how many

Yeah, I have 'em - and much more than 3-4/yr.
Lack of discipline is the culprit for me - not going easy enough on days that are supposed to be 'recovery'.
I can always use the calorie burning of an aborted good, hard workout that quickly turns into a longer mediocre workout, but I frustrate myself in this way constantly. Getting better about this, but it's still an issue for me.

Quoted post said:

Originally Posted by leanman [IMG]/img/forum/go_quote.gif[/IMG]

i have about 3-4 of these workouts a year. workouts that call for x amount of intervals and i only get 1/4th of them.. even feeling terrible on the intervals i did do. tonights workout after a 40 minute warm up was 20 one minute intervals with one minute rest. i felt bad last night riding an hour ez and felt ok tonight doing my warmup. first interval i was feeling bad and knew i was not going to even try to go and get after it... i did 4 of the 20.. some days you feel like lance, dopped to the gills, and other days you feel like a cat 2.. tonight i was a cat 2 with no legs at all. i say i have about 3-4-5 of these types of workouts a year. a team ride you hurt on, or intervals like tonight or a 20 minute balls to the wall test ride.. i ride 300 days a year. most of the time, i ride hard 2 times a week, so thats 100 hard workouts and only having 3-4 where i dont do what i'm supose to do i think its not too bad... it pisses you off, but some days you just dont have it. even though there is no added stress, no family issues, sleep is well, diet perfect. some days the legs just arnt there.

do you have days like i just had? how may a year? thanks

You get training sessions that, for whatever reason, are sheer torture.
Even if you've been training/racing well for a period of time, there will always be a session where you find the going tough.

Invariably what I do when this situation arises is - scrap the idea to try to achieve pre set targets. Just pedal at a pace that suits you but do so for the time/distance that had been planned.
For example, if the plan is to ride 50 miles in 2.5hrs and you find that you're dying after 30 minutes pedalling - ride the distance (50 miles) even if it takes you 4 hours to do so.

I find when I get through a session such as this - the memory of having done it actually helps motivate when I'm training/racing better.

always wondered how pros do it. race hard all the time and go as fast as they do. wonder if they have any feel like [censored] days like i had tonight.. i do 3 weeks on 1 week ez and in my 3 weeks on its a hard one wed and sat . 6 hard ones in 3 weeks, ann tonight i'm way off.. those guys go hard alot. week stage races, a few ez days a few races again, a mid week race a weekend race. het volk sat kurne brussels kurne sun. how do these guys do it and go as fast as they do? i know they get massages, and dont stand 8-9 hours at a job, but compared to me i do 6 hard ones in 3 weeks, these guys go 10-15 hard days in 3 weeks.. all the time..i would just love to see exactly what they do in a 2-3-4 week training/racing block. how fast and long they go in training, how slow they ride on ez days.. laurent jalabert and eric zable were in front from feb - sept.. how do they do it? do they have [censored] days too???

Quoted post said:

Originally Posted by leanman [IMG]/img/forum/go_quote.gif[/IMG]

always wondered how pros do it. race hard all the time and go as fast as they do. wonder if they have any feel like [censored] days like i had tonight.. i do 3 weeks on 1 week ez and in my 3 weeks on its a hard one wed and sat . 6 hard ones in 3 weeks, ann tonight i'm way off.. those guys go hard alot. week stage races, a few ez days a few races again, a mid week race a weekend race. het volk sat kurne brussels kurne sun. how do these guys do it and go as fast as they do? i know they get massages, and dont stand 8-9 hours at a job, but compared to me i do 6 hard ones in 3 weeks, these guys go 10-15 hard days in 3 weeks.. all the time..i would just love to see exactly what they do in a 2-3-4 week training/racing block. how fast and long they go in training, how slow they ride on ez days.. laurent jalabert and eric zable were in front from feb - sept.. how do they do it? do they have [censored] days too???

They have to have days when they're suffering.

If you're racing a Jalabert/Zabel programme I'd say that they're racing on average 3 days per week Feb-Sept.
If they're training 1 or 2 twice per week at most that's all they're doing.

Robert Millar says in his book that he raced/trained 35 hours per week. At an average speed 20mph that's 700 miles per week.
That circa 35,000 per season.