Help! can't get off this plateau...

Ok, let's be clear on couple of things. Do you train with a power meter since you think you don't have enough power? "5 months of base....." Did you spend 5 months just riding at lower zone 2 in the tradition of "Mr Base Joe Friel?" And only spent 1 month doing cruise interval in 4x10? If so, your problem is that, in reality, you only have been training to ride faster in 1 month. The month you were doing your cruise interval. Your other 5 months did nothing, extreme of a word, to help you to ride faster. intensity was too low.

Keep the numbers of hours per week but throw in 2 or 3 days of cruise interval. Don't worry, they are not gonna kill you. Do the intervals at long duration in 2x20, 3x20, or 2x30 with 5 minutes rest in between. Keep it up for 6 to 8 weeks and you should see improvement.

netscriber said:

Now I have had too much! My rides are not getting any faster. A month back after 5 months of base I introduced cruise intervals once/week. 4x10 mins at just above threshold. My weekend rides are 3-4 hr rides and 3rides during work week with a total of 4 rides/week.

The weekly rides are...
- 1 endurance ride
- 1 recovery ride,
- 1 moderate ride and
- 1 interval ride 4x10

...all 1-1.5hrs long.

This is about 10hrs/week. My average speed on a fixed terrain I know(I use for my tests) in the same conditions has NOT improved over 15mph. 🙁

Riders that have been riding for 3 months can generate way much power. How can I get my power up? Whats wrong here? Someone please help. This is depressing 😠

Well, yes I had to do 4-5 months because I started after 5 years of doing nothing :o

My real training rides started after the first 2 months. So you can say 3 months of training rides. Another thing, I do not religiously follow my heart rate during the endurance rides. For example, just to add some variety I sometimes ride a fixed gear (34x16). Trust me this gets to be quite a workout on a 4 hr ride.

So to re-cap, in the past 3months my speed has not gone up. I have just over a month of intervals(1 set of cruise intervals 4x10) per week. Speed still remains the same. 🙁

You just have to add another cruise interval day in your week and make each day a longer session. Well, use your HRM in your intervals. Again, keep it up for another month or so you should see improvement.

netscriber said:

Well, yes I had to do 4-5 months because I started after 5 years of doing nothing :o

My real training rides started after the first 2 months. So you can say 3 months of training rides. Another thing, I do not religiously follow my heart rate during the endurance rides. For example, just to add some variety I sometimes ride a fixed gear (34x16). Trust me this gets to be quite a workout on a 4 hr ride.

So to re-cap, in the past 3months my speed has not gone up. I have just over a month of intervals(1 set of cruise intervals 4x10) per week. Speed still remains the same. 🙁

I will add more intervals, and long ones and am open to any good advice that might work. I am still confused though. All this work and no result?
Talking about intensity, like I said my rides weren't always Joe Friel base rides. In fact its difficult for me to ride easy, Im a little impatient and start riding harder. So maybe 40-60% of the 4 hr rides were in the upper recovery zone. And, we barely have any flats here in Santa barbara. A flat is a false flat here.
So trust me I do work on the rides.
The confusion is, I do not think it is light enough to not make any progress in 3 months with an additional month with both long/interval rides. 4 months of training rides later Im still stuck with the same av.speed on my test ride.

Well, to get faster for longer period, you need intensity. Again, without a power meter or a HRM data, no one can tell if you have been riding hard enough during the Winter. Good way to gauge your intensity is how you feel after first 15 minutes of the interval. If you can barely see yourself finishing the set and beginning to lose focus due to excessive discomfort on your legs and lungs, your intensity is a bit too much. Back it of a bit.

netscriber said:

I will add more intervals, and long ones and am open to any good advice that might work. I am still confused though. All this work and no result?
Talking about intensity, like I said my rides weren't always Joe Friel base rides. In fact its difficult for me to ride easy, Im a little impatient and start riding harder. So maybe 40-60% of the 4 hr rides were in the upper recovery zone. And, we barely have any flats here in Santa barbara. A flat is a false flat here.
So trust me I do work on the rides.
The confusion is, I do not think it is light enough to not make any progress in 3 months.

