Must you do endurance miles first?

Quadsweep said:

What do you all think about the traditional ideation that you must do a foundation period of 3-4 months in the winter of easy endurance training before you start doing an L3/L4 focus or you will not get a strong as you could?

I think that all my competitors should take this approach and stay in their small chainrings through February at least 🙂

I don't think you'll find many people here that think very highly of that approach.

Quadsweep said:

What do you all think about the traditional ideation that you must do a foundation period of 3-4 months in the winter of easy endurance training before you start doing an L3/L4 focus or you will not get a strong as you could?

I'm experiencing a winter training program going the other way around.

Considering that my goal is an ultradistance race (600k) beginning of may, and that I've piled up plenty of kilometers during last seasons without really stopping riding, my coach decided to start right away with L3 - L4 and L5 workouts for at least 8 weeks and then go for the long endurance rides.

1) do all your brutal intervals indoors through the cold and dark winters. the muscle mass and post ride metabolic meltdown will keep you from getting overly fat and you wont have to do yourself long term phsycological damage tapping out 18mph in the freezing fog.

2) if you really want to do long slow rides, do them in between races in the pleasantness of summer. more enjoyable, and they might just help you get a bit leaner.

that's my 2 point plan and it seems to keep me sane.