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Endurance Riding
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This is going to sound extremely dumb, but I need help with endurance pace riding. I've been doing all my riding at 77% FTP and above. This includes my long rides, rides after work, trainer rides, etc. After some time off the bike, I am starting to get back into riding more seriously. I finally realize that I need to slow things down so I don't burn out like I believe I am. My goal is to get start doing long rides in the 200 mile range on the weekends, and need some help. When I ride at endurance pace I can't get over how easy it seems, and I'm constantly feeling like I'm not working hard enough. I start thinking more about my cadence, and figure I should be increasing that to 95+ rpms. I don't know if this is a good idea or if I should just mix things up and focus on staying in the endurance zone. I'm really looking for any information you can point me towards, as I'm starting to do more research at this time. I come from an ultra running background, and it seems much harder to ride at endurance pace then running at a slower than norm pace(ie harder as it seems to easy). I will say this though, I've never felt the effect of over training more than I do when just riding a bike. I can feel great post ride, at night, in the morning, and then mid day at work I am feeling like I just got knocked out(mentally).
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Re: Endurance Riding [xrookiex] [ In reply to ]
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what's the goal of all the riding, are you training for some sort of race? Because you body weight is supported, you have a lot more options in terms of intensity when you ride, so for example it's OK to dig into the range above your FTP to get over a hill since you'll be recovering on the downhill. It'c clearly fine to mix things up more than you are presently doing, but I'm not clear what you are looking to achieve
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Re: Endurance Riding [xrookiex] [ In reply to ]
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It is easy to over train on the bike because you are capable of doing so much work. A 5 hour bike ride is no big deal for a conditioned athlete. However, even conditioned athletes would consider a 5 hour run to be a pretty big deal. You get less tissue stress on the bike but overall physiological, biochemical, hormonal and metabolic stress is still there.

Simplify, Train, Live
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Re: Endurance Riding [xrookiex] [ In reply to ]
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"My goal is to get start doing long rides in the 200 mile range on the weekends, and need some help."

If your goal is to avoid "burning out", I'm not sure doing a bunch of noodling around for ~12-15 hour rides is going to put you on the right track.



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Re: Endurance Riding [xrookiex] [ In reply to ]
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I can't answer your questions but I can relate to your "slower is harder" mentality. When I'm doing these types of longer endurance rides I tend to have a few goals in mind to get me through. There is always room to refine my pedal stroke. I'll do Pistons and Kicks, Quadrant Drills, Endurance Spinning, Form Sprints and riding in a straight line using the white line on the shoulder of the road. I find I'll set a clear goal like "Hold best pedal form for 5 minutes" and focus on that rather than intensity. It is helpful and sometimes and gets me through my workout. It's also made me a much better cyclist.

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"Train so you have no regrets @ the finish line"
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