L3 X 1 hour X 2 = L3 X 2 hours?

[gudujarlson]

Do two 1 hour L3 workouts (1 in the morning and 1 in the evening) equal one 2 hour L3 workout in terms of the adaptations it produces? In other words, is the duration of a single workout important or is the total time of all workouts the only thing important? Assume that the durations do not include time warming up and cooling down.

What about L2 workouts of the same durations?

The reason I ask is that I combine my weekly workouts with my commute to work and it takes me about 1 hour each direction. During base period, I wonder if I am accomplishing anything by doing L2/L3 work during these times, because it really doesn't feel very hard. I would prefer to do 2-5 hour L2/L3 rides like the ones I do on the weekends, but I don't have that much time during the week. If I drive to work and then ride all in one block, an hour of my life is wasted sitting in my car plus I have to endure the stress rush hour driving in a major metro area.

 

[daveryanwyoming]

There's not a lot of sports science that delves into comparing the situations you describe. You might get some anecdotal info on stuff that's worked or hasn't worked so well for various folks but I don't think anyone really knows with certainty if split Endurance/Tempo paced workouts are much different than a continuous medium distance workout.

I'd look at it as a 'do what you can do' sort of situation. If that's the time you have to train then comparing it to a workout you can't actually fit into your schedule isn't very useful. If you could do the continuous two or three hour daily rides I'm sure you would but that's not an option. I guess the only thing that might be worth a try is leaning those rides a bit more to the Tempo/SST end of the spectrum vs more conventional L2/L3. With the recovery time between them you might find you can squeeze a bit more quality out of your commutes and perhaps even get a bit better workout than a longer L2/L3 session might give. But if it takes too big a toll on you and you can't do it day in and day out or it leaves you too trashed for harder days in your schedule then it's likely not worth it.

FWIW, I do a lot of split commute workouts and they've fit nicely into my overall program. Sometimes I'll use one or both rides to do some L4 intervals, other days I ride Tempo on the longer stretches of open roads and sometimes I just take it easy and cruise the commutes at endurance pace. It depends on the specifics of your commute but if you've got the roads you can do some good quality work to or from work.

-Dave

 

[gudujarlson]

> I guess the only thing that might be worth a try is leaning those rides a bit more to the Tempo/SST end of the spectrum vs more conventional L2/L3.

That's generally what I do; raise the intensity during the weekday sessions and then do some long L2 rides on the weekend, but it seems to contradict some long held beliefs that base should include a lot of L2 and some L3. I went back and looked at Joe Friel's book and he does have some 1.5 hour E2 rides in the case studies, so I guess it is not unheard of.

 

[daveryanwyoming]

Also realize that Friel's thoughts on base building reflect a traditional LSD based approach. Great if you've got the time to do long rides on a regular basis and put in the hours day in and day out. Pretty standard stuff for full time pro racers. But an awful lot of part time racers working around full time jobs and families increase their winter base building intensity and do a lot more L3/SST/L4 work over the winter months.

Basically if you're riding more than 14 to 16 hours per week, especially if you're riding a lot more then you'd better go with a LSD approach to laying your winter base mileage as big hours and high intensity lead to very bad things. But if you're riding less than 12 to 14 hours per week and especially if you're riding a lot less than that you should think seriously about using an SST approach to laying winter base miles as low hours and low intensity generally leads to nothing from a progress standpoint.

Bottom line, the L3 you do during commutes is not going to hurt you if you're already time limited in your riding and if anything you might look for opportunities do do more SST/L4 work in your week unless somehow you're putting in 14+ hours with your current program.

Good luck,
-Dave

 

[gudujarlson]

I train 5-20 hours a week including the 1-2 hours I spend in the gym. A typical non-rest week includes 7 1 hour workouts during the week and 2 3+ hour rides on the weekend. Since high volume is recommended for the base period, I am tempted to stay on the high end of that range during base, so I think I might be in the grey area between the 2 categories you describe.