Doing some "training" in my lunch hour

As part of my work to get fitter and lose weight I have been doing some rides on my MTB in my lunch hour at work. From 40-45 mins in duration at a steady but challenging pace. Amongst the other stuff I do I also like to do a ten mile "time trial" on my mtb on a saturday morning as it gives me something to keep motivated for.
I am wanting to do some stuff in my lunch time rides which will help me make improvements to my time.
I was wondering if doing some basic interval and/or aerobic threshold work would be of any benefit, especially since the sessions are quite short? Really could do with some guidance on this and suggestions of what would be useful. (Indeed, if it is even worth bothering doing this)

My first ideas were:
1. A ten min warm up followed by 20-25 mins (or as many as I can manage) of intervals on 3 mins on 3 mins off basis. At all out effort, then a 10 min warm down.
2. A ten min warm up. 2x10 mins efforts at 90% effort and ending with a 10 min warm down.
3. A ten min warm up with a 1 x 25 min session at say 80-85% effort followed by a ten min warm down

I am also unsure about what sort of intensity to do intervals..Should shorter efforts be all out and longer efforts be more at my "race pace" so to speak.
Thanks ahead
Dan

Definitely some merit in shorter, more intense stuff. I'd stick to one or two sesions of this in the week to begin with, though - it's flippin' hard! BUT it works.

Initial comments on your sessions. Others will have more knowledge, or disagree ... which is fine with me!

3 minutes is a long time for all out effort. It's an admirable target, but build up to it. Start off with a minute on / minute off. You can always add 10 seconds to the intensity or subtract it from the rest to make it harder.

Find a hill and ride up that a few times. Fantastic way of getting fit. Do a timed session (1 minute up the hill, etc) or aim for the same point on the hill each time. It doesn't have to be too steep.

Think about doing a longer steady session with bursts of effort. So, 10 minute warm up, then 3 minutes faster, 3 minutes easy, 2 minutes faster, 2 minutes easy etc.

For the intesity, a heart rate monitor will help, but if you don't have one you can just take your heart rate during the first couple of sessions and you'll get the idea of how hard you need to work to get in the right zone (search for "heart rate zones" or ask here for more details).

And finally, and most importantly make sure you finish the first session. Don't go all out from the start: intervals get harder very quickly.

Oh, and stretch. And don't skip the warm up / down.

Good luck!

Aerobic base is the priority. However, the thing that has given the biggest improvement for me in YEARS has been running a singlespeed (similar to you, mainly a 50 minute lunch dive out).

When the choice is ride or walk, there's no shirking. Even on the easy bits it forces you to spin, which is good for suppleness.

I'm at the point now where my tooled-up hardtail rarely gets ridden.

Do the warm up and then one minute at full whack, then a minute to recover. Now do two minutes in eyeballs on stalks mode and then two minutes to recover. Then three minutes of each, then two and then one.

Or, play red/silver/white car. Ride at a steady rate until you see a car of your chosen colour pass in either direction. Sprint like a mad person until a similarly coloured car happens along. Repeat. Best not to tdo this on a totally deserted road.

when did cycling turn into training ?

just ride . sometimes you pedal hard sometimes you dont

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everything anyone will tell you about training on a bike will have come from here anyway so dont waste time with peoples filtered methods . go to the source