasing powers, etc. Just ride for fun. The most important thing is riding a bike. The way you’ll do it doesn’t really matter.
Ride on!
IMO, junk miles just means rides that don’t help you with your overall goal. Usually for people who have a long endurance ride on the calendar and then ride too hard in the hills or with a group that then leaves them too tired to properly do their intervals later in the week.
But if your goal is to get out riding and enjoy doing it. Then those kinds of rides can be perfect.
I remember a passage in The Ciclys’t Training Bible that says: “If you don’t have a goal, don’t go ride”, something like this, can’t recall the exact words. And that’s such bad advice.
As you said, if you’re cool with just riding along, do it. But I get your point. If you have high goals, intervals and hard work are inevitable. Balance, as always, is the key IMO.
Agree to a point (if it’s strictly about training/physiology/adaptation/etc.). But I do like having a clear (honest with myself) goal for any ride. And a valid goal can be to unwind/recharge with friends with zero structure or expectations. For me, knowing why I’m riding makes me feel good about it afterwards (no guilt for junk miles). There is nothing wrong with “junk miles” as long as your eyes are wide open about how they might affect your other training and you are OK with the tradeoffs. Even the pros who are paid to be fast are out there smashing group rides that may not be the best to drive fitness. But the mental side can’t be ignored and will ultimately help fitness if a good balance is maintained.
And if a bunch of “junk miles” drives a lot more volume, that will probably put you in a better place than dramatically lower volume of structure. I’m not talking 12 hours of junk vs. 10 hours of structure, but if you can push 800 tss per week with a bunch of junk miles, you are probably going to build a bigger engine compared to pushing 400 tss per week doing nothing but structure.
Very precise and 100% in agreement. Your goals don’t need to be 3x10 - 100%. A group or fun ride is an excellent goal.
Some of the best training sessions I’ve had are on days I’m like ‘NOT THIS AGAIN!!’. I’ve never regretted a training session. I may feel like I’m dragging myself kicking and screaming to them, but feel so good afterwards, it’s no question: Do it!
Ahh, but if it’s feeling like a grind consistently: mix it up. I had a short term project that required me to be somewhere at 8AM and was usually leaving after dark (it was in the winter) so I would wake up early, drop a DVD in the player, watch the movie, then all the extras over a couple of days. I found the mixup of the various movies interesting, and the extras interesting. I also tried letting Apple Music shuffle my whole collection as I was riding and discovered (rediscovered) ‘new’ music that I didn’t know I had. I’ve also done audio-books, and reading ebooks too. Usually though, lately anyway, I get lost in the music and thinking about problems I’ve got around the house, etc.
I joke that I’m a lab rat on a treadmill (or bike) working for a food pellet, so I seem to be able to get in a groove and just do it, but have needed entertainment at times. (Back when I was running, I told myself that I had to run to be able to eat and drink again. Sounds silly, but it worked. Fuel in, energy out)