Indoor Season Is Our Head Start!
Clocks fall back on November 1st, and for many of us in the Northern Hemisphere that means dark mornings, dark evenings and a bike that suddenly lives on a trainer. I hear it every year from athletes: “I just can’t get motivated to ride inside.” That’s OK! But as a coach, I also see what happens in the spring to the athletes who found a way to make the indoor season work, and to the ones who didn’t.
Here’s a thought for many of us: The indoor season isn’t something to survive, but rather something to use!
So what does that look like for those of us juggling jobs, families and 5 a.m. alarms? Here are some ideas that work.
Set the Stage
The fastest way to skip a ride is to make it hard to start. Bike on the trainer, fan aimed at us (yes, a big one!), towel, bottles and sweat guard ready to go. If it takes 15 minutes to set up, we’ll find a reason not to. Make it a 30-second walk from the coffee pot to the saddle.
Good Music
This one is simple but real. A playlist built for the session - something steady for the endurance work, something with a little more punch for the intervals. It’s amazing how a good song can carry us through the last two minutes of a threshold effort!
Something to Watch
TV, a movie, YouTube, or even better, swim/bike/run races, live or recorded. Watching the best in the world suffer while we’re suffering has a way of putting things in perspective (and the hour goes by a lot faster). Save the easy rides for the movies and the race replays for the harder days.
Ride With Others
Group rides online have changed the indoor game. Platforms like Zwift let us jump into an organized ride at almost any hour, and there’s nothing like a group to keep us honest. Even better, set a time to meet and ride with friends online. When someone is expecting us to show up, we show up!
Ride the Race Course
If we know where we’re racing next year, why not ride it now? Rouvy, for example, has real course video for many races. Learning where the climbs are, where the turns come and how long that “short” hill really is gives us a head start that’s hard to get any other way.
Same Climb, New Numbers
Pick a repeatable course - Alpe du Zwift is a great one - and ride it every few weeks. Same climb, same conditions, no wind, no traffic. If our time drops or our watts go up at the same heart rate, that’s fitness we can see. Don’t believe me? Ride it now and again in six weeks. I’m willing to bet you’ll be surprised.
A New Route Every Time
On the other side, some of us need novelty. If that’s you, ride somewhere new every session. There are more online routes out there than any of us will ever finish, so let curiosity do some of the work.
Work the Skills
The trainer is the perfect place to work on the things we tend to ignore outside. Standing efforts. High cadence. And one of my favorites, Low BRO: Low RPM, Big Ring Only. It’s strength work on the bike and it shows up in the spring on every climb and every headwind.
Know the Why
Every ride should have a purpose before we clip in: which energy system, which zone, and why today. “I’m getting on the trainer” isn’t a session. “45 minutes in Zone 2 with three 5-minute Zone 4 efforts” is. When the session has a why, the motivation tends to follow.
Heat Training Head Start
Before we head back outside, the indoor season is a great time to execute a heat training program. Racing in the summer heat starts with getting our body ready for it, and a controlled environment inside is the safest place to build that. Hydrate well, build gradually, and talk with your coach first (or check out our Heat Training page to learn more about the why and the how).
Now, life gets in the way. Travel, work, kids, the holidays - some weeks the trainer just won’t happen, and that’s OK! The goal isn’t perfection, but instead consistency over the long haul. Pick two or three of these that fit our life, track how often we’re riding, and build from there. And don’t go overboard either. Three or four good rides a week inside will do far more for us than forcing seven and burning out by January.
The athletes who show up strong in the spring didn’t love every minute on the trainer. They just found a reason to keep getting on it.
Indoor season isn’t the off-season. It’s our head start!
Gratefully,
Mark
Team MPI
