Winter Training

Quoted post said:

Originally Posted by uptheswa [IMG]/img/forum/go_quote.gif[/IMG]

Regards group rides, I know it is good to ride with people that are a little bit better and stronger than I am, but when does it become a case that if they are too strong, that it might be doing more harm than good to go riding with them. On Tuesday I went on a night group ride, 39 hilly miles, my TSS Score was 272 and intensity factor was 1.03, average power was 197 and NP was 241. Today I was out on a group ride, 50 rolling miles, my TSS Score was 273 and intensity factor was 0.977, average power was 188 and NP was 232. Are these type of group rides good, or are they too hard for me still ? I do really have to make myself suffer to hang in and it can be brutal on the hills, but I feel like I need to be riding with these people now, as they will only get faster and stronger over the winter, so if I am too compete with them next season, do I need to be able to ride with them now ? Looking at the figures from these rides, does it look like my last tested 20 min power at 255 watts ( so 232 threshold power ? )look slightly low ? ( only tested last week ) Love to hear what you guys think. Cheers

If you can with them and it's making you work for an extended period of time then it sounds like it's hard enough. It's only really "too hard" if you get dropped continually or you're not recovering from those rides in time for the next planned training session.

I think you might be underestimating your FTP. If you go as hard as you can go for an hour it should give you an IF of 1.0. Anything more than that and it's a good idea to check your FTP. Obviously rolling hills with hard and and easy type riding will skew this. But if you are getting an IF of over 1.0 for a two hour ride or longer, then that would be an even surer sign that your FTP could be low. Maybe you have a higher FTP for rolling hills than you do for a flat TT type course?

Quoted post said:

Originally Posted by uptheswa [IMG]/img/forum/go_quote.gif[/IMG]

Regards group rides, I know it is good to ride with people that are a little bit better and stronger than I am, but when does it become a case that if they are too strong, that it might be doing more harm than good to go riding with them. On Tuesday I went on a night group ride, 39 hilly miles, my TSS Score was 272 and intensity factor was 1.03, average power was 197 and NP was 241. Today I was out on a group ride, 50 rolling miles, my TSS Score was 273 and intensity factor was 0.977, average power was 188 and NP was 232. Are these type of group rides good, or are they too hard for me still ? I do really have to make myself suffer to hang in and it can be brutal on the hills, but I feel like I need to be riding with these people now, as they will only get faster and stronger over the winter, so if I am too compete with them next season, do I need to be able to ride with them now ? Looking at the figures from these rides, does it look like my last tested 20 min power at 255 watts ( so 232 threshold power ? )look slightly low ? ( only tested last week ) Love to hear what you guys think. Cheers

If it turns out that I can get higher power figures on rolling hills than on the flat, or I can just push myself harder when in company, or that it is just possible to get higher figures when doing a ride with intensive bursts rather than a steady state ride, then what do I do about this ??? I only test FTP last week when my 20 min avg power was 255. Last month when tested it was 230. So it has improved but you suggest it might still be low. In doing my 4 x 10's and 2 x 20's I really cannot envisage doing them at a higher level. Yet it seems I can push myself to a higher IF when doing a group ride over a tough course. So how do I proceed. Do I keep using the zones as they are until next months test ? Should I do a new test, maybe on a rolling road ? As I have just been using a power meter for a short time now I don't have the expierence to know what to do in this case.

Beware the seven deadly sins:-

http://alex-cycle.blogspot.com/2008/05/seven-deadly-sins.html

Hmmmmm...I have read the seven deadly sins and hope to have avoided the basic mistakes that can be made, when I am doing Sweetspot or Threshold efforts they feel right on the money, just when doing a group ride over a hilly course the IF can get pushed to a little over 1 but I guess even on a longer ride maybe this is possible, the extremely hard efforts uphill and the fact that I am feeling I am pushing myself over the limit on these rides could shoot the IF way up there ???? have any you guys never had this, or in a road race of about 2 hours had an IF of about or slightly over 1 ????

anyway, it will get sorted soon if it is a bit out as I will be doing the FTP test every month....unless you feel that this needs dealt with by an FTP test immediately ?

moving on, here is what I did last 8 days, maybe not quite a planned but it felt like a good week's training Sunday - Z3 Road Ride, 50 miles, 166 minutes. Monday - Recovery Turbo Ride, 30 minutes. Tuesday - Z2/Z3 Road Ride, 34 miles, 120 minutes. Wednesday - Z4 3x10 Turbo Ride, 63 minutes. Thursday - Z2/Z3 Road Ride, 22 miles, 84 minutes. Friday - Z2/Z3 Road Ride, 47 miles, 194 minutes. Saturday - Rest Sunday - Z4 3x10 Turbo Ride, 61 minutes. i've had two fairly hard weeks and then last week was more than I have done in a very long time, in both time and intensity, so I think maybe I should have an easier week this week. also i am hoping to do a MTB XC race this weekend, and while i will not be taking these races too seriously, but using them as training, i still think i should have an easier day or two before them to feel a little fresher....anybody have any thoughts ???

