Long, slow, short, fast are not very useful words around which to form any kind of consensus, or develop a training plan.

If you're doing "slow" rides at 2/3 of FTP, that's a specific training stimulus. Long, slow rides in groups, where you're not doing any work, in a draft pack, stopping for lunch halfway through and coffee at the quarters, does not do anything for you.

I respect your opinion but can you respectfully leave the coffee out of this.

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Long slow rides are one of the most enjoyable ways there are to spend a day.

Nothing for anyone or nothing for you? I never do that type of ride due to time limitations, but it seems like it would do something - especially for folks newer to cycling. That being said, my impression from limited reading is that the Barry P frequency approach doesn't necessarily cross over to the bike. Different stuff going on physiologically, right?

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Aaron Bales
Lansing Triathlon Team

This times 856,732.

Had a guy ask me if I agreed that triathletes should have a higher, somewhat shorter swim stroke. I asked him higher than what and shorter than what, that ended the discussion. Too imprecise to be meaningful.

Whatever cardio or power benefit long, slow rides may or may not have, I bet they benefit your upper body if you ride them "aero". Look at any IM race at about mile 80 -- half of the riders are on the base bar because they can't hold an aero position any longer.

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"100% of the people who confuse correlation and causation end up dying."

In terms of physical stress and training, unless you're very new at cycling, no, it won't do anything for you. There's nothing wrong with tour biking, but in the context of sport, doing a 5 hour ride at 16 miles an hour, assuming you're on relatively flat roads and putting minimal effort in, isn't going to do anything beyond maybe strengthening your riding muscles (ie back, neck, etc.)

joe fiels posts are a waste of time.

I'd say it's bc they trained wrong not b/c they did or did not ride their long rides in the aero position. Lack of fitness won't fix stupid.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

awesome. I now have a sig!!!

all depends on how much time you have to train. >15 hrs, you have to have lots of LSD as you won't be able to sustain the intensity of a tempo or SST/subthreshold. <8hrs, you better get enough training stimuli in each ride to see some meaningful adaptations. Vary accordingly when you have between 8 & 15 hours.

If my ride is less than 2 hours, i don't do Z2 as i can't get enough training stress in that amount of time. However, a five hour long ride is technically unsustainable at Z3, and i try to nail my LSD at the top of Z2 power. These rides are often solo efforts, and they'll hurt. There will be quite a bit of aerobic decoupling as my HR will drift 10bpm above its usual Z2 levels. Personally, i've turned into a believer. I built base through December and then did threshold work starting in January, but did few long Z2 rides. For all that, I went from 255W to 272W going from November to early April.

I got injured mid April and missed 1/2 of the remaining days in April along with 2/3 of May training days. I thought my FTP would plunge from 272 down to 250. Resuming three weeks ago, all i did were some tempo/SST but i made sure to have a long Z2 ride every weekend. Just this past Monday, i set a new 20' record at 292W despite not being so fresh as I did 243W for 35 min earlier that ride. Without having done any threshold work, I apparently regained all of my previous FTP and then some more. Mark me down as a believer.

You mean >30? Spending 8-10/15 week at z2 sounds like a waste of time to me

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Ride Scoozy Electric Bicycles
http://www.RideScoozy.com

if someone is training about 18 hours per week, roughly 10 of those hours will be cycling, in a fairly balