Originally Posted by
Heathpack
How should I feel after the Time Crunched Cyclist "endurance" intervals? I'm in week two of the century training program and earlier this week my task was to ride three intervals of 8 mins at HR of 160, 4 min rest. I did that on the trainer, with some easy spinning, total ride time about 65 min. It felt really easy and I didn't feel any effect throughout the day (legs not tired). Today I decided to do four of those intervals and I felt good at the end of the fourth so I rode a fifth interval. I don't feel particularly taxed right now either. Aren't intervals supposed to kick my butt? Or is that normal because these are not all-out-efforts intervals (those start next week)? It's entirely possible my test was bad (the one he has you ride to figure out your heart rate targets- it was really windy the day I rode it and I was tired from a long ride the day before. I plan on riding another test tomorrow if I don't feel too much effect of today's intervals). Am I doing this wrong some how?
Thanks,
H
I don't think they should feel that easy. I reviewed my copy ('09) of the TCC. It's a good book, good program. There are some tricksie things with the numbers, which I'll discuss later. I think it's mostly a matter of your first test being inaccurate. If you are well rested, your new test should be better. I like 2 days of rest or at least easy riding before a test.
Be sure to go very hard in your test. It is possible to go very, very hard for only 8 minutes. First of all, you have to already know about how hard, i.e. leg effort, it's supposed to feel. It takes a few tests before you really get that. When I do one of these, it takes maybe 3 minutes of steady effort to ramp up into the anaerobic zone, maybe 5% above my LT, which I already know or think I know. Then I hold that effort, panting hard, until the last 2 minutes, when I ramp it up considerably. The last minute I go really hard, like I'm leading out my sprinter. You should hit very close to your MHR at the end of the test. Going very hard at the end averages your low HR at the beginning of the test, so you might come out somewhat over LT. Maybe. I do these indoors on my rollers to eliminate environmental issues. I then take my average as my LT, rather than being 10% over, because my HR runs lower indoors than outdoors, and for other reasons I'll explain shortly.
You can verify your 8 minute test LT by hitting a long hill and climbing for 20 minutes after an hour of riding. If you blow up, you're over for sure. If you have something left, you're under.
Now for the confusing part. Books like these attempt to be one-size-fits-all. However everyone is different, especially in their ability to recover, and the biggest problem that uncoached athletes have is overtraining. "Overreaching" is the start of overtraining. Thus TCC pitches the training effort a little low to avoid that as much as is reasonable.
He says your test should be ~10% higher than your LT. Take me for example, though my numbers will be lower than yours because I am older. I use a 10 minute test rather than 8, but no difference really. I test at about 149. If that were 10% over, my LTHR would be 135. That's ridiculous. I can climb at 149 for about 20 minutes. I can climb for well over an hour at 142, maybe higher. At 135, I can do multiple pass climbs of over an hour each and have enough left to TT to the finish. I'll sometimes finish a 3 hour group ride with an average HR of 137. BTW, my MHR is about 164, so the LTHR that I use is about 91% of MHR.
Anyway, what I do is base my zones off that 149 and watch closely for overreaching. Thus I'd do SS intervals at ~142-145 or 95%-97% of 149. This works for me. Again, he says I would do them at 137-142, (.92-.95 * 149) which is a little low IMO, but more importantly over what he would take for my LTHR.
You'll know you're overreaching if you can't hit your numbers when you do intervals, but you could hit them in previous sessions. Or if your morning resting heart rate goes up by 6-8 beats. If that happens, take a couple days off or easy days and then try to hit your numbers again. The thing is, you want to walk that knife-edge to get maximum training benefit.
When you do your 3 X 8 SS, you should be breathing fast and deep, some short of maximum fast and deep, which is in turn some short of panting. Hopefully this doesn't make it even more confusing.