Help me do up a training schedule

[patmahe]

Hi all,

Firstly let me say I'm a bit dim when it comes to the world of cycling, but I do know that in my youth I used to enjoy it (22 miles 4 times a week on my rickety old MTB with bad brakes).

I have sucessfully, over the 'Summer' lost just over a stone, mainly by walks with the GF etc... but now the evenings are closing in and its getting a bit colder I can see this falling by the wayside, also I get bored easily with excercise so want to change things around a bit to keep it interesting.

So my hopes for the winter are as follows:

By the end of March 2009 be capable of cycling 40 miles, a combination of up/down and flat road biking.

I have borrowed an excercise bike (is that a dirty word in here?) which I intend to use on the dark cold evenings (during the working week) and then I hope to do a bit of a proper cycle during daylight hours every second weekend (I'm away alternating weekends)

So I have about 24 weeks to reach my target and I'm looking for advice from the knowledgable bikers on PH on how to achieve it.

Bear in mind:
- I'm very unfit
- Currently weigh just under 15 stone
- Would like the program to help me lose weight and gain fitness (or maybe target weight for a while and then fitness?)
- Like I said I get bored easily so suggestions on keeping it interesting are very welcome
- How many sessions a week are reasonable?
- What sort of distance/time is reasonable to set aside for it?
- Also silly things like whats good cycling music to keep me going on the excercise bike.
- Excercise bike has 10 resistance settings and a heart monitor (might help vary things a bit)

Sorry about the long post, all help/suggestions welcome

ETA: if anyone has a link to a website that helps with this sort of thing it would be most welcome too.

Edited by patmahe on Tuesday 16th September 14:19

[Gooby]

Gooby said:

try this

[patmahe]

Cheers Gooby

[bigandclever]

This might be of some motivational help... I'm led to believe that a good rule of thumb is if you add up the number of miles you do during a week, then that is the number of miles you can comfortably do in one day.

So if you're aiming to do a 40 mile trip, then perhaps making a target of doing (say) 8 miles on M, Tu, Th, Fr, Sun might be much more manageable in the early days.

Or even easier... 3 miles a day for a week gives you 21 miles so you're over half way of your 40 mile target. Each week, extend each day by just 1/2 a mile and you'll be at 40 miles in your 6th week. Easy!

Ultimately, though, the more time you spend in the saddle the easier it becomes

Edited by bigandclever on Thursday 18th September 16:17