With the weather being up or down. There are times when you don’t want to ride outside due to the rain, cold or even restricted by time. If you chose to opt out of that weekly long ride you will be pausing your progress and the stronger the base developed during the winter months then the higher you will be able to push your threshold come the season.

Here are a couple of simple ways to break down that long turbo session:

Incremental increases: break the session down into either time or distance. Look to then increase your effort / speed each increase of distance or time. Start below your long ride pace and make the last effort above your race pace.

Chase the song: if you listen to music then this is a great one. Set a achievable distance which you think you can ride in 4mins (2 – 2.5km for example). Look to cycle that distance per song. If you cover it – great, wait for the next song and start again. However, if the song finishes before you’ve covered the set distance, you have to add that additional distance onto the next song & so you now need to cycle a little bit quicker to cover the new distance – similar to the change in pace whilst riding

Time: riding the turbo is harder than riding out on the road. There maybe no virtual hills or wind, but at the same time your wont get the benefit of free wheeling down hills to recover or drafting behind someone. Therefore every peddle stroke will be quality so you should look to do between 50-75% of the time you’d normally spend on the road to help replicate the effort you would put in during a ride outside

Dry clothes: have spare kit so that you can change your jersey / top after 20-30mins. Wearing a fresh top makes you feel better. Changing your towel also will make you feel better – just

Food & drink: reward yourself every 5-10mins with a drink. Alternate your sips from a carb based drink and electrolyte drink. Look to have a gel every 15mins from 45mins. If you are riding over 90mins make sure you eat a bar around 60mins like you would on the road