Recovery time between L4 Intervals?

scmtnboy said:

... My main question is: After I get to the the top it takes about 9 minutes to coast down to the bottom and there is very little time to pedal. Is this too much time for recovery between intervals? ...

Nope, recovery intervals for the long stuff like L4 and SST aren't real important. They're mostly for mental regrouping before your next effort. It's a different story for very short interval work where you're not fully recovering between efforts but whether 5 minutes or 20 between L4 efforts you should be fully recovered and it's mostly a matter of giving yourself a mental break so you can hold focus for the upcoming effort.

-Dave

Agreed.

My intervals for SST and L4 work is mostly done on two climbs about 3-5 minutes from home. One is 4.2 miles and an average of 7% and the other is 3.3 miles at 7.3%.

The 4 mile climb is a decent descent, but the 3.3 mile climb is too narrow so it is about 15 minutes until I get back down to the base of the climb.

The only worry is that if it is cold out the descent tenderizes the muscles a bit and it takes a bit to get back into a rhythm.

Watoni said:

Agreed.

My intervals for SST and L4 work is mostly done on two climbs about 3-5 minutes from home. One is 4.2 miles and an average of 7% and the other is 3.3 miles at 7.3%.

The 4 mile climb is a decent descent, but the 3.3 mile climb is too narrow so it is about 15 minutes until I get back down to the base of the climb.

The only worry is that if it is cold out the descent tenderizes the muscles a bit and it takes a bit to get back into a rhythm.

add some weight to your bike to make the intervals longer!

mr_mojo said:

add some weight to your bike to make the intervals longer!

The climbs take me (and my current weight) from 22-35 minutes, so they are good for L4, for SST I just do repeats of the ~30 minute climb ...

scmtnboy said:

I have a climb about 7 minutes ride from my house that takes 22-24 minutes to climb. I have used it for one of my primary threshold workouts. My main question is: After I get to the the top it takes about 9 minutes to coast down to the bottom and there is very little time to pedal. Is this too much time for recovery between intervals? I will usually either do 2x23 minutes at 100% FTP or 3x23.5 minutes at 95% FTP. This is done first thing in the morning before work. Thanks.

Nick

9 minutes recovery is fine for training. The normalized power for the ride will be lower than if you had shorter recovery. As a result, you might find yourself doing slightly higher wattages during the work interval than you would if you did 5 minutes rest.

As the legendary RapDaddyo said, you can go home and have a cup of tea between intervals. The important thing is to get in the time at FTP, be it 20/30/40/60 minutes. Preferably 40 minutes or more.😉 Tyson

Keep in mind that 4-10 minutes recovery is enough...if it is quality active recovery. Freezing as you fly down a mountain, flipping through switchbacks is not recovery. In this instance, take a bit more active recovery at the bottom to 1) make sure you are recovered and 2) sufficiently warm-up and regain your 'souplesse' before the next work effort.