Hi,

Mum is still worrying about how much time is reasonable to spend on a bike at my age (16). This week it'll probably be around 8.5 hours. I'm going to cut it back a bit though I think because I'm feeling a bit tired now and also need the time to revise for GCSEs (groan!!). Any advice greatly appreciated. Thank-you,

Pluto

Hi Pluto,
I'm not a doctor or anything, but I don't reckon you're overdoing it for your age as long as you feel ok and listen to your body. At 16, girls are pretty much fully developed usually. I know I was.
When I was 14-16 I got quite in to running and used to run every morning before school. I felt great on it and full of energy. If I felt tired I'd have a morning off. My mum always winged at me that I was over-doing it.

I'm now 26 and all grown up and left home and bought my own house, and much more in to mountain biking than running. My mum still thinks I do too much when she sees me after I've been out for a hard ride. She once suggested I give up biking and "keep fit by doing the garden"! Needless to say I didn't follow her suggestion.

I think no matter what your age, mums will always worry for your wellbeing. Sometimes this is a good thing, sometimes it's over protective. Your mum/parents must be reasonably supportive if they're taking you to races though?

Good luck with your revision too, and don't give up the biking completely. Getting out will really help to clear your head and relax you between the cramming sessions!

Really sorry for the delay... hectic last month with training camp, then revision, revision and more revision for my postgrad exams... arrrrggghhh! Thankfully all over and done with now so I can actually get on with writing some replies! Thanks for being patient.

It sounds like you're already being very sensible. Carry on listening to your body; if you feel tired take it easy for a few days.

As you're young and healthy there really shouldn't be any problems but if you suffer long term/severe tiredness, loose large amounts of weight or develop very light or missed periods back off the training and consult your GP as you could be overdoing things.

As a quick bit of amateur psychology is your mum possibly worrying a little about the amount of time on the bike versus time revising? In which case continuing cycling acts as an excellent escape to unwind during exams - as I'm sure Kim will agree ;)

Hi,
I wouldn't worry too much on how much you are doing. When i was at your age i was doing a lot more. At the age of 15 i was racing long enduros kona 100s and HONC which one yr took me 9 hrs. The Talent team are working the riders hard too. Women these days are too worried about training, you'll be surprised on how much your body can cope with.

As long as you rest when you feel you need to I think that sounds very reasonable, or maybe have a 2nd activity you enjoy to intersperse with biking once in a while. Didn't you say you went running the other day and enjoyed it? I did organised sports at your age and we trained for 2 hours a day after school every weekday. So that was 10 hours. I also usually did something on the weekend too, either tennis or swimming or something. And that in addition to an hour a day required gym class at school. (I don't know what PE requirements are like here in England, in the US, or Illinois at least, it was required activity every day until you finished school at 17/18.)

PE requirements suck here. It's, like, an hour a week. If the actual requirement is more, it's not being followed by most primary schools. That's not to say that there aren't schools that do a much better job than that though, just few and far between in my stomping grounds, which is a shame as most of the kids I teach don't have much space for running around at home (not to mention that they certainly have energy and aggression to burn). :-(

We have to do 2 hours of PE up till the age of 16. Sigh... In the sixth form there's no actually lessons although I think you can go and use the fitness room whenever you want but God, is that boring. Also you never get to choose what you do- like it might be something rubbish like volleyball that the teachers can't teach and none of us know how to play.

By the way thanks for all the advice!!