Tastelessly replying to myself… I feel taunted.
(199 is definitely not true… but hopefully it will be before the season is over.)
2 Likes
The reasons to avoid erg change below and above threshold, IMO.
Below: erg might have you going too hard on days where you’re not your best and you should adjust down to do the time.
Above: erg power targets might not be hard enough, as most of the time these intervals should basically be all out. If you need erg to do all out, you’re probably not doing all out all that well in the first place. How can you predict what all out is on a given day??
I use erg some below threshold, for endurance, tempo, SST, whatever. Never above it; rarely at threshold.
6 Likes
I was really nervous about this week’s vo2 intervals. My legs are sore even after my rest day, I had a big week last week with 600tss. I looked at a few other workouts or even thought to myself I’m not good enough after not nailing my vo2 last Monday “not nailing means I dropped 10% of watts final min of my last 2 intervals” and threshold intervals last week I quit my 5th 8min interval 4min in since my HR was pegged.
I loaded the workout up and climbed on, thinking if I struggle I’ll bail and just today.
Man I nailed all of them but the final min I dropped 10%.
4 Likes
This was my thought. You’re likely not going to go hard enough. Or it’ll lock you into too hard of a target and you get the death spiral.
1 Like
Planning to do a VO2 Max block either after my Sweet Spot block or after the Threshold block, depending on how the FTP / TTE development goes after the Sweet Spot block. Problem last year was that I often couldn’t go deep enough indoor, it always felt as if my legs were the limiter and not my Heart/Lungs, outdoor it wasn’t an issue to put out power and get my Breathing and HR going…
How would I go about designing hard start Vo2max intervals if my normal Vo2 max sessions look like these:
4x8min @ 110% (4 min rest)
5x5min @ 120% (3 min rest)
?
It depends. 
If doing them in Resistance mode then I’d do maybe 60s at 150% or 30s at 180% and then try to hold 110%/120% respectively for the rest of the interval, not worrying too much if the power drops. It all depends on how “sprinty” you are.
not sprinty at all. At 300w ftp at 60kg, yet my “sprint” is around 700 watt. I’m a veery aerobic rider.
Try a few and see. The hard start is just to get your heart and lungs going, so you’ll benefit from varying the power and duration of the hard start to try to get yourself to 90%+ of VO2 Max nice and quickly without completely gassing yourself.
So, I’m about to finish up a block of sweetspot/threshold work, and I’m ready for something new. Inthink I’ll attempt vo2 starting in 2 weeks, when my rest week finishes.
Does VO2 Tuesday and Thursday, keep my kitchen sink saturday group ride, everything else easy zone 2 sound reasonable?
Yeah, although I’d probably go for Z1 on Wednesday - but that’s just me.
For me, not a chance in hell unless the group ride was noodling around and chatting. 
I’m feeling my way through my 2nd VO2max block. I did a 5x5.5 - finished the workout just fine but it took me a week to recover.
I throttled back to 6x2 to test the waters. Recovery has been better but it will still be 3-4 days. I’ll probably try 4x3 or 5x3 next.
I’m also thinking of the mixed block per previous discussion. A mixed block could be one vo2 + group ride per week.
YMMV
I should also mention I ride around 10 hours a week. The saturday ride is always the hardest day of the week for sure though
@Junk_Miles & @kurt.braeckel Genuinely curious: When you say you don’t like ERG bc VO2 Max ints are “supposed to be all out”, you’re talking specifically about attack style ints, like the first pic, not other styles like long supra thresholds, second pic, correct?
Or no… all VO2 Max intervals you should be going all out? I’m confused… I thought many were set targets of 120%, 130%, etc.
Personally, I dropped my group ride when I did my vo2 block. With how condensed the block was, trying to add that in would have killed me. That said, I didn’t end up being able to add it back in before a big race like I intended (work reasons, not training reasons) and my performance suffered for it. I.e., I am and was definitively stronger, but I had been missing those hard 70+ mile days for months, so my legs were not thrilled with me by the third day of racing. If you don’t have an event, though, and are just aiming to bump ftp, I’d drop any race-pace rides for a few weeks.
Personally I would avoid doing anything other than VO2 and z2 or recovery doing a vo2 block. If done properly the intervals really take a lot out of you and adding any stress on top of that is really hard to deal with and can easily derail a good block. If you have the energy to do a hard group ride I would lean towards adding an additional vo2 workout to get a bit more training effect going.
2 Likes
Got some time to kill? Ten Minute Tips #28: FTP and VO2max Thoughts and Listener Questions - Empirical Cycling
(I, personally, do use erg mode on the few occasions I elect to do very, very short sprints / anerobic work indoors because I can actually do more power faster in erg mode + a sudden cadence change than I can trying to jump back and forth between a handful of gears on my poorly indexed old mechanical trainer bike that drops its chain every 4th time–but that’s a me problem.)
1 Like
Hmm ok interesting. Ok then alternate plan…since i’ll still be outside on a group ride at least once a week…
Is 2 VO2 days enough? This would be paired with a bit of zone 2 during the week, a zone 2 day sunday, and I’d just chill at the back of the saturday group ride and stay with everyone that gets dropped, ride zone 2 most of the ride, maybe a bit of tempo.
2 vo2 a week?
2 Vo2 workouts a week
1 Like