Originally Posted by
elgalad
If you could elaborate a bit I'd love to hear more of what your opinions are (that's not a dig, I'm genuinely interested). You seem to have it together training-wise, and I'm always keen to improve my training.
I'm certainly no training guru, and get all the help I can get. However, IMO, Friel's workouts are geared to the 15+ hr per week rider and adapted down. His base phases seem to me to be ridiculously light on the intensity or assume everyone starting Base 1 has come off a very extended period off.
The "ride lots" mentality works if you can ride LOTS. If not, and you're riding consistently shorter hours (from folks I talk to or hear from, 8-10 seems normal), you could be filling a lot of those "E??" workouts with something that will actually benefit your aerobic "base" - 2 hrs @ L1 is not going to do it - or better put - it's not going to do it nearly as well as a more intense workout, or 4 hours @ L1.
Simply put, what intensities work @ 15-20 hours per week are not going to work as well at 8-10 hours per week (and especially less), but that seems to be the assumption that the Training Bible makes. If I come in doing "by the book" workouts w/15 hours per week and you come in doing the same workouts @ 8 hours per week, one of us will have a bigger aerobic base. If you want to match the next guys training hours without doing all of the same amount of hours, it seems to me that you need to add some intensity (intelligently and incrementally) to replace the time on the bike the other guy has.
Important in this remains good recovery, nutrition, and training load increase.