Power Profile - Minimal Training

[dazman]

Hi,

Last season was the first time I really had time to train properly (around 15 hours a week) and I improved my FT from around 200 to 280 using the hunter plans. I've now got alot less time due to work and family commitments so I'm only doing a couple of half/1 hour sessions during the week on my computrainer and still having a good 3 hour group session at the weekends. The thing is, I've still managed to get my FT to 300 by just slowly increasing the watts on the indoor rides.

My question is however, am I going to end up with really poor endurance, i.e a rapidly reducing profile over a longer ride or can I still bluff this for a while and maintain my FT in this manner?

 

[daveryanwyoming]

...My question is however, am I going to end up with really poor endurance, i.e a rapidly reducing profile over a longer ride or can I still bluff this for a while and maintain my FT in this manner?

I guess the big question is - do you have a choice? IOW could you get more ride time in if you could? If so, more ride time(at similar intensities) means more CTL, a flatter power curve and potentially better endurance. But if you're putting in as much training time as you can manage then it's academic.

FWIW I just did a 206 mile race with substantial climbing last weekend and was pretty happy with my results. My standard training this season has been two to three hour rides on long days with one 100 mile day and one 130 mile day in the last year. The key to getting through a much longer race and still doing fairly well was paying attention to pacing and feeding throughout the day. I tried to keep my pace at tempo or below for everything except the major climbs and a few crunch periods where I just had to go or get dropped and I made sure I ate and drank something every fifteen minutes or so all day long.

Anyway, more quality training time is hard to beat if you can manage it, but you can still do some longer rides and races on a high quality/ low volume approach especially if you get your FTP high enough that you can ride your events at Tempo or below without getting dropped.

Good luck,
Dave

 

[BullGod]

My question is however, am I going to end up with really poor endurance, i.e a rapidly reducing profile over a longer ride or can I still bluff this for a while and maintain my FT in this manner?

I've just ridden a season in Cat 1 here in Europe on 10-12 hrs a week. Quality, not quantity - I sought to make every minute of every training session count, and do as many races as possible and I have performed much better than when I had time for 20hr weeks in 2006.