For sure, dehydration could lead to that. I do think I did a better job on the 2nd ride.
Thinking back now, I remember feeling like I needed to hit the potty right after starting on the first ride. I was cautious and drank less than desired to keep from having to stop for a nature break.
On the 2nd ride, I didn’t have that issue and I think I drank more normally. So that could definitely have been a big influence between the two.
Funny, I rarely look this deep into rides. And having some outside thoughts really opens my eyes to details I would otherwise miss.
I have to admit… It’s a bit nerve racking here, opening my training and plan up for comment (and criticism). I have made (and will continue to make) mistakes along the way. I don’t mind making them, because I usually learn more from the “oops” moments than instant success.
But I have to say I am pleased with the response and good consideration shared by you all. I appreciate anyone taking the time consider and comment (let alone just read) all of my content here.
Thanks to all of you for the interest and contributions.
I am 51 and have done this type of block workout twice, with good effect, as part of a peaking process. Pick an intensity that you know you can finish, don’t try a new power level. It seems like halfway through, your body figures out how to adapt and then it is still hard, but seems manageable.
This is probably true, but what both studies (conducted by the same people) don’t conclude is the effects of the underlying aerobic endurance/fitness. I totally agree, only from a personal anecdotal standpoint, that lots of HIT sessions can really ramp up your fitness, but just how long-lasting is that fitness compared to what is created via lower intensity training. I know once I stopped doing HIIT workouts and started “just riding”, my fitness fell noticeably.
It’s interesting (and weird that with all the science available we still aren’t any closer to a definitive answer!), and thanks to TR’s resident guinea pig Chad for experimenting!
@mcneese.chad I was going to mention the other day that if you have access to WKO4 that there is a decent chart pack that does PWR:Hr (aerobic decoupling) and this one way of determining if the workout was too stressful or not.
Essentially if the average hr from the first half of the workout to the last half of the workout changes by more than 5% then you may want to consider lowering the power. More than that 5% decoupling usually means that it was more stressful than desired.
However, if you wanted to have a strong stimulus for some adaptation then there is nothing wrong with having slightly more than 5%. In a polarized approach this has been used successfully to determine power loading on Zone 1 workouts FWIW
Golden Cheetah does it free I believe. I originally responded you can do it with TP free account, but was mistaken (I have another month of premium left).
@bbarrera I used an older version of golden cheetah which then essentially became WKO and all its variations. I upgraded a few years ago and use WKO4+ which was a one time cost and can be synced with any free training peaks account. I have it set up to sync with all of my athletes training peaks accounts which pull from their rides outdoors as well as from trainerroad.
Very cool. I don’t have that app, but just hearing the % is helpful. Something I will keep in mind and can do some basic calls along the way on my own with that in mind. Thanks for the info.
I did a 90 min ride yesterday at 65% ftp, 75% max HR. This was the first ride longer, lower intensity rides I had ever done on the trainer - previously I’d just done hr long or shorter interval workouts (vo2max, threshold, sweetspot).
Toward the last 15-20 mins, I clearly noticed my legs getting tired, and cadence wanting to drop. And I really wanted to take a short break to rest my legs (I didn’t). Also, my hr increased by 20bpm over the course of the ride.
I take these as signs that slow twitch endurance is a weakness of mine, that I definitely have room to improve, and possibly this power is above my aerobic threshold/LT1.
While this ride is not as long as ideal for LSD rides (Chad - well done on your 4 hr rides, they’d be brutal for me ), the experience makes me believe I’ll benefit from these type of rides to improve my aerobic base, which historically I have probably neglected by doing most of my rides/training at higher intensities.
Very cool, @DaveWh. Good work on pushing past the old limit. Long indoor rides are a challenge. Years ago anything over 2 hours seemed impossible or insane (maybe both?).
But as with anything, you can slowly build up ability to stretch that beyond current capabilities. For 90 mins and no costing, that is a good 2+ hour ride outside at least, IMHO.
So they can payback a bunch for the time spent, much like the higher intensity ones.
Keep up the long rides and I’m curious to hear if you feel they offer good payback from the work.
Had a much better experience in the Mount Deborah workout yesterday. Interval length and recover (1:1) was much better than the one I tried on Saturday. I was able to increase Intensity on most of the intervals and get what I think is the general goal for the Z3 workouts. I am updating my plan above to reflect that and related planned workouts that are closer to what works for me.
Easily looking at aerobic decoupling is the only thing I’ll miss about TP. I took a look at GoldenCheetah v3.4 and v3.5-dev last night, I see Pwr:HR % for the entire ride, but couldn’t find an easy way to show % for some of the long intervals in Warren, Koip, and Conness workouts. There is a 2-D graph of power:HR but again I couldn’t easily find a way to show only data for a specific interval. My decoupling was in 3-4% range for Warren in week 1 of traditional base, and dropped to 1-2% in weeks 2 and 3. Definitely means I should either bump power of future traditional base workouts, or its time to wrap up traditional base and move on… in other words admit I’m just fine being part of the “99% of cyclists should use SSB” recommendation due to time commitment required of traditional base.
Thanks for the link @bbarrera. I will read through that.
If I understand correctly, we should be able to easily create an interval for the first and second halves of the workout in TR. Then simple review the HR between both and run a quick 2nd HR Avg / 1st HR Avg to get the 1.??? value where the ?? is the % delta. (Note: This is from a simple guess and not from full reading of the info yet).
Easier said than done, here is TP analysis for Saturday’s 2.75 hour Conness. I’ve done the following:
selected the first 25 minute interval in lower right, zoom in, only displayed Power and HR
turned on data smoothing to make it easier to mentally “see” a line thru power and HR… if you mentally draw a line thru power and HR the lines are basically parallel (HR rises a little)
instead of trying to visualize, look in upper right to see Pw:HR is 0.57%
This whole experience Is pretty interesting. Despite being “fine” (tired, but not overly so) doing a 150 mile ride a few weeks back, the 90 minutes yesterday was surprisingly tough.
Agreed, very interesting. I sure think the unrelenting nature of trainer work is unique and stands to be a more direct effort. Even subtle grade changes on otherwise flat roads can lead to relief on the muscles that we can avoid on a trainer.
It’s great to hear your experience and see how much it is even more dramatic in comparison to outside riding. It reinforces the idea that we get condensed training stress for a shorter time investment.
), the experience makes me believe I’ll benefit from these type of rides to improve my aerobic base, which historically I have probably neglected by doing most of my rides/training at higher intensities.