Cracking on long climb - interpretation?



nmcgann

New Member
Sep 23, 2006
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More elementary (dumb) training questions I'm afraid....:rolleyes:

I've done a couple of "rides" of the Tacx RLV of Alpe de Huez on my iMagic. The first time I completed it at pretty much a constant power, but the second time I blew after 40mins and had to step down to a lower power to complete it.

Both times my HR was the same (160bpm, about my anerobic threshold I think) with my breathing just fine, but the 2nd time it was tiredness/heavyness in my legs that made me cut back and my HR then dropped to a correspondingly lower level to the end (150-ish). The main difference I can see between the 2 "rides" is that the 2nd time I had a hard club ride the day before, so I wasn't fresh.

I presume I was running out of carbs as aerobically I wasn't in any distress?

[It was interesting as this blow up was exactly what happens when go past my limit on club rides, the feeling was identical as was the partial recovery. I find that if I am on a fast ride with people that are stronger than me then if I blow this way then there is no chance of me catching them unless they back off to my pace. ]

What is the best way of training to increase the point of blowing up? (I've been doing mostly 2x20min@LT-ish sessions 3-4 times a week so far). Just keep on trying to increase my sustainable power output? Mix in some intense intervals?

Neil