Is it a bad idea to try to vary power a little bit on a flat IM instead of just riding the same watts from start to finish?
I was looking for IM long ride workouts last week trying to break the monotony a little bit and found this video with Chris Lieto where he suggested this workout: 30min easy, 4 x 1h (10min sub IM pace, 40min IM pace, 10min HIM), 30 min warm down.
So I decided to try it out and my version was this: 30min 60%FTP warm up, 4 x 1h as (10min @ 65%, 40min @75%, 10min @85%), 30min @60% FTP. My surprise was that at the end of this was feeling much fresher than previous week when I did a straight 5h ride @ ~73%. As far as total intensity I was around .73 IF on both rides (.726 doing intervals and .734 straight) and my overall speed was close 21.5 vs 21.6mph
My list of pros for this kind of strategy is:
- you ease into it starting at a very comfortable pace
- you can refuel and absorb nutrition better during the 10min recovery intervals @65%
- it's less boring
- you have some 30 min at the end to get ready for the run, stretch, refuel etc...
This is my first IM so this may be a stupid idea :)
I was looking for IM long ride workouts last week trying to break the monotony a little bit and found this video with Chris Lieto where he suggested this workout: 30min easy, 4 x 1h (10min sub IM pace, 40min IM pace, 10min HIM), 30 min warm down.
So I decided to try it out and my version was this: 30min 60%FTP warm up, 4 x 1h as (10min @ 65%, 40min @75%, 10min @85%), 30min @60% FTP. My surprise was that at the end of this was feeling much fresher than previous week when I did a straight 5h ride @ ~73%. As far as total intensity I was around .73 IF on both rides (.726 doing intervals and .734 straight) and my overall speed was close 21.5 vs 21.6mph
My list of pros for this kind of strategy is:
- you ease into it starting at a very comfortable pace
- you can refuel and absorb nutrition better during the 10min recovery intervals @65%
- it's less boring
- you have some 30 min at the end to get ready for the run, stretch, refuel etc...
This is my first IM so this may be a stupid idea :)