Hi Everyone, I’m trying to add endurance rides on my rest days in my current plan.
I don’t want to commit on an MV as there are weeks that I maybe super busy.
I’m just a bit confused which one should I add. There tags on the workouts like “Achievable”, “Productive” or “Stretch” what does it mean?
Do I need to aim for workout which are “Productive” or “Stretch”?
Will it benefit me in the long run or it’s the other way around?
They relate to your current abilities in that area so a workout that’s marked as “Achievable” is roughly the same level of intensity/difficulty as workouts that you’ve done recently. “Productive” are a little harder while “Stretch” are harder still.
These ratings aren’t static, do a few marked “Productive” and you essentially move the goalposts so other workouts that were marked “Productive” are now marked “Achievable”.
Every workout is given a workout level in its power zone from 1.0 to 10, you have a set of Progression Levels (look on your career page) that also go from 1.0 to 10. The tags are verbal representations of the difference so:
workout level (WL) - your Progression Level (PL) <= 0 == Achievable
WL - PL is between 0.0 and 1.0 = Productive
WL - PL is between 1.0 & 2.0 = Stretch
WL - PL > 2.0 = Breakthrough
For endurance rides it probably doesn’t matter since the harder workouts just tend to be longer rather than increased intensity (%age of FTP) so just choose one that fits into your timescale. Once you get to threshold and above I’d be wary of pushing yourself too far.
Look at the MV plans, the additional weekday Z2 ride (compared to LV) is about an hour long with low intensity.
For weekend rides, when available time to train likely is more, I’d shoot for a “productive” Z2 workout (as long as time permits) given that you usually have a day off before the intensity starts again.
For endurance rides keep in mind that they dont need to be hard to give benefit. They want to add stress without adding much recovery time.
So look for rides that are Intensity Factor 0.55-0.6 for the insurance rides (maybe try something up to 0.65) and see how it feels. You shouldn’t feel like you need to pedal much at all, should be just at the border between nose and mouth breathing…
I have realised that many of those “endurance” rides that are in TR library are actaully quite hard, and might be a biiiiiit too hard if you want to do a power z2 ride. It varies a lot between people of course, I have sprint heavy so my LT1 might be lower than others, which mean that my z2 is a tad lower 
One thing that you can look at as well is HR. You should have a negative trend in HR, as in your HR should slightly lower itself during the ride. If it does, it usually means that its easy enough. Dont get too hooked on this though since it can also mean that aerobic engine is not very developed. You can check stuff like this out on intervals.icu.
Here is an example of a normal endurance ride for me (CP of 290w ish):
This ride was around 170w, which for me is a good balance for easy z2 rides As you can see I product more power per HR later in the ride.
Thanks for the inputs. so that explains why those productive/stretch Endurance workouts are getting harder and longer. Most recent ride I did is between 65-75 for 2hrs and with cadence drills are crazy. trying to spin at a very high rate my HR fluctuates.
I think, I will just go with 50-60% FTP range will try and how it goes.
I would use the TrainNow feature to add rides - the idea is that it looks at your current training load and will suggest something appropriate - just tell it how long a ride you want to do and off you go.
Cadence drills do affect the HR, but dont look at them as something bad because they affect the HR! My coach often throws in endurance rides with some 200w @ 110 RPM for 1min. Since cadence is so high, you still produce the watts but there is very little torque by the legs which makes them not take a toll on the legs in the same way as normal cadence.
Either way 0.65-0.75 endurance is very hard endurance… I would keep the level lower to make sure that you are doing actual z2 endurance and not going into z3 no-mans-land.
Start with 0.6 IF and see how that feels
Yeh TrainNow would work well for you here. If you have done a workout the day before I have never known it to suggest anything other than endurance based on the your PL level. I sometimes have a look for a +1 version depending on how I am feeling to add a couple of sprints or something to keep it interesting.
thanks for the inputs! will try this TrainNow feature.
Anyway, will the volume/duration matter? on my good days I can only do max 2 hrs on endurance. But most of the time it’s 75-90mins.
90min is a good time to aim for. Anything between 90min and 2hrs is great for endurance riding Especially if its on the trainer!
And keep an eye on HR, see where its at after 15min (warm up), and then try to keep HR on that level.
My favourite endurance rides are Gibbs -1 and Brasstown -1
