Carl Spackler wrote:
Ex-cyclist wrote:
Recharging is recovery. You can call it what you want, but that's what it is.
^^This. There's no reason to make up new terminology. Training is training. Recovery is recovery, and part of every training block--that's just common sense and not at question. For me, base has lots of tempo and sweet spot. I'm not a believer in spending hours at LSD, which many misconceive as base. But I'm also not going to do vo2 max and sprint work in the winter because 1) I don't enjoy it, and 2) those efforts put a big hurt on my body and ability to do loads of volume at what's a good intensity for me.
I have not idea where this idea that race intensity erodes base, and requires a return to it, came from. If all someone does is race crits and never gets in a long ride, then sure, you're going to lose some of the endurance required to do a four-hour road race. More common sense. But racing a crit in itself is not the cause of a decline in "base" fitness, not training properly is.
There is no new terminology.
For you, base has lots of tempo and sweet spot. Excellent, me too.
From that, I assume that base is not bullshit?
And if so, then yeah, exactly.