It was a quick ramp up this Spring when we went from the 1st weekend of races being cancelled right into the entire Spring being scrubbed. The majority of the riders I have talked to have quickly and enthusiastically accepted that the decisions that were made were the correct ones, and they all anxiously await the return to normalcy.

If you are like all of the cyclists I work with, you trained hard throughout the Winter and you do not want to see you hard earned form go to waste. There are several things you can do to maintain your form through this period of uncertainty:

1. Try to set up a weekly schedule that you can rely on and repeat. Our bodies do well with consistent training patterns, and you will maximize your training effect with such a schedule.
2. Stay focused on riding even if you have to step back from hard training. Riding is a great stress reliever, and keeping yourself active will help you better manage other areas of your life.
3. If you cannot cope with a full training week then focus on 1 or 2 tough workouts in the week, and do you best to get through those sessions.
4. If you do not feel you have the mental focus to work at the intensity level you were doing in your Winter buildup then drop the intensity by 5% – 10% on the tough workouts and continue onward.
5. Consider using an indoor trainer for your tough sessions as it is easier to control the intensity level, and the environment. Then get outside – solo of course – for your endurance and recovery rides.
6. Set a Fall goal of a ride / race / trip that you can focus on to help keep you motivated to train.
7. Spend some time cleaning your bikes! I went absolutely crazy on 4 cassettes the other day. They are now spotless, and will function better because of the time spent.

This is new territory for all of us. With a little work and scheduling you can come out on the others side, whenever that happens to be, with solid form. With that solid form you will be able to quickly ramp up your efforts to get yourself into race shape!