Please help me to do something very silly

Whenver you finish work, jump om a gravel/road bike and get a short spin in. I got out for 90 mins or so last night, got 35k in around mixture of roads and local trails. Going for a ride doesn't have to be a big thing where you have to find loads of time, an hour is still worthwhile - find a short loop and do it regularly to build up. Fit in longer stuff when you can. Evening are long right now, take advantage of that.

Have you got a smart turbo trainer....? Possibly the greatest thing for time crunched training.

Most of my hardest efforts are on the trainer, and then I ride outdoors for recovery and fun

Any chance of cycling to/from work?

Wasn't there someone on this forum who set up a desk over a treadmill? Molgrips or Hols or someone?

If you're as out of shape as you say (and 10 months of very low activity at around 50 years old will do it) then I'd be starting with 20-30 minute rides for the first 2 weeks and build up from there. No sprinting!!

I work stupidly long hours and have seized up from 10 months sat peering at a monitor in a soul-sucking corporate role.

I'd change that for starters. There must be another option - work your contracted hours, learn to say no, live on less income, take your breaks and do something positive in them. Basically anything other than becoming another grey man locked in the cube farm.

I had proper flu in October '21 for three weeks, having had a fitness rollercoater year with not great reactions to my first and second covid vaccine jabs in spring and summer, plus having a similar rubbish experience for two weeks with my booster just before Xmas. In November, I thought my days of getting remotely close to my Strava segment times since 2017 were over. I was struggling to do ~170W for 20mins, when I was able to do ~275W before the flu.

From 1st November, I cycled indoors or outdoors for at least 30mins a day, until Jan '22 mostly z1/2 with just one ~30min Zwift race effort most weeks. From Jan-Mar '22 I steadily increased how many short sub 25min Zwift races I was doing (sometimes doing three sub 15min races back to back on Thursday lunchtimes months before Zwift Insider Tiny Races came along), often not riding tactically out of the wind, but being at the front of groups while trying to increase how long I could sustain 300W+.

When the outdoor season started in March until catching covid in late September, I was beating my best segment times for fun or coming a very close second, even getting the odd surprising top 10 aged 49. I was probably capable of 4W/Kg for 20mins in early summer, but on paper I finished a Zwift race in 18mins30secs.

If I can do it, anyone can.

I prepped for a couple of bigger rides by:

- cycling at least 3-5 times a week, often though just an hour and deliberately keep myself out of breath.
- run twice a week, building up to 5k.
- do stretches / yoga / 10 sit ups & 10 press ups as a warm down from every bit of exercise.
- if the weather was particularly crap or I was particularly tired, I did this instead:

Within 8 weeks I could feel and time the benefit

– if the weather was particularly crap or I was particularly tired, I did this instead:

☺️

Just ride your bike from now to Autumn - that's all you need to do. Cross is 40 mins - 1 hr, depending on age, is great fun and a very welcoming scene. Guarantee you won't be last in your first cyclocross race.

You don't need to worry about any running or cross specific stuff - it's not important when you start, and sustained running is actually pretty rare in cross (it's never part of course design, but can happen with very bad weather).

Bigger picture you should lift weights if you're desk-bound.

Good luck 💪🏻
(Apologies if I’m teaching granny to suck eggs here)

I think you’re looking at it the wrong way. Instead of training for November and being disappointed, aim for the end of the season instead (Feb maybe?). That way you can look at November and December races as extensions of training 😀

It’s easy to over-complicate things with a plan. but I do think there’s merit in being aware of the basic principles.

1. The principle of specificity says you need to train more like your event the closer you get to it.

2. You get fitter by applying a load and then recovering from it. If work is stressful that could limit what you can absorb.

3. Consistency is most important.

4. The only 3 training levers available are frequency, duration and intensity. Worry about them in that order (see 3 above).

So firstly set out a season. Start with February races and work backwards. You have 35 weeks that way 🎉

Most plans work on 26 weeks or so to reach a peak- that gives you an extra two months to just get the habits formed and a routine going.

Set up your training week. A rough structure of day off, hard day, easy day, hard day, day off, hard day, easy day for example. This will stay basically unchanged right through.

For those first two months, just do something, anything, on those days. I broke both my legs in 2020 and put on two stone. My Z2 became my FTP 😭 It’s crap but it’s fun seeing fast progress.

On time crunched plans- you really can’t afford to cross train so just ride. People over-complicate stuff with weights and stretching and blah blah 🥱 😴 you don’t have time. Riding your bike will take care of your core.
Get out of breath on ‘hard’ days but change to bottom gear on hills on ‘easy’ days and always be able to talk!

Skills and body weight are both huge factors in CX. Use this first two months to shed as much excess weight as possible. It will likely get harder to do when you’re doing HIIT sessions and races later on.

