I’m newer to cycling and come more from a running background where I typically do one long run a week. The long run, for me, is often classified as a hard workout regardless of pace due to the duration being the stimulus so I applied that logic to cycling as well.
Recently, I have been getting a post-work out struggle survey after completing my long rides and I marked them as “hard” as they did feel hard to me since the duration or intensity is a new stimulus to me.
For example, I have been trying to build up my volume progressively increasing my long rides by 30minutes a week and have recently started to stretch these out to 4hrs+ sessions. Mar 2 I completed Proteus and marked it has “hard” which to me it was since it 4.5hrs and I felt it was a “hard” session. This triggered a struggle survey. I completed Sunflower March 23 which was 5hrs and that too was “hard” because of the duration. And yesterday I completed Big Mountain which was also “hard” to me since the intensity factor was much higher than my other rides. Could I have done another interval? Yes. Two? Given they’re 30-50minutes each interval I am unsure.
For these long rides, it would seem normal to me that these should be marked as hard sessions either cause the duration is such a new stimulus or the intensity+duration is hard (I try to do a productive workout if I am not feeling fatigued). It just seems odd to me that unless I mark all my long rides as moderate, I keep getting a struggle survey. Is this normal? Should I just keep pushing along? I feel like I am continuing to progress well, but given I have had 3 surveys I just wanted to check if I am on the wrong path.
