Originally Posted by
asgelle
You may want to consider what Alex Simmons had to say on the subject.
Anaerobic adaptation
"Keep in mind that recovery from any effort or efforts, no matter how hard, is a wholly aerobic process. And that the higher your sustainable aerobic power (i.e. threshold), the less deep you go when you do "surge", and when pace settles back down the further below threshold you will be, meaning recovery of oxygen deficit and anaerobic reserves will happen more quickly, enabling you to sustain harder efforts more frequently and with shorter recovery times. Just 10W higher threshold can make a large difference in your recovery ability."
Yup, I've considered that theory as well.
After concentrating on HIIT since June I suddenly stopped making progress by late August and was feeling exhausted rather than invigorated. Turns out I was overdoing it with HIIT sessions three times a week. At my age (just turned 60) I probably should have limited HIIT to once a week. So the rapid gains were quickly offset by depletion, insufficient rest and inadequate protein intake (I'd been following a low meat diet, but have since resumed a normal diet).
And I tried tagging along with a relatively fast (for our 50+ age group) B-group, but it was just grinding me down and thwarting my efforts to tackle longer distances. Too many rides combined the A and B groups, with the B group riders drafting the younger, faster riders. I was able to hang on as long as the terrain was relatively flat. But I'd drop back on climbs and couldn't close the gap. Struggling to hang on wasn't helping my overall conditioning, just wearing me out.
Since then I've eased way back, working more on sustaining consistent effort over longer distances, riding my own pace. I'll occasionally mix in a few higher intensity efforts just to break up the monotony. Sprint on a good flat section, charge up a hill, then ease back for several minutes to recover.
I'm paying more attention to my average times over my own private Strava segments that I ride often. Those averages over non-stop 10 mile segments at near-maximum effort, accounting for wind, etc., tell me more about my fitness than times on shorter segments or data for entire 50-60 mile rides when I might have stopped two or three times.
And I've followed the patterns of another local rider, nearly my age, who rides many full standard centuries a year. A few years ago he set many local KOMs and is still among the strongest local guys in our age group. I'll never match his times on climbs.
But, since he's switched to riding centuries (he's on pace to finish 110 full centuries this year alone) I'm more interested in studying his Strava records to note how he tackles stuff that often thwarted me in the past -- especially long roller coaster segments -- to pace himself for the distance. I'm riding more like he does now, and finishing metric centuries without feeling depleted.
Strengthening my back and neck will be key to going beyond that metric centuries into full 100 miles. I'll tackle 100 miles again soon, so we'll see how that's going.