BlueJersey said:

Well, to get faster for longer period, you need intensity. Again, without a power meter or a HRM data, no one can tell if you have been riding hard enough during the Winter. Good way to gauge your intensity is how you feel after first 15 minutes of the interval. If you can barely see yourself finishing the set and beginning to lose focus due to excessive discomfort on your legs and lungs, your intensity is a bit too much. Back it of a bit.

When I first started to ride I would average 32k in time trials (Tri's) But after 4mth of riding with better rides I was able to lift that ave to 38K. It wasn't easy but I found doing 2 rides a week drafting of rides that could ave 40k improved my averages dramticlly.

My suggestion find a weekly group ride in your area that you are just able to hang onto, grit your teeth and work as hard as you can to stay with them and within two 2mth you should be flying.

Lot's of factors affect an individual's response to hard training. Making progress isn't just a matter of doing a set training prescription. Your age, overall health and fitness status, body composition, nutrition and sleep habits are all important to determining how much adaptation your body makes in response to the training loads.

Sounds to me like you're expecting progress to occur on some kind of fixed schedule, or in step with what you think other people are getting. My experience has been that it just doesn't work that way for most of us.

From what you've written, my guess is that you're going too hard too often and never recovering fully. It takes discipline to do real recovery and endurance rides in hilly country; you need to watch your HR carefully all the time, and slow way down on the hills. In Lance's Performance Plan book, he states that his 4-6 hour endurance rides are done in a narrow zone of 60-62% of max HR (his was 201). Recommend you select a strict HR limit for these rides in the middle of the zone and stick to it.

15 mph avg on a road bike is slow. Are you using a mtn bike?

JTE83 said:

15 mph avg on a road bike is slow. Are you using a mtn bike?

Yes it is slow!! And no I am using quite a good road bike. And for others, I am making sure I recover well. I mentioned before most of the 4 hr ride is in Z2.
I am NOT comparing myself to others. I am just expecting progress in 3-4 months. Not even little progress is really depressing.

I am small and thats what bothers me. I am 5'4" and 112 lbs. Does that make a differenece? I am comparing to my past. I used to make progress in 2 months just last year. It is really bothering me. Also this is not my first time planning and riding. I used to race when I was 18-24. I rode non-competitively for 5-6 years 24-31. Then didnt do a thing till 2001. Started riding on and off again.

This time I have done lots of base to get back my fitness as usual. For about a month and a half I am doing intervals. 15mph for 4 months is a REALLY big plateau. I know even doing base rides would get anyone to about 18or 20mph WITHOUT intervals. Why am I so weak? 🙁

OK...
Age: 36
Overall fitness: OK (not proud) resting HR 60
Sleep: Not so well. Have some stress at work lately.
Food: relegiously replace my calories. Have proper protein....etc everyday.
Feeling: Not feeling fatigued. Ride 4 days a week and feel like riding hard whenever I ride.

JTE83 said:

15 mph avg on a road bike is slow.

That's while climbing up the plateau. 😄

netscriber said:

Yes it is slow!! And no I am using quite a good road bike. And for others, I am making sure I recover well. I mentioned before most of the 4 hr ride is in Z2.

You know? A 4-hr ride is quite long to try to observe changes in average speed. You'd have to cut 1.5 minutes off your ~60 mile ride just to see a .1 mph improvement in average speed. If you're going to use average speed as a fitness indicator, then I'd suggest a ride closer to 1hr in duration. Also, the test ride should be closer to a max effort, otherwise you won't know if you're really putting the same effort into each test (and not subtly settling into you preferred Z2 rhythm). You mentioned that your cruise intervals are just above threshold. How did you determine this? Do you have a HR monitor or some other data that can help you see your improvement?

You're right that you should have experienced some improvement by now. Don't discourage yourself by masking your improvement through poor testing practices.

frenchyge said:

You know? A 4-hr ride is quite long to try to observe changes in average speed. You'd have to cut 1.5 minutes off your ~60 mile ride just to see a .1 mph improvement in average speed. If you're going to use average speed as a fitness indicator, then I'd suggest a ride closer to 1hr in duration. Also, the test ride should be closer to a max effort, otherwise you won't know if you're really putting the same effort into each test (and not subtly settling into you preferred Z2 rhythm). You mentioned that your cruise intervals are just above threshold. How did you determine this? Do you have a HR monitor or some other data that can help you see your improvement?

