I’m trying to understand if and how I can mix sweet spot workouts with long outdoor rides on the weekend.
I’m on the LV build phase, and have the sweet spot ride set for the weekend. However, at times, I wish to ride for 5-6 hrs on the weekend, and most routes are a mix of rolling terrain and flat surfaces. So maybe there’s 2-3 15 minute climbs and descents, followed by a long stretch of flat roads, and then some climbs again. I’m trying to see how I could do those climbs at a sweet spot intensity, and if that is even productive? Maybe that the first 15 minute climbs aren’t productive because I can already do 2*30 at 90%+, but maybe doing the last climbs towards the end of a long ride are?
You might already be getting plenty of time at sweetspot on these hilly rides as it is. If you have a record of a long ride you’ve completed previously (click on past rides) you can check out your ride how long you’ve spent in different zones. You might find your spending am hour or more at sweetspot over the course of your ride.
Right, but I’m wondering how different the training load is when the intervals are spread out too much. For instance, I could do 4 * 20 sweet spot intervals with 5 min rest in between, followed by 2 hrs of endurance riding, or I could do 4 * 20 sweet spot intervals with long endurance gaps in between, but that wouldn’t be as effective? What if I do 8 * 20 intervals in the latter case?
Long gaps is fine imo. Just do one an hour so. Or knock all out at one time with shoter rest. I think the end result will be 85% the same. The main thing is getting the work in
Why not do some sweet spot on the climbs if you like, and finish the rest on the flats? It will be a different feel on the flats, but important to train that skill as well.
My impression is that those two have different benefits? I’ve read in a lot of TR’s SS workout descriptions about tempo and low-end SS attending to aerobic power, and the high-end SS intervals to muscular endurance…