daveryanwyoming said:
I like your "stress miles" concept, an interesting way to think of workout quality. Are you really only riding 25 to 30 quality miles per week? How much time does that work out to per week when you include warmups, cooldowns and rests between efforts? When you talk about your 7 mile effort weeks it sounds like you don't ride much that week, am I reading that wrong?
I guess on first glance, unless I'm missing something it sounds like you're only riding a few days a week and not building much in terms of Chronic Training Load. I know you're targeting short specific events, but raising your CTL helps you train and recover better and is a good thing even for someone focused on shorter events. I remember a powerpoint presentation Andy gave which described training load for elite track pursuit riders. These are riders targeting a 4km event, that's only 2.5 miles and they still built a reasonable amount of CTL prior to their speed work as racing approached.
Off hand unless I'm missing something I'd suggest adding a few Tempo or SST rides to your training week. Tempo in particular is fun and fast but doesn't leave you too wiped out for focused hard training elsewhere in your training week. You should ride these for a bit longer blocks, say 30 to 45 minute efforts at a comfortably fast pace or something like 75% - 85% of your FTP since you mentioned power training. You don't need a lot of these for your target events, but how about interspersing one or two of these per week? I'm not suggesting a training load aimed at road racers or multi-day stage racers, just a bit of an increase in your regular training volume.
Your focus on intensity is good for your short events, but it still pays to build your overall training load in terms of being able to ride longer recover more quickly and to be able to train hard again sooner. As Andy says: "the more you train, the more you can train".
You mentioned a 20 watt increase, I take it you got a power meter. How is the TT training going overall, how do your split times and speeds look these days?
-Dave
P.S. The other implied part of this is that you ride at least 4 and preferably 5 times per week. Too much time off the bike each week and you're going through a series of mini detraining periods every week. Less than 4 days a week is not a good idea for a competitive cyclist. If you're doing less than 4 days per week (can't tell from your post but it sounds possible) then I'd definitely add an hour or two of Tempo or SST every few days to get you up to 4 or 5 days. These don't have to be killer long, even an hour and a half ride including 50 to 70 minutes of Tempo riding will do wonders for your training load. In the last few months nearly all of my big FTP gains have occured after a period of Tempo and SST riding, it really does seem to be magic in terms of bringing sustainable power up.
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Thanks for the reply, Dave. Yes, I only do 25-30 "stress miles" per week. And I would say I'm out there, on average, five days per week. Here in Florida during the summer the rain (= lightning) can play havoc with a schedule. If I'm unable to reach my stress mile goal in a week, I just stretch the week until I do, and then start on the next block.
You also asked about total mileage, for example, for one of my 7-mile interval weeks. Because of the heat this summer, I've been doing only one such interval per day, and try to get four such days in during the week. That's 28 miles. It's a 4-mile warmup ride out to my interval road, and the same 4-mile cooldown to get home. So the total miles for that day is 15 miles. Four days like that = 60 total miles. I might throw an easy ride in on another day, but usually not. The week where I do the 2-mile intervals probably totals a bit more, but the non-stress miles are just junk anyway.
I don't think I buy into the CTL concept if it includes miles that don't hurt, because I just don't feel that those kind of miles have any kind of training effect relevant to the shorter TTs. (I grant you that going out for 3-4 hours of 18-20 mph cruising provides physical stress and a training effect, but one which I think is only relevant for races or TTs of an hour or more.)
I don't ride with a HR or powermeter. However, several times a month I train on a stationary bike at the gym that has those things. I'm not sure how accurate the power meter is on it, but that doesn't much matter - the important thing is comparisons over time. And the 20 watt improvement I mentioned is for a 20-minute interval at about 90-95% max HR.
As long as I'm getting my weekly goal of stress miles in, taking two or even three days off in that week doesn't "scare" me at all. I suppose it's one of the signs of getting older (along with reading glasses!), but I've come to believe that as long as one is hammering hard every other day or so, a rest day in between is probably more valuable than pushing one's self on those days.
You also suggested adding a few 30-45 minute comfortably fast rides, but my 25-mile rides do serve that function.
And you asked about my split times, TT times, etc. I don't race again until November, and given the variability of the outdoor conditions here (strong winds especially) it's hard for me to compare. The watt improvement on the indoor trainer is my hard evidence at this point. In December I have the state finals, and that's where I'll be competing against the usual pecking order - and that, I think, is what will tell the story.
Anyway, I don't claim to have any expert knowledge here. But I do feel intuitively that I've finally assembled the training tools that will continue to help me improve, and to do so in a time-efficient manner. So far, so good. But if you see no more posts from me after December, please send your donations to the Suicide Prevention Hotline.