You're right that you should have experienced some improvement by now. Don't discourage yourself by masking your improvement through poor testing practices.

umm..yes, I have an HRM and constantly test my fitness and LTHR.
My max HR is 194, resting 60 and LTHR 178. I do my LTHR test every month and it has gone up from 165 to 178.
And I am basing my comments and observations on my 1-1.5hr lunch rides. Every month I do a TT on the exact same terrain and try to be as close as possible as far as headwind/temperature...food, feeling etc are concerned.

My TT average with sustainable power(HR that I can manage) for that 1.5hrs has not gone up. I still average 15mph. I had posted another thread for my plateau about a month and ahlaf back and everyone suggested intervals. And yes I introduced intervals. And yes I am getting extremely frustrated and mostly depressed that I cannot see my progress after so much hard work. I hav a life and family now and within all this struggle when I do not get ANY RESULTS at all it drives me nuts.

netscriber said:

umm..yes, I have an HRM and constantly test my fitness and LTHR.
My max HR is 194, resting 60 and LTHR 178. I do my LTHR test every month and it has gone up from 165 to 178.
And I am basing my comments and observations on my 1-1.5hr lunch rides. Every month I do a TT on the exact same terrain and try to be as close as possible as far as headwind/temperature...food, feeling etc are concerned.

My TT average with sustainable power(HR that I can manage) for that 1.5hrs has not gone up. I still average 15mph. I had posted another thread for my plateau about a month and ahlaf back and everyone suggested intervals. And yes I introduced intervals. And yes I am getting extremely frustrated and mostly depressed that I cannot see my progress after so much hard work. I hav a life and family now and within all this struggle when I do not get ANY RESULTS at all it drives me nuts.

Reduce the ride length to 1 hr and make the intervals 2-3 minutes at 100% of maximum aerobic power. Now you will start to see some improvement, and save some time as well. Your heart is small (literally).

-Bikeguy

netscriber said:

umm..yes, I have an HRM and constantly test my fitness and LTHR.
My max HR is 194, resting 60 and LTHR 178. I do my LTHR test every month and it has gone up from 165 to 178.
And I am basing my comments and observations on my 1-1.5hr lunch rides. Every month I do a TT on the exact same terrain and try to be as close as possible as far as headwind/temperature...food, feeling etc are concerned.

My TT average with sustainable power(HR that I can manage) for that 1.5hrs has not gone up. I still average 15mph. I had posted another thread for my plateau about a month and ahlaf back and everyone suggested intervals. And yes I introduced intervals. And yes I am getting extremely frustrated and mostly depressed that I cannot see my progress after so much hard work. I hav a life and family now and within all this struggle when I do not get ANY RESULTS at all it drives me nuts.

Sorry, I misunderstood your comments about z2 and 4-hrs and thought you meant that was where you were seeing the 15mph figure. Just out of curiosity, what's your comfortable endurance speed for those rides?

So, your HR @ LT has increased 13 bpm, but you can't pedal the bike any faster? How can that be? You should be able to hold LT (or OBLA) power and HR for an hour, so your TT HR should be close to 178 bpm, and that's where you should be doing your cruise intervals too, right? What's your average HR on your TT's?

Don't take this the wrong way, but reading this I just can't help but think that somehow you're mentally sandbagging on those tests. Everything else seems to indicate that your body is responding to the training.

frenchyge said:

Sorry, I misunderstood your comments about z2 and 4-hrs and thought you meant that was where you were seeing the 15mph figure. Just out of curiosity, what's your comfortable endurance speed for those rides?

So, your HR @ LT has increased 13 bpm, but you can't pedal the bike any faster? How can that be? You should be able to hold LT (or OBLA) power and HR for an hour, so your TT HR should be close to 178 bpm, and that's where you should be doing your cruise intervals too, right? What's your average HR on your TT's?

Don't take this the wrong way, but reading this I just can't help but think that somehow you're mentally sandbagging on those tests. Everything else seems to indicate that your body is responding to the training.

