One man training?
 

I have set out to get better, smoother, & faster on the bike. At 56 years old I'll never be what I once was but I can be better than I am. I seem to end up riding /training by myself a lot due to work schedules, ride locations and time schedules. I am blessed to have 300 acres of single track right out the shop door so if I can stay healthy I can wear the bike out right here at home. I scramble my loops + run them backwards for realistic speeds & so I don't get 'track smart'
Currently I am using an I-Phone app that GPS tracks my pace, time & distance and it Bluetooths to my Scala Rider headset on my helmet so it 'coaches' me every minute as to my elapsed time, speed average & distance. I also use it to coach me on my power walks through the woods. (+ I get to listen to my music in the background). I realize the safety aspect of riding hard by myself, so I let the wife know my loop and come by the house regularly so she has an idea of when & where to come looking for me should I get off schedule. Currently I have set a walk goal of 4mph for 2+ hours, last walk was 3.7mph for 1 hour & 15 minutes. This is following my single track loops so not on a flat track and some of the climbs are brutal:eek: My riding goal is to just get faster for longer, currently managing to go 1 hour & 15 minutes at a 13.7mph average as reported by the tracking app. This includes my slip ups, lay downs, and 'kill the bike/restart moments'. I'm hoping that seat time & endurance will get me smoother and eliminate mistakes. 1st riding goal is 2+ hours at a 15mph pace and then work up from there.
My question....are these realistic goals? What is a good speed & elapsed time to work towards? Any body have tips to stay 'pushing' during solo rides? Other than using your buddies to push yourself, what do you use? I'd love to hear other people's ideas & techniques. I'm not looking to go 'pro' and I do mostly hare scrambles of 1-2 hours in length. I'm going to do most if not all the remaining National Enduros so I'll get some long ride days currently a C50+ class rider. Let's hear some ideas & techniques..:D

Just get back to basics Fred. Sounds like you have some fantastic technology at your disposal there, and good tracks close by to practice and test yourself on too. Regarding your goals, using an average speed vs time is only a good benchmark against itself, for a certain loop on a certain day. If you had a buddy or someone you wanted to be as fast as you could time them and then set milestones to achieve to get you to that level. If you just want to better yourself then you're going about it the right way.

Back to where I started, basics. The times you slip, trip, drop, pucker, feel nervous, etc are the hints that these are your weaker attributes. Work on them. Start out small/slow and let your confidence build and the pace will follow. If its just your style and form gets sloppy as you fatigue, then like you said, setting times/endurance targets will help improve in that aspect which will then see better form for longer equating to better overall times.

I've never been one to really push the boundaries of anything though. I take it slow until I'm confident and then things become second nature. I've always felt that rushing or trying too hard to achieve leads to uneccessary mistakes. Be it in the workshop, on the trail, or at work. Same principals apply.

You sound like you are push quite hard, be careful with that. Here is a good article to try and keep your training in check.
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/overt...#axzz2NcmfbJUs

You need to ride with people faster than you, and sometimes the easiest way to do that is just race. There will always be someone that is close in speed and either pushes you, or motivates you to push him. Epic battles develop and are worth more than trophies sometimes. I find riding alone does not produce results, as "what if" is always in the back of my head.


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Riding with someone faster than you gets you out of your "comfort" zone and makes you push harder.

This sure works for my youngest son chasing his older brother!
Last season the younger son won a state championship in H/S & Enduro.

Good Luck!

You most likely are not over-training, but a good way to monitor this is to keep an eye on your resting heart rate. Do an internet search and you will find tons of information on using heart rate to train.

Let me start this by saying "for me" because everybody has a different optimal training routine...everybody. You need to get to know your body before you can accurately build your training program.

For example, twenty years ago I was a pretty darn good competitor, mountain bike, road bike, triathlons, dirt bikes, BMX, running. I could attack, push my heart rate well north of 200bpm, hold it there for a good duration and recover then attach again.

Well two years ago my wife convinced me to start racing again so I trained and I went at it like I used to...and discovered that physiologically I am not the same person that I was twenty years ago. I know most people would say "no shit" but I had stayed very active and in good shape since I last raced and what had really changed for me was the window for my optimum power output. I could no longer attack, redline my heart rate and recover. I just blew up and dropped off the lead pack.

So I put the heart rate monitor back on and realized that I now have a maximum viable heart rate limit of about 190bpm and that was only good for a minute or sos. I also discovered that I could hold 174bpm for a really long stretch, but that was it...not 175bpm for a long stretch. 174bpm was me "holdong on the boards" so to spreak, that was my new red line.

Once I figured that out I got an idea for what my body now felt like when it was putting out maximum sustainable exertion and that is where I raced. I would allow for a very short burst (usually off the start or when passing) of 190bpm, but I would immediately pull it back down. I also started riding my own race (at 174bpm) to not put myself in a position to blow up and be unable to recover.

So all of this is my long-winded way of saying get a heart rate monitor, a mtb or road bike for aerobic training, and simple strength training routine with a bow-flex or dumbbells. These things combined with riding your dirt bike for FUN will bring you the best results.

Once you figure out how your body feels when you are at your aerobic red line you can work on pushing yourself to that point on your dirt bike, but PLEASE don't push yourself like this alone. When you are at your max things can get ugly really fast.

Here is a quick link to a chart that will get you in the right ball park for your age. I didn't read the rest of the article, but the chart looks right:
http://mizfitonline.com/2010/07/29/t...ng-guest-post/

And I guess you should check with your doctor before you start any aerobic training routine to make sure that your heart can handle it....Steve Larson was an uber-athlete and he dropped dead of a massive heart attach while doing his normal training routine, so I guess this could happen to any of us:
http://www.examiner.com/article/supe...sen-dies-at-39

Good advice and thanks to all for your time, I'll give them a try. Looking for a regular riding partner, but no luck so far. Haven't find anyone yet with similar schedule/time gap