Kyle Legate said:Quoted message said:I ride alone on average 10 hours per week. Sometimes a bit more, very
rarely less. 8 hours is spent at casual to moderate pace. 3 hours of
this 8 is on a single speed MTB with light gearing, but the terrain
occasionaly requires some muscle. 2 hours is on a moderalty high
geared fixed. 3 is on a regular road bike. That is average, with some
variation. 2x week for 1 hour or so I do my intense effort intervals.
2.5 minutes as fast as I can, followed by 5 minutes soft pedaling
repeated 10 times. This is done with an iPod filled with aprox 2.5
minutes songs on random. 1 hard, 2 rest. The slight variation in
length, mixed with the mixed terrain gives me valuable experience with
how intense efforts feel on different terrain, into different winds,
etc. And it often causes me to push it fast through somewhat technical
areas which improves my bike handling skills and confidence. I
considered doing my 2 interval sessions on my rollers, but I think the
open road provides more.
You probably are stronger due to the interval sessions, but you should
really vary the time a bit more. Once per week should be shorter
intervals and once per week should be longer. Since your goal is to hang
with the fast group rather than developing explosive speed, I would
stick with the 2.5 minutes as your shorter interval and change one of
your interval sessions to 5 minutes x 6 repeats. Also, I would reduce
the recovery time of your short intervals to 3 minutes, since you're
never going to get 5 minutes recovery in a race. When this starts
getting a bit stale mentally switch to 1 minute intervals for the
occasional short workout, 2-3 minutes rest between them and see how you
like those. They will help you deal with pack surges during attacks,
whereas the 5 minute intervals will help you deal with the last few kms
of a race, or attacks of your own. Keeping all of your intervals at 2.5
minutes is fine at first but you will quickly plateau at that time
point, and still be lacking in the short, sharp surges and sustained
efforts at the end of the race. As with all interval sessions, they
should be done at an intensity at which you feel drained, and vaguely
dizzy and nauseous at the end of the last interval. Experience will show
you how intense that must be, if you simply won't wear a HRM. Nothing
like a good mouth-puke at the end of an interval.
Also, how casual is casual? Truly casual riding should be reserved for
the day following the weekend group ride, to recharge
your batteries for intervals. The rest of your rides should be steady
tempo at a decent pace, otherwise it's junk mileage. I don't count
commuting to work as training time unless it's longer than 10 km. I
don't know what you're trying to accomplish by riding a fixie at this
time of year either, unless it's a job requirement. Working on your
spinning technique should be reserved for the off season.
Casual isn't that casual. About 75-80% max HR, 29km/h average on
rolling terrain. With occasional harder efforts thrown in here and
there. Every once in a while I ride with my HRM to calibrate myself.
The design of my 2.5/5 was based on this:
http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/1030.htm
Not so much to simulate the circumstances I find hard in racing, but
to maximize the amount of work done in a workout. The effort level is
very high during these intervals. It is balls out and I picked songs
that help. No internal conversions going on, just hammering.
But I can see the value of mixing it up a bit, not just to get
training benefit, but to become accustomed to efforts of different
durations. Right now when I get dropped, it isn't from short bursts
which I handle tolerably well, but from short hills. I just get
saturated too soon and I can't maintain the necessary power. I don't
even attempt long hills. I might try adding more songs of different
lengths and do one on one off instead of one on two off.
I ride the fixie for fun and in [censored] weather to spare my road bike a
bit, and because it helps me keep the intensity at a moderate level.
On the road bike I tend to go harder and harder. The season is just
starting here (first shorts ride yesterday!) so the fixie will be
gathering more dust pretty soon.
Joseph
