TheKillerPenguin

Wisdom

spdntrxi

everytime I see this thread I want to write :

" are belong to us"

grwoolf

My primary goal for next year is to hit a specific finish time in the State TT (June), so I'm hoping to build FTP and really focus on TT position throughout the season. My secondary goal is playing a support role in RR's for some strong teammates and also podium in the Fayettville stage race (still focus on TT).

Over the winter, I'd like to build whatever "base" I can with limited training time (~8 hours/wk) and lose 8-10 pounds. I understand the benefit of Z2 if you have the time/motivation to put in the miles, but is there any point to riding Z2 when most of my rides are ~1 hour? In past years, I usually focus more on Z3 in the winter.



For the balance of the days (typically 1-hour rides), is there any benefit to riding Z2 "base" on such short rides?

Ygduf

raise the left, fill the right.

read this.

https://drive.google.com/#folders/0B...Y0MjIzZTU1YjY2

grwoolf

Thanks for the reply, but I'm getting an access/permissions error on that folder.

Is this what you are talking about?:

Stripped Down: Fill the Right

Ygduf

Yeah, fill the right is a good training method. The link I was intending to share was this https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9D...ew?usp=sharing

I think I copied my view link, not the share link earlier.

grwoolf

Thanks, I'll give it a read this weekend.

Dutch Jazz

This is a pretty interesting article. And, if I understand correctly, the practical implications are quite counter-intuitive when compared with most training-gurus.

It essentially tells us that our base should consists of high intensity rides of just over an hour:
And then when we want to train for events, such as longer endurance events we should incorporate a few trainingexercises that mimic the expected work-efforts of the event:
This is particularly good news for riders in winter climates when training outside is limited to weekends only and trainer-rides are the basis of winter/base training. And then as the events get closer, wheather is getting and it is longer light and I can do the longer event-mimicing rides.

Am I correct to interpret the article in this fashion, anyone care to tell me how I'm wrong (or how the aricle is wrong)? It almost seems to good to be true...

TheKillerPenguin

I would interpret that as ying and yang; you need ball buster workouts to train muscles to handle high intensity, but you need volume to be able to utilize those gains at the end of events longer than a crit.

I will say that increased training volume does not appear to increase my max wattage in and of itself, but it does increase my depth, IE the amount of times I can repeatably hit a given wattage before I am no longer able to. My experience is that this depth leads to improved high intensity training because I can eke out another 20-25% of time in zone, thus leading to increases in max wattage for a given target zone over time.

I really do think that tough as nails 1-2hr rides are enough to get 95% of the way there though if you do it smartly, and they're certainly better than nothing. I'd think it's also more beneficial to train that way than aim for huge volume if you're operating on limited time and have a lot of life stress to deal with in the first place, because that stuff (I find) negates the benefits of volume since you're already tired and stressed out and don't have the time to recover properly.

gsteinb

It pays to be honest about what you're doing. I know a bunch of crit guys who are doing meandering paced 5 hour rides day in and day out. Mostly it's because they don't really like suffering. They're also the first guys to get fat and slow once the weather really turns bad.

The vast majority of my workouts are in the 1-2 hour range, but I don't do many races longer than 90 minutes. The few that I did do last year I felt it near the end. My body didn't like me very much. If I was doing a lot of three hour + races I'd probably add in a few longer rides here and there.

Grumpy McTrumpy

Ygduf

I can't say it's wrong because it's what I've been doing for 5 years with pretty good results and steady improvement. n = 1.

My weekday training rides never exceed 90 minutes. On crit-race Sundays, I go weeks without doing more than 90-minute rides.

Before long RRs or like before EC, I did a long ride just to check the system and be sure I wasn't going to die. Also, just to mentally prepare for the effort. Riding hard after 4 hours feels different, but it's mostly just feels ime.

Gramercy

I wonder how riding indoors vs outdoors affects power output. The spring series is so cold and I know it's harder to breathe and put down power if your body is not used to the cold. I feel like the people that ride outside during the winter are more acclimated to it for the March races than people who just work out indoors. Maybe training time can be cut down if one were to ride in the elements.

Have tests been done on this before?

shovelhd

Cold weather just means I warm up harder. It doesn't affect my racing unless it's raining. I don't think you can shortcut hours due to conditions.

shovelhd

I think a lot of the speculation in this thread recently comes from people who don't have a good handle on what it takes, what it means, and how it feels to be on form, and the compromises and exepectations that are required to develop and maintain it. There are also physiological differences like age, gender, riding and racing experience and time on task, that make generalizations difficult and often silly.

gsteinb

Go compile a list of the guys I've lost a spring series to over the last decade.

rkwaki

But a fair question. Can you take the heat as well as the cold?
Is there a difference in acclimatization?