My confortable endurance speed. Hmm...kinda difficult to say. The terrain is so varied here that sometimes I am doing 18 -21 - 35 on climbs 9 - 10 -12.
It usually averages to 15mph. Never looked at AVHR on TTs. I should be doing that. Maybe I am mentally sandbagging. I dont feel like though. I feel at the threshold and feel tired after tests and the next day. I will try to gather some more data. But I have confidence in what I feel. Over the years I have atleast learnt that. My progress seems nowhere except for the comfort level. Weird sounding I know.

bikeguy said:

Reduce the ride length to 1 hr and make the intervals 2-3 minutes at 100% of maximum aerobic power. Now you will start to see some improvement, and save some time as well. Your heart is small (literally).

-Bikeguy

I am getting a varied and mixed response and do not know what to do with it.
Some people think I am working too light some think I am working too hard. Someone said I should do much longer cruise intervals. You are saying I should reduce time and do 3 minutes... 😕

netscriber said:

My TT average with sustainable power(HR that I can manage) for that 1.5hrs has not gone up. I still average 15mph.

netscriber said:

My confortable endurance speed. Hmm...kinda difficult to say. The terrain is so varied here that sometimes I am doing 18 -21 - 35 on climbs 9 - 10 -12.
It usually averages to 15mph.

Ok, now I'm confused again. Is 15 mph the average speed of your 4-hr Z2 endurance rides, or your 1.5hr TT's? Don't say "both" or I'm hanging up. :p

Surely you wouldn't ride a 1.5hr TT at the same pace as a 4-hr Z2 ride. I think this "average speed" thing is what's masking your progress. If your HR @ LT has shifted significantly then you're making progress, and if you're raising the HR target of your cruise intervals based on that then you'll continue to make progress.

If average speed is the only way you can see improvement on the bike, then I'd suggest a shorter, flatter TT route for your tests.

frenchyge said:

Ok, now I'm confused again. Is 15 mph the average speed of your 4-hr Z2 endurance rides, or your 1.5hr TT's? Don't say "both" or I'm hanging up. :p

Surely you wouldn't ride a 1.5hr TT at the same pace as a 4-hr Z2 ride. I think this "average speed" thing is what's masking your progress. If your HR @ LT has shifted significantly then you're making progress, and if you're raising the HR target of your cruise intervals based on that then you'll continue to make progress.

If average speed is the only way you can see improvement on the bike, then I'd suggest a shorter, flatter TT route for your tests.

😄 Firstly thanks for the patience. You know my workout by now. 4 rides with 1 endurance ride 1 recovery ride 1 moderate ride and 1 interval ride. These are very specific with specific HR zones but I am just keeping it simple here.
My tests are once a month on the trainer OR 1.5 hr TT rides on a fixed terrain.
I primarily do 2 types of tests.
1. I do the 6 minute LTHR test on my trainer by slowly ramping up power(specific gearing) till I find my threshold.
2. I do a TT ride near my threshold.

Now, when I did #1 found my LTHR went up.
When I did #2 near the LTHR I found, my Av.speed is around 15mph.

To keep it REALY simple, if I try to keep everything constant on #2 my ride speed shouldve gone up atleast a bit. I am whining because I just cant seem to be able to get it to move beyond maybe 15-16 even near what I can sustain max for that 1.5hr period.
Moreover, 15mph seems REALLY slow to me. I see chumps(yea right!) from work pass me and dust me riding just for 2 months.

Thanks again

netscriber said:

Now I have had too much! My rides are not getting any faster. A month back after 5 months of base I introduced cruise intervals once/week. 4x10 mins at just above threshold. My weekend rides are 3-4 hr rides and 3rides during work week with a total of 4 rides/week.

The weekly rides are...
- 1 endurance ride
- 1 recovery ride,
- 1 moderate ride and
- 1 interval ride 4x10

...all 1-1.5hrs long.

This is about 10hrs/week. My average speed on a fixed terrain I know(I use for my tests) in the same conditions has NOT improved over 15mph. 🙁

Riders that have been riding for 3 months can generate way much power. How can I get my power up? Whats wrong here? Someone please help. This is depressing 😠

Hard to tell what intensity is really being done but based on common usage of the terms I would say you are barely doing enough to maintain a low level of fitness let alone gain speed. 3 days a week off plus a recovery ride day is 4 days a week with no training load. I can't recall what minimum amount of intensity per week is needed on average to maintain fitness gains but I suspect you may even be below that level.