Hi All,
I am new to the cycling world, well not that new but about a year into it. I just recently started riding in a group and I am looking to start training for an Ironman. A buddy gave me a training plan to start and I am having a hard time understanding the cycling portion and was hoping someone here can help. Oh, I should mention, my buddy is out of town and is unavailable for a month so I would ask him but I have no way of getting in contact.

The training plan is as follows:
1:30 bike intervals (3x10 at zone 3, 2 min easy)

My interpretation of that is:
My total ride time is an hour and 30 minutes. Within that hour I need to incorporate 3, 10 minute zone 3 intervals. I guess the confusion for me is where does the 2 min easy comes to play? If I am riding for an hour and a half, does that mean within every half hour I need to incorporate a 10 minute zone 3 pace? What about the other 20 minutes? Sorry if I sound lame but I hope I someone can help clarify.

I read this: 1:30 bike intervals (3x10 at zone 3, 2 min easy) as ...

3 min interval at zone 3, 2 min easy, 3 min interval at zone 3, 2 min easy, 3 min interval at zone 3, 2 min easy ... keep repeating until you've done 10 intervals. That's 50 minutes.

Warm up for 30 min before you start ... cool down for 10 min after.

Isn't zone 3 tempo? Not really an interval zone.

Yeah, what would be the point of 3 minutes at tempo with 2 minutes easy?

I thought it meant 10 minutes at tempo, then 2 minutes rest. Repeat 3 times.

For zone 3, 3 intervals 10 minutes each with 2 minute rest between intervals makes most sense. Most training plans I see mean this when they say 3x10. For Macha's interpretation they write 10x3. But usually the books are clearer and say 3x10 min so there's no ambiguity. I assume the training plan will eventually ramp up and prescribe higher intensity intervals which are typically of shorter duration.

My guess was that the plan was to ease him into it, and that a couple weeks from now the intervals would become more intense.

But 10 min interval then 2 min rest, and repeat, could make sense since he's training for an ironman.

Okay bare with me, I think I'm making this more difficult and thus confusing myself, haha. If I follow what stephtu is saying then I will be only be riding 30 mins at zone 3 and resting for a total of 6 mins. That comes out to be 36 minutes total, what am I supposed to do with the other 54 minutes. And of course, I could be interpreting this all wrong.

if that was on my plan it would mean this:

total time 1:30
warm up for about 20-30 minutes
do 3 10-minute intervals at zone 3 with 2 minutes easy in between. - that is 36 minutes.
or said another way ( 10 minutes at zone 3, 2 minutes at zone easy ) repeat 3 times
cool down for 20-30 minutes.

^^ This.

+1 The first number is the number of sets, followed by the number of minutes in each set. As pointed out above you have to allow for about 20 min warm up and cool down. It sounds like you understand what your zone 3 pace should be.

Seems like an awful lot of warm up / cool down. I'm typically warm / cool within 15 minutes. Maybe you should do them twice.

Thanks all, I appreciate the feedback.