Dutch Jazz

Hmm that's great to hear. I was wondering how to fit in those longer rides in my winter plan.

My season in 2015 will start in april with crits. My though as balls trainer rides (gotta love sufferfest) the coming months will be a good starting point for that.

It isn't until end of July and August that I will change focus towards the longer endurance type cyclo-sportives here in Europe. That should give me the warmer months May, June, and July to incorporate the longer rides in my trianing and do the crits as high intensity training.

gsteinb

I prefer cool to heat. I don't lime to race when it's over 95. Given how few times it happens it's not much of an issue.

shovelhd

I prefer heat.

rkwaki

Interestingly as we all know where I am from I cannot take the cold, at all.
Ride all day when it's 95+ but when it goes below 50 I'll take a pass.

mattm

As a general rule, if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.

To balance out Fudgy's opinions on the matter, I read (ok skimmed) the article a bit differently; it didn't say you don't need to do any long rides, it just said that doing exclusively long AND easy rides wasn't good enough.

Nobody is saying Base should be easy-only rides; there is a big gap between an easy ride and a high-intensity ride..

What I see the article is saying is that doing some high intensity rides during Base building is good, and I agree (and do a once a week race ride). In fact I don't think Friel or any of the established coaches says anything different.

Maybe I'll write an article about how it's faster to just sprint the whole time during a race, instead of waiting until the end! Seems so obvious.

Wylde06

Damnit. I knew I was doing something wrong

tetonrider

much of the "conventional wisdom" about base comes from friel and others looking at what professional cyclists do in terms of overall volume, then further looking at the %ages of AR, endurance, tempo, threshold, etc. they then surmised that amateurs who train less should take those same %ages and apply them to whatever hours they are training.

it seems like something that is wise and it has been expressed by household-names in training, which is why many people accept it without too much question.

there's never anything definitive in this area, but if a pro rides 25-30h a week and 70% of it is <=z2, a 10h/week amateur should not necessarily ride 7 of those hours at <=z2 to achieve his/her best outcome.

also, many professionals have already built up a huge engine over the years and are looking to return to their peak numbers from prior years, rather than significantly increase their numbers. this is a different scenario than many amateurs who are newer to the sport. e.g., in order to win the WC TT, tony martin is generally looking to return to his top FTP numbers--he's not gaining 5% next year.

specificity, specificity, specificity. that said, consistency is important. a guy who does long RRs will perform better on 90' max workouts that are performed consistently and enthusiastically than one who burns out on 5h slogs.

the # of amateur races that are 5h or longer in the US is pretty low.

many people who train to go long self-select and skip the shorter stuff. this is not to say that training long is bad...it's just that only training long is not generally a good thing for amateur racing where splits happen based on shorter vo2+ efforts of 2-7'.



honest question--i don't follow your training closely but remember from a while back (or mis-remember?) that you were about big volume (for an amateur)...like 18, 20+ hours/week. do you no longer do this? 90'x5 days + weekend riding seems to fit in the 12-15h that many successful amateurs do. i think you keep this going pretty much year-round though, right?

it sounds to me like you spent a bunch of years putting in lots of miles and perhaps now are focusing more on intensity without sacrificing duration. not sure if this is a correct statement of what you have done, but it makes sense to have some success because the bigger earlier base induces more structural changes that are lasting, and the intensity tends to induce more biochemical changes, which are important but can be temporarily lost when one takes some time off.

essentially, you've not put the cart before the horse.


+1.

out of curiosity, why do you think this is?

you're a really experienced racer, so i'm not implying that i know your situation better than you do, but if anyone made this statement to me i'd wonder...
- is there a mental component ("i hate cold weather") that winds up being a limiter on the physical?
- have you tried over-dressing? you are a bit larger than the average cyclist which would make me think that heat would tend to be more of a problem--but it's easier to add more clothing in cold weather while you can only subtract so much in warmer weather.
- is it that the colder temps occur earlier or later in the year, when you're at different points in your training?

just curious as to what you think causes the difference.

Ygduf

For the year, and this is my highest time-volume year yet, I'm averaging 15 hours/week. ~2.5 of those hours are commuting too. I think there's a perception that I ride more volume than I actually do because I ride every day (183 consecutive days now), or try to.

My CTL is essentially flat for the past 18 months. I balance TSB for races, and I balance the source of the TSS to avoid burnout. My TSB has been >0 for all but maybe 2 days since I did EC at the end of September. Fitness is good and I feel fresh as ever. My CTL is flat, but FTP and performance continue to slowly, slowly, slowly improve month to month. I started from zero fitness. I presume that someday I will hit my peak, but I haven't yet so I'm just plugging along.