Originally Posted by
oib111
At this point I'm not sure whether I'm looking towards crits vs road races, so I know that's a little limiting in determining what I should be doing. But again, my question is really just at what point (that point being defined in terms of what my big ride mileage is at, or how many weekly miles I'm putting in, etc) should I start adding in things like group rides, the 1 hour max sustainable speed rides chasm54 was talking about, etc into my training and how exactly should I go about that?
There's no point in in increasing distances indefinitely. Who has the time? It's the number of hours per week on the bike that matters. I train for racing, despite being elderly, so it might help you if I give you what I do in a typical (sort of typical, anyway) week. I train with heart rate, having been too mean to invest in a power meter. My maximum heart rate in beats per minute is 186 and my lactate threshold heart rate (LTHR) is 156. the latter is the more useful number if you get serious, but for simplicity I'll give you zones based on MHR and using 10% of MHR per zone. So, Zone 1 is 50%-60% of MHR, z2 is 60%-70% and so on to z5, above 90% or 168bpm.
I spend about 12 hours per week on the bike. Day 1: 4 - 5 hour ride, mostly in z2 but using the hills to get into z3 and, for brief periods, z4. Day 2: recovery ride of about 1 1/2 hours, mostly z1. Day 3: 2-3 hour ride trying to stay in z3 throughout. This takes concentration. Day 4: Recovery ride, same as day 2. Day 5: 1 hour interval session, varying in duration but basically getting the HR up into z4 and z5. if I try to get it into z5 at the start of the session I won't be able to complete the intervals, but it'll be in z5 on the last couple. Day 6: Rest. Day seven. 1 hour recovery ride.
If I have a race I'll switch the schedule around, drop either the z3 or the interval session, and make the day before the race a rest day and the one before that a recovery ride.
Hope this helps.