Do at least one day of skills every week. Sometimes on a hard intensity day, sometimes on an easy day. On ‘easy’ skills days you’ll be fresh enough to learn new movement patterns. On ‘hard’ skills days you’ll learn to throw the bike around whilst seeing stars 🤣

Whilst you can fake CX with interval training, you don’t currently have a base. Taking the time to build one is therefore going to be worth it. Even more so looking ahead to the 24/25 season.

Beyond that, just use principle 1 to guide you. Summer is perfect for base building- I think CX riders are on to a winner with that.

So in the first month or two of proper training, the ‘hard’ days will consist of steady pressure on the pedals for the entire session. Work on a range of cadences and don’t be afraid to do some high torque but choose rides that allow you to be on the gas for long periods of time. Endurance means ‘press on the pedals for lots of minutes in a row continuously’ not ‘easy’ 😉 Ideally you’ll do a ride 2x the length of your CX races each week.

Then, in September, those endurance rides become your ‘easy’ days and your ‘hard’ days need to be much more CX like. Maxxed HR for the session but lots of short spikey power. Being time crunched, these should prob be as specific as possible. Hard sprints on grass for example.

Then you’ll be in to race season so that will be your intensity. One skills day in the week, even if just doing fig 8’s under a street light outside your house will help you practice weaknesses and everything else will basically be recovery for the next race.
Any spare moments, throw in more intervals or Zwift racing as hard sessions but only if work and life allow you to recover for the next race.

And that’s it. Simples 😀

Oh and keep the thread going for accountability. Telling strangers on a forum what you’re going to do and whether you’ve done it is great motivation.

Have you ridden CX before? Finding a coach (local club?) to help you get some CX specific skills like mount/dismount, muddy cornering, when to get off and run, the best gear for massive mud bath etc will make a big difference to using whatever physical strength you have.

one of my team does some of his call on the turbo - fairly gently riding.  Works fine for the sort of call where you just need to receive information rather than actively participate  - even then he can’t go flat out as you can’t really absorb the info.   They’re a couple of runners who make a point of having a proper lunch break and going to get 5k in 2/3 times a week.  We welcome/encourage this - in fact if I could find a way I’d make it mandatory to leave your desk during lunch and go outside.

And this is why I love Singletrack and have been an avid forum reader (more than poster) for ... ahem ... 20 years now!

So much good stuff here folks, thank you. And particular thanks to @Crosshair for both some great advice, but also a fantastic way to reframe the time available to me. Love it.

I'm getting a new boss on UK time next month, so I'm hopeful that will help a little on the work front - but for all sorts of reasons, I am trapped in that job for the medium-term as part of a deal with the devil for the greater good. At least, I hope there will be a greater good.

And also, yay for an Abi Carver video - really good thought there. Thank you.

A cyclo-cross season will hone your fitness!!!

Start the race dead last and psychologically things can only get better 👊🏻

Accept you're old and remind everyone how much better you used to be.

I've found gym work pretty beneficial when time is in short supply . Nothing ridiculous , kettle bells and some bar work twice a week  seems to keep the legs in reasonable condition by my standards.

If you have a plan and know what your doing you can get a decent workout in a reasonably short space of time .

Wasn’t there someone on this forum who set up a desk over a treadmill? Molgrips or Hols or someone?

I DO NOT own a treadmill!!!

The treadmill is the epitomic metaphor for the job you are trying to escape; psychologically, no good can come from running but never escaping those four walls.

1. I'm trying to keep my job.
2. I ****ing HATE running.

Little and often is the key, any chance you can pop a 30 minute session in before or after work on a regular basis. I may have recently bought a cross bike - full on race bike, not a gravel bike. I'm 'not' intending to race, but I feel I'll be under pressure as one of my mates loves his cross races.

As above, do your had work on a turbo trainer (great tool for the time crunched, as you can jump and be done in 40 minutes) and then leave your Zone 2 for outdoors, I tend to do 3-4 turbo sessions a week, and one evening and a long ride sunday outdoors, i then do 2x body weight strength workouts and yoga from Abi above 3-4 times a week in lunch hour.

Wahoo SYSTM is good, as it has specific training plans and you set event date as end date for plan, and you can add in Yoga with Abi and strength training as part of the plan.

Plus if it is training for CX specifically, then I would spend time working on VO2 max, not just FTP, over/unders and that type of work, with increasing periods working above FTP

I think you’ve made the right decision with cyclocross.

Unlike other forms of road or xc racing you’re basically just racing yourself and everyone is there to have a great time.

So firstly, just turn up for the first race you can regardless of how you have perceived your training as going up to this point.

Secondly follow crosshair’s advice.

You got this champ! 💪