How much LT work should I do?

iansmay

I did 4 races last year with no real training and got whooped in all but a flat crit. I got some good motivation out of the deal though. Now I'm starting my first season as a 4 and have been religiously folowing a plan i made from the training bible. I scheduled an early peak and am in the second week of a build 2 month.

Last week I did a long ride in zone 2, 95 min of long (20-40 min) intervals right at LT +/- 3 bpm (in 2 workouts on different days), and 20 min of zone 5b intervals (piramid type).

This week the plan is 30 min 5b intervals, 110 min lt intervals and a long ride (with recovery rides in between). I've alreade done a day with 27 min of 5b (another piramid workout (ouch)) and then this morning I did 60 min at lt climbing in three 20 min intervals (climbing is a weakness). I plan to put the other 50 min at lt into a long ride on sunday.

then I'll have one more build week and then a rest week befor a 2 week peak before a race period. My question is how much time at lt is reasonable and is there a point at which i'll stop improving? Should I maybe be focussing more on AE workouts and maybe substitute another AE workout for one of the 2 lt workouts?

It seems that with all I've read the LT stuff is what most beginners lack the most...ie power at lt and musculat endurance. But I don't want to short change myself on the AE side either. My instinct is to focuss most on the lt stuff and limit the AE to one day per week and then make the substitution during the peak weeks.

what do you all think? I really want to put the hurt on those people who humbled me so painfully last year. If that's not possible i at least want to keep up. thanks.