ridethecliche

All my workouts in times past had been 2-3 hr solo rides where I ended up with an IF of .93 or higher. I'd go hard, I'd sprint and I'd come home pretty beat. I did 2-3 of these a week with a group ride or race thrown into the mix. The rest of the days (3-4), I'd be off the bike unless I could get in an hour hard ride in the hills or such. Weekly total 6-8 weeks, but I was doing very well for myself in the spring.

Now my coach is having me ride 12-15 hours a week, with most of the ride at or under aerobic threshold and then the business end of the ride is LT intervals/whatever in the midst of this aerobic threshold work.

I'm going to ask my coach about this when I see him next, but what's the difference in adaptations and such with this kind of training.

Is the first batch more geared towards crits/shorter events, and the longer rides more towards building long term fitness and longer distance road/stage races?

wfrogge

Your coach has you doing lots of SST workouts. With the intensity in check you can put in more hours during the week and manage fatigue. Those that put in 6-8 hours a week normally hit it pretty hard with lots of L4-L6 workouts. They need the rest for recovery.

Ive tried both schools of thought and found my sweet spot to be around 13 hours a week but both theories have worked for me so I do a mix of both...... Its really hard to get your CTL up with only 6-8 hours a week and I need my CTL around 80-90 before I show any kind of form.

waterrockets 

Yeah, the way I train, I have no business in a P/1/2 road race, but I'm salivating at the thought of my next crit.

SushiJoe

Whatever you are doing seems to be working.

Sinn

I could be wrong but it seems to me that the difference is that your previous method of training is very limited in delivering sound results for fitness but perhaps some results in strength. I would not divide the two methods up into yours being good for crits and others for longer road races. Base fitness is the foundation on which any strength training must take root if you are to be a successful racer. If you've got the strength, but lack the fitness to use it at the end of a 45 minute crit, road race, TT, or whatever, what's the use?

YMCA

You are definitely NOT wrong.
Good answer.

powpow

Noob question: define SST?

Just trying to get all of the lingo down. Thx.

waterrockets 

https://www.fascatcoaching.com/sweetspottraining.html

https://www.fascatcoaching.com/sweetspotpartdeux.html

powpow

^^Muchas gracias^^

Enthalpic

I say let your coach worry about that. You have to trust that your coach knows better than yourself.

If you can’t let go of your own training ideologies you will end up “adjusting” or skipping prescribed workouts, and your training will remain haphazard.

I’m not saying follow the coach blindly, just foster communication and let the coach make the calls.

umd

I've been a bit all over the place this season... I was doing a lot of mega-base in November, December then SST-type workouts in January and into February and was seeing good FTP gains, brought in more focused intensity with some VO2 or shorter intervals, more stoachastic group rides, as well as started racing in February. I raced 2-3x every weekend through March, my short-duration power went up and my threshold power somewhat stagnated and my endurance tanked, then my threshold followed. I wasn't riding nearly as much as last year but I think I came in with a lower base as well as probably overreached a bit, as well as just hit a peak and my form slid backwards a bit.

It's hard to say exactly what is working or not working for me right now though because my fitness right now is far above what it was this time last year. I was able to go out and hang on no problem in a cat 3 crit no problem (and 1/3 of a P/1/2/3 crit with some difficulty) the day after a 400 TSS day, then put in 200TSS yesterday and was riding very strong at today's "hammerfest" lunch ride.

My body seems to not respond very quickly to workouts, and my biggest gains last year were when I stopped racing as much, put in tons of volume, then tapered down once a month to race. I'm going to try that again and see if the results are repeatable...

YMCA

UMD,
keep the hours up every week, even if you are racing 3x per
stamina and resistance is bought through time, just slow down a bit on certain days

then when you get back into a block without races, up the SST again and refresh the head

umd

Thanks, I've found I respond best for "tapering" when I keep the volume up but drop the intensity. I've tried it both ways and if I try to rest too much I have a little more top end but I have less endurance.

ridethecliche

Yeah, I'm going to talk to him about stuff, but I'm not planning on adjusting anything but my saddle height

tanhalt

It only seemed strong because you were beating up on a poor 46 year old who had to be off the bike for over 5 weeks

umd

Hey, you weren't the only one there...

It sure wasn't as fast without Gary on his TT bike

But I'm surprised nobody came around me the entire Cathedral Oaks stretch to the high school

I felt good for the sprint but got boxed in to the curb

tanhalt

That's Mr. "2009 SCNCA Masters 30-34 TT Champion" Gary to you...

Well...it was you, then I forget who, then Marco and then me right behind you. If those 2 guys in front of me weren't pulling through, I sure wasn't going to...I was already tired Neither Marco or I have been putting in very many miles lately There were a lot of guys behind me as well who easily could have come through but didn't...not sure what was up with that.

skipmcne

Stochastic... group rides... really? how does that work?

tanhalt

Simple. A group of ~10-20 of us all meet at lunch time on Tuesday and proceed to attempt to rip each others legs off in the span of ~35-40min. Sometimes known as "Breakaway training", but more commonly known as "The Hammerfest".

The thing about the course we take is that there are 2 turnarounds. So, even if you get dropped...you still have a chance to hop back on and punish yourself some more

Besides, you can make ANY group ride more "stochastic" if you feel like it

skipmcne

"of or pertaining to a process involving a randomly determined sequence of observations each of which is considered as a sample of one element from a probability distribution."
-
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.

Hm. Not EXACTLY the word I'd use to mean what I think you want it to mean. But I get your point.

umd

It is commonly used to describe the "on/off" nature of crits.

It works for our hammerfest because it is so short it behaves similarly to a crit and the distribution of the on/off is somewhat random because it is caused by each other.

Tom, I was also thinking of the wednesday suffervals although it's the hills that make it brutal not each other...

Maybe not the best word, but I didn't make it up

El Diablo Rojo

No one and I mean no one does so much with so little training as WR. If he ever became a training monk he'd tear the legs off everyone in TX...much talent in this one says Obi Wan...

SushiJoe

I agree with this.

substructure

No one and I mean no one does so little with so much training as me.

just sayin'

SushiJoe

Shall we compare notes?