Interval advice needed

Walrus said:

At the end of January, I am riding the Alpine Classic in Australia. It's a 1 day, 200km (125ml) road event with 4 climbs totalling 3600m (11800 ft) ascent. audax.org.aualpine course.htmOpen ↗. I've done the ride before.

I have a good base and have just started to crank up my training which includes 120km (75ml) commuting per week...supplemented with climbing rides in the local mountains on weekends. The commuting is 10km easy and 20km "hard" riding each day.

I'd like to add an interval session midweek before I commute to work, and wanted some advice on the optimal timing/reps combination to improve my climbing resistance and recovery. If I had an hour to dedicate to it, what duration intervals would suit?

With an hour/week mid-week to add to your current riding and 7.5 weeks to go, then anything to increase your Functional Threshold power and/or power endurance will be most helpful.

I would have said do some hills but you are already doing those by the sounds of it. OK without knowing any more than what you've written....

How about:
3 weeks of high tempo pace (L3) efforts, start with 1 x 35 min & increase duration by 5 min/week, then
3 weeks of 2x20min long-TT pace (L4) efforts. 10 min warm up, 5 min in between, 5 min cool down
Final week take it easy.

Reason I don't suggest L4 the whole way through is I don't know if you've ever tried them, so I figure it's best to ease into it by doing some tempo first.... Both will work to push FTP higher anyway.

Hope you are getting in some decent length steady rides somewhere and know how much fuel to take on board.

Good luck. I have several friends riding it as well.

Alex Simmons said:

Hope you are getting in some decent length steady rides somewhere and know how much fuel to take on board.

Good luck. I have several friends riding it as well.

Thanks Alex. I'll work that into my routine. 🙂

Also, think about your long ride every week. Build up your hours so that you can do the 6-7 hour day.

What is your longest ride now? Can you increase it 1/2 hour per week to reach your ride goal? You only have 2 months. Do your intervals during the week, but get your endurance sorted out on the weekends.

Walrus said:

I'd like to add an interval session midweek before I commute to work

I've seen many athletes having to commute for their studies or work or both. I've supervised some.

Yet it's the first time I hear about the idea of adding an interval session before the commute. Good idea.

Do you have access to hill training? Those intervals, are they taking place outdoor or indoor?