The day before a race, I usual do a "pre-race ride" which for me entails 60-90 min of mostly easy riding with a few efforts of about 45s-1min in duration interspersed as "leg openers". Basically they serve as a way to get you working at "race pace" so you feel what that is like (and get your heart rate up) without wearing yourself out. I would do something along those lines if I were you. Pre-race rides are a lot of fun, by the way. Since it is basically and easy ride, they provide a great opportunity to get my head in the upcoming race (free from distractions of work/home/etc), think about the course, the competition, how you feel, what your goals are, etc. Also, since "openers" are encouraged, whenever you are feeling feisty, you can let 'er rip!

pezcyclingnews.compezcyclingnews.comOpen ↗

According to this I guess all these 'new fangled' methods are really just 'antiquated training methodology".

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The philosophy of “hard riding” is one of the pervading cycling training misconceptions of the 21st century. It is the idea that periodization and scientifically based training is great for those with time to burn, but for those under severe time restraints the way to get the best bang for our buck is by going hard all day, every day.

BTW, Since when was Zone 3 'going hard'? [IMG]/img/vbsmilies/smilies/eek.gif[/IMG]

A few things...

*Some real [censored] gets printed in Pez,
*Some articles are essentially advertorials.
*None of this has really been studied so it is prudent to look for a physiological or psychological basis for any decisions about training.
*We know building fitness and form on L1 and L2 takes up huge amounts of time which is not practical in winter especially if training indoors.
*We know that huge amounts of L5 to L7 brings up fitness very quickly but are psychologically demanding to sustain for periods longer than 5-6 weeks. Proper L5 sessions hurt, L6 sessions really hurt and L7 target a level that is only specific to a very small section of cyclists and the recovery required in between efforts means that while specific fitness is rising it's a battle to stay in good shape.
*We don't need to have race winning fitness in the off-season.
*Lydiard was all about conditioning. If he had his way athletes would be doing L3-L4 training (his "best aerobic pace"😉 for anywhere from 24 weeks to 2 years and he lent heavily towards the two years knowing that L5 to L7 (or anaerobic intensity as he called it) fitness came quickly and could not be sustained for very long.
*We know that fitness can be maintained with one exercise bout a week so a sprinter should be doing one L7 session and Kilo rider one L6 and a pursuiter, crit or single day road rider one L5 session to maintain this fitness.
*The rest of the training should focus on conditioning, building the aerobic engine and trying to stay as lean as possible.

Quoted post said:

Originally Posted by Pureshot78 [IMG]/img/forum/go_quote.gif[/IMG]

pezcyclingnews.compezcyclingnews.comOpen ↗

According to this I guess all these 'new fangled' methods are really just 'antiquated training methodology".

BTW, Since when was Zone 3 'going hard'? [IMG]/img/vbsmilies/smilies/eek.gif[/IMG]

Do it for 3+ hours...

Going hard is relative. If you go really, really hard then you might be wishing for something else after 40 seconds. Likewise, if you pull an honest top-end Coggan L3, then the first hour will be fairly reasonable where you might have to concentrate to keep the level up or even the level down - but come 2.5 hours you'll know you're training. At 3.5 hours you'll be wishing that you were somewhere else unless you realise that you'll be smashing everyone after a winter of doing this stuff, with some L4 chasers during the week.

I should have been more specific in my reply... the article tends to imply that doing anything but L1, L2 during the winter will necessarily force you into a "grey zone" slump, where you won't be able to produce those L5, L6, L7 efforts. Many folks on this forum and others have reported being able to do L3, L4 workouts as the 'meat & potatoes' of their off season plan, without any detrement to their ability to train those higher zones. Thus my comment about Zone 3 not being equal to "going hard".

As fergie said... "Some real [censored] gets printed in Pez", unfortunately for me, a teammate just sent this out to my whole team list as justification for why he's "going slow" all winter.

Quoted post said:

Originally Posted by Pureshot78 [IMG]/img/forum/go_quote.gif[/IMG]

I should have been more specific in my reply... the article tends to imply that doing anything but L1, L2 during the winter will necessarily force you into a "grey zone" slump, where you won't be able to produce those L5, L6, L7 efforts. Many folks on this forum and others have reported being able to do L3, L4 workouts as the 'meat & potatoes' of their off season plan, without any detrement to their ability to train those higher zones. Thus my comment about Zone 3 not being equal to "going hard".

As fergie said... "Some real [censored] gets printed in Pez", unfortunately for me, a teammate just sent this out to my whole team list as justification for why he's "going slow" all winter.

