By Fred Matheny for www.RoadBikeRider.com
We shouldn’t feel excessive admiration for pro racers who log 600-mile
weeks. They have plenty of time to ride and recover—that’s their job. The real
heroes are people like you, who find time to ride while still having a life away
from the bike.
Full-time work, family commitments and cycling can be efficiently
interwoven into your busy day. All it takes to schedule everything into 24 hours
is maximum use of time-budgeting techniques.
Here’s where to look for time slots that can accommodate your love for
riding:
Riding your bike to work or school and back may be the best way to create
time cycling time.
When you commute by bike, time
normally spent sitting in a car is used productively as part of the
training day. An eight-mile ride to work or school takes about 30 minutes each
way. Even if you do no other riding, that’s still an hour of cycling each
weekday. The trip home can be lengthened as much as time, daylight and energy
allow.
Another benefit is arriving at your
job refreshed and alert. It may be tough to get up earlier for the ride in, but
the physical and mental lift of exercise will carry you through that 10 a.m.
letdown that your sedentary colleagues experience. Then you ride home, clearing
cobwebs and blowing away job-related frustrations. You’re refreshed and ready
for evening responsibilities or family fun.
Use a small backpack to carry clothes, lunch and papers. A waist strap helps eliminate swaying and bouncing as you ride.
Keep a pair of shoes at work so you don’t have their weight and sharp edges in the pack. Take the week’s clothes to work on Monday morning and shuttle them home Friday afternoon, or whatever arrangement fits your situation.
Clean up in the restroom with a lightly soaped washcloth. Meanwhile, get coworkers interested in commuting and lobby your boss to install a shower.
Dress in your office if it has a door. If not, use the restroom or a storage room.
Play on the way home. Scout out a longer route and ride for an hour or more as time and commitments allow. Do intervals, time trials, or hit the hills hard to get a great workout while you’re homeward bound.
If commuting simply won't work for you, here are two popular options:
Consider an early-morning workout. By the middle of March it’s usually
light enough to get in a ride before work. At dawn there are few cars on the
road and the day is brightening every minute.
Getting up in the pre-dawn hour may be the ultimate test of whether you
really want to ride. Roll out of bed the minute the alarm rings and don’t think
about anything. The longer you lie there moaning about how early it is, the
harder it is to extricate yourself from the sheets.
Sleep loss is the biggest risk.
Make up the deficit with an earlier bedtime because it’s vital to get enough
rest. Lack of sleep can lead to deep fatigue and poor performance in everything
you do.
If your schedule prohibits riding most of the day, try from 9 to 10 or
10:30 p.m. For most people, the kids are in bed, the chores around the house
complete, and you’re probably wasting time watching TV.
To make this work, eat a moderate dinner at 6 or 7 p.m., allowing the
food to digest by riding time. As an additional benefit this provides motivation
not to overeat.
Riding in the dark used to be
dangerous because lights were poor. You couldn’t see road hazards clearly, and
motorists couldn’t see you. Modern lighting systems make night riding safer,
but it’s still smart to use lighted parks or suburban streets if they’re
available.
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