Originally Posted by
vinnyvincent
Phenomenal advice so far guys, keep it coming! I feel like I'm much more educated in this subject now and some answers have given me search words to use to find some really good articles.
So what do some of you think a typical beginner-intermediate training week should look like? Here's what I am thinking:
Sun: 1 hour of lower intensity. Enough the get to breathing fast and feel a little burn, but that's it.
Mon: 30 mins of moderate intensity. Something I can maintain the whole half hour, but would not be able to maintain for a full hour.
Tue: rest
Wed: 30 mins of high intensity sprint intervals
Thu: 1.5 hours of lower intensity. Enough the get to breathing fast and feel a little burn, but that's it.
Fri: 30 mins of moderate intensity. Something I can maintain the whole half hour, but would not be able to maintain for a full hour.
Sat: rest
What do you think?
I think, ridiculous. On the basis of what you have told us so far, you couldn't sustain this. Your Monday, Wednesday and Friday sessions are all high intensity - a 30 minute threshold onterval, which is what you are talking about on Monday and Friday, is not "moderate". And the Sunday and Thursday sessions are not low intensity if you feel "burn".
Experienced trainers with thousands of miles in their legs tend to do only a couple of high-intensity sessions a week, because if they do them hard enough they need more than 24 hours to recover and get stronger. So they'll spend about 80% of their time on the bike going quite easily.
You're a beginner, a training schedule like this won't make you fit, it'll just make you tired. Don't overthink this, just spend as much time as you can - much more than the four hours you are suggesting here - on your bike at a manageable pace. You'll find that your endurance, and your cruising speed for a given effort, will improve. After another couple of months, start building in some harder efforts. When you go hard, go VERY hard but keep it brief. And don't schedule two hard sessions for successive days.