L3 and 4 are the meat and potatoes. L3 is the unglamourous business end of getting in several hours of quality aerobic training but it all depends on what you want to do during the racing season.

If you plan on doing not much at all at high intensity over 50 miles then loads of L4 for about 40 to 60 minutes a session might be your bag. But if you are doing long road races and can't muscle out 3 to 4 hours hard and then put the hammer down, it's a bit pointless to be able to put out a great 30 to 60 minute effort when your legs died an hour or two before the finish.

Your goals are not my goals. My goals are not your goals. Our training will be different.

Maybe my L3 is a bit skewed in the wrong direction but 3 hours of mid L3 and I'm hurting. It'd be true to say that it sucks and I really don't like being on a bike at that point but I love the effects of the training so I grin and bear it. After 2.5 to 3 hours on the Saturday, Sundays ride gets very hard around the 2 hour mark... especially if I crack. The two weekday sessions are mostly L4, slumping occaisonally to L3, for ~90 minutes. I know from past experience that I need several months of hard L3 miles with some L4 sessions before any harder work has lasting effects. If I go blasting straight to the speed work the gains seem to go as quickly as they arrived and less seems to carry over to the following season.

I guess I'm lucky, I live in Northern Cali, so winters aint too bad. This'll be my first full winter since getting back on the bike and I really don't see any reason to do masses of L2 or less... IT might get down into the 30's every once in a while. It'll get windy and rainy but that's more of reason to get the big gears going and a few hours of hard training done rather than wasting time piddling in small gears chatting.

Ok, I thought I would gave you all an update on what I have been doing and what I am thinking.

Last week I did 7.5 hours in total as follows

Mon - did a 30 min recovery ride on the turbo, had a MTB race the day before, and I feel that I recover better with an easy/short ride than by taking the day off therefore for me I feel its worth the hassle getting setup and ready even for a 30 min spin
Tues - 2.5 hour Z2 ride
Wed - 1 hour turbo 2x10 Threshold - 1st at 251 ( 108% ) watts and 2nd at 244 ( 105% )watts, probably did the 1st one too hard as 2nd one was so tough
Thur - couldn't do planned ride today so Day Off
Fri - couldn't do planned ride today but managed a 60min turbo ride, just varied the pace up to threshold and down again so about 10 mins at threshold, 20 mins in sweetspot
Sat - Off
Sun - 2.5 hours at Z3

this was the first week that I had trouble following the plan I had set but i felt it was still a good week

tuesdays 2.5 hour Z2 ride was fairly tough, average watts was 168 but i spent 60 mins above Z2 with 20 mins over 280 watts, all my routes tend to have loads of sort sharp hills and its difficult to keep to the zones

however, on sunday's ride i went one of the flatter of the rolling routes and really tried to keep in the zone, this meant riding really easy up the hills, and then trying to really push it down hills. I concentrated really hard to try and keep the watts at the top of Z2 bottom of Z3 and ended with 184 average watts with only 40 minutes higher than Z3. What i realised is that while i have had aveage watts around 180 / 190 before, and that while I would have classed these as tough rides, my impression is that it is even tougher when you are trying to stay in the Zone. Seems to me that riding 2.5 hours mostly around Z3 is tougher than getting the same average with more time spend in Z4 and Z5 but also with a lot of time coasting or in Z1 also ????

Last week my CTL went from 67 to 71 even though it was shorter and easier than planned, and my TSB is at +5 so I think this is good. The next 2 weeks I will try to notch the CTL up a little more before I take another easy week.

This week I have planned a 2 hour Z3 ride, a 3+ hour Z2 ride, a 3x10 threshold session, and a MTB XC race with maybe another Z2/3 ride fitted in if I think I can manage it.

Maybe the following week it will be time to test again ?

In training guide by Howe velodynamics2.webs.comrcgtp1.pdfOpen ↗ page 63 I was wondering If I have very long training season, could I benefit If I did say two times 8 weeks Base and 4 weeks Build and then proceed to anaerobic capacity training. If my maximal aerobic power is decent and so is anaerobic capacity, but aerobic endurance and lactate threshold needs work to be done? What about shorter periods like three times 6 weeks base, 2 weeks build before entering anaerobic capacity training?

There are as many ways to mix and match build cycles with race prep cycles with actual race periods as there are coaches or athletes. What you propose is perfectly reasonable and it seems you got the main points of Charle's primer as you're suggesting block lengths in the 6 to 8 week range which makes sense in terms of adaptation rates.

Seems to me the more literally you want to take Lydiard the more you want to stay in the extended aerobic build phase but from what I've read he'd have had his runners spend years in that phase before moving to race specific preparations if he'd had his choice and racing cyclists compete a lot more frequently than typical distance runners. With two races on most weekends, week night races in many cities, several multi-day stage races during the season it's hard to schedule in as much dedicated aerobic conditioning time as you might for say a marathon runner who competes a few times per year and that moves you away from a pure Lydiard philosophy.

