Are You Up For It?

How much cycling have you done in the last 12 months? Be honest. Why do you ride? For the camaraderie of being on the road with your mates, for fitness, for weight loss/management, for down time, for solo time, to get out the city, a bit of all of the above?

How disciplined are you/could you be when it comes to training? Quick survey:

It’s 10.30pm on Friday night, you’re coming to the end of a boozy dinner and your mates suggest continuing. You:

  1. think “fuck it”, go big and get up at 5.30am and ride in pain for 3 hours, scoopingup some PBs due to the elevated sugar and carb level
  2. go out with them for a couple more then leave them to continue before it gets too messy and do your Saturday ride
  3. think “fuck it”, go big and lie in

 

  • It’s 5.30am on a Tuesday morning, you look out the window and it’s chucking it down. You:
  1. head out anyway
  2. get up, stretch and do core work for an hour instead
  3. switch the alarm off and go back to sleep

 

  • You’re on a business trip overseas for a week. You:
  1. Conduct sprint repeats up the fire escape to the 30th floor each morning
  2. take your bike as check-in and ride every morning as per your normal routine
  3. take a week off

 

  • You’re on a group ride, it’s supposed to be your recovery ride when three of your buddies announce that they’re gonna smash it today. You:
  1. Think “bring it on” and answer the call of the twitchy legs
  2. tell them it’s your recovery ride and stick to a tempo rhythm, letting them ride off into the distance
  3. Head home alone and leave them to it

 

  • It’s Friday night and you’ve had an exhausting week of work dinners, back to back appraisals and quarterly reports and have a weekend of kids’ birthdays and Ikea coming up. You:
  1. Set the alarm for 4.30am to make sure you can still get 100ks in before brekkie
  2. Keep the alarm at 6.30am and head out for a quick hour anyhow
  3. Collapse into your bed, disconnecting all phones and any device with an alarm

 

Results:

 

All a)s: you’re ready

All b)s: you’re getting there

All C)s: Naaaa, don’t bother

 

Assess your current fitness level and weigh up your work, family and social commitments for the next few months and make a realistic call whether you can commit to knuckling down.

 

Are you able to commit every week to a certain number of hours building up your base, your endurance, your strength and your core/body?