flynnzu wrote:

I might be noticing the same issues spotted by others. I came on here to ask the reasoning behind 4 hour rides for the Oly plan, but it appears some of the workouts were mixed up during the uploading process. If not, wouldn't mind hearing from Chad regarding such long endurance rides for Olympic distance prep.

Hi,

Many of the mix-ups have been set straight, but the long rides on the Olympic plan were fully intentional. One of our developers (who is a very competitive half-distance triathlete) asked this same question, so I'll basically cut/paste that reply. ;)

These rides are what makes the plan high volume - longer, aerobic efforts. It’s hard to jack up the volume with other forms of training since it greatly elevates the risk of burnout or injury. And 4 hours doesn’t have to be done indoors (frankly, I don’t expect anyone to do anything over 3 hours indoors, but plenty do and I applaud them), but those odd-week long rides do a lot for maintaining and improving, even at this late stage of training, fat metabolism/aerobic efficiency, slow-twitch fiber hypertrophy, race confidence regarding shorter distances/durations, and plain ol’ toughness.


So they're not about matching the exact demands of the bike leg so much as conditioning your body/muscles to handle the bike leg in a faster, stronger, more adept manner much like VO2max work or even Sweet Spot work; neither of which are directly applied during competition.


I'll also add what we commonly tell athletes in reference to those longer, steady-state aerobic rides which is that they often amount to 1.3-1.7x the amount of work you'd otherwise get done outdoors. So we average this range to 1.5x for ease of use and remind riders that, for example, a 3-hour ride done on the unrelenting, no tailwinds or downhills, no traffic lights or road undulations almost uphill all the time nature of riding a trainer is more like 4-4.5 hours were you to ride outdoors with all of the aforementioned distractions and training stress interruptions.


So if you really don't want to ride indoors for 4 hours - and I can't say I blame you - log the same time, or even more, outdoors doing your best to keep your work steady throughout. And if your training schedule simply won't accommodate rides this long, trim them to whatever works for you. There's still plenty of benefit in a 2- or 3-hour aerobic endurance ride.

Glad you're digging the tri plans! And yes, that IF is intentional inasmuch as I was shooting for a specific duration + TSS value, and one that progressed appropriately every couple of weeks.

There's no reason you can't elevate the Workout Intensity toward the middle or higher end of the Endurance range (56-75%) but, as you pointed out, the stress from riding a trainer is very steady, inarguably more challenging at a muscle-stress level, and may take a greater toll, i.e. require more recovery between workouts or leave you more fatigued if you don't work in a little extra recovery.

It's true that the mid- & upper end of that aerobic power level can be more productive in terms of aerobic adaptation, not to mention it's closer to where you'll race as a percentage of FTP, but there's still a high level of adaptation at a lower level when it's dragged out over those longer, multi-hour rides. Which brings me to...

6 hours!? I know, crazy. But some riders will be on the bike for that long and longer during an ultra-distance triathlon, hence the option to simulate that duration indoors. I'm not saying it's necessary, and I'm not surprised that no one has done that new workout yet (ever?), but the option has been presented and it's up to each rider to use it or, in my recommendation, do those longer efforts outdoors whenever possible.

The goals are to familiarize yourself with working for durations similar to your expected race duration (and all that goes with it, mental stress, nutrition on the bike, position-related comfort/discomfort, etc) and to achieve slow-twitch fiber fatigue - all things that won't require 6 hours in the saddle for most riders.

Just got P1 pedals and will be using real life power moving forward. I found out I don't need to pair my cadence sensor because the pedals will give me that info.

What I'm wondering is...do I still use my speed sensor? I watched a video on TR.com about setting everything up and it seems to suggest only using the power meter and it will provide speed info. I did that this morning and didn't get any speed or distance info from just the power pedals.

Can I pair both the power pedals and speed sensor without messing up any of the data?