But yes, what you propose seems reasonable and your recognition that you're stronger in AWC, VO2 Max areas suggests that a few dedicated SST/L4 build cycles throughout the year could make a lot of sense. Do you use the WKO+ Performance Manager or something like TRIMPS to track training load and to plan peaks? The classic double peak season described here: http://home.trainingpeaks.com/articles/cycling/what-is-the-performance-management-chart.aspx seems relevant to your question and a good way to approach a long season. Basically:

- Build a deep training base and train through any lower priority races to bring your CTL up (good time to focus on L4/Tempo work)
- Spend some of that CTL during first race period for race specific high end work and for race day freshness
- Back off from racing with a mid season CTL rebuild (another good time to focus on L4/Tempo work)
- Spend some more CTL in a second race period
- Know when to stop, refresh, regroup and start another annual cycle beginning with winter building

All of that could work with your proposal. I haven't tried a three peak season and would worry about not building enough during the build cycles but again there are a ton of ways to approach this stuff as long as you pay attention to the big picture goals and your own specific needs.

Good luck,
-Dave

Ok, thanks Dave. I'm on Golden Cheetah now, wko+ is prolly next sw investment, but not this season just started. Double peak yes, but second peak is not needed if first one did not succeed 😄

I'm still wondering if 6+2 weeks is too short for both cycles so that they just spoil each other? Kinda microdosing thinking..If I had 16,7/9,7/5,4/4,6 w/kg for 5s/1min/5min/FTP there's something at the bottom done already, or what? Is 8-10 weeks too long period to lean fully towards FTP and lower? It's still kinda left leg/right leg thinking, but shorter steps. Too short steps?

Another general question: When testing 1 minute, is it ok to do it medium steep short uphill or sould it be done flat road section for roadie? Uphill riding technical skills + upper body work vs. flat road grinding ability giving different results? Fergie?

The testing should reflect your goals. If it's a hilly race then do a hilly 60sec effort, If crits or flat races are your goal then on the flat and if track is your goal then on the drome! That is to get a valid result. To get a reliable result you may want to consider a trainer based effort where you can control for weather and resistance.

Ok Fergie, that's about what I thought then. What about those cycles (6+2 vs 8+4 vs else)? Too short, too theoretical?

I'm also in winter training mode, however I'm a beginner as far as structured training goes (especially when it comes to using a power meter). Is there a reliable reference you guys know of for greenhorn riders? I haven't even been able to figure out my levels yet...

Anyway, I've been roughly doing the following. After reading what you guys have I think I'm going to change it up:

Monday - 210w for 50 mins - HR about 160
Tuesday - 220w for 40 mins - HR in the 170s
Wednesday - 220w for 50 - HR in the 170s
Thursday - 240w for 2 x 25 mins (5 min break) - HR in the 180s
Friday - OFF
Saturday - 200w for 90 mins - HR in the 150s
Sunday - 230w for 2 x 30 mins (5 min break) - HR in the 170s

As you can see, my schedule looks extremely uniform compared to what you guys are doing. Shrug. Should I mix it up? I'm training for a 15 mile, level ground circuit race.

Quoted post said:

Originally Posted by slickfast [IMG]/img/forum/go_quote.gif[/IMG]

.... Is there a reliable reference you guys know of for greenhorn riders?...

This is a pretty good starting point: http://velodynamics2.webs.com/rcgtp1.pdf

I prefer to mix things up during the week but this time of year it's variations of similar work and not as varied as it will be during race prep and race season. But yeah, I'd push a day or two a week up to Threshold and a few days down into Tempo rather than the same moderately hard pace every day. Can't say what you're really doing now as you the numbers don't mean much without knowing your FTP but since every day falls into a pretty narrow range they're probably mid Tempo or lower or it would be a pretty tough training week.

-Dave

Thanks for the link! I saw that earlier in the thread and have been reading through it, but it's good to know that it's a good reliable source. One thing for you winter training guys: do you put a fan in front of you when you're on the trainer? I sweat like Niagara as soon as I'm warmed up and it doesn't stop until I'm done.

Quoted post said:

Originally Posted by daveryanwyoming [IMG]/img/forum/go_quote.gif[/IMG]

This is a pretty good starting point: http://velodynamics2.webs.com/rcgtp1.pdf

I prefer to mix things up during the week but this time of year it's variations of similar work and not as varied as it will be during race prep and race season. But yeah, I'd push a day or two a week up to Threshold and a few days down into Tempo rather than the same moderately hard pace every day. Can't say what you're really doing now as you the numbers don't mean much without knowing your FTP but since every day falls into a pretty narrow range they're probably mid Tempo or lower or it would be a pretty tough training week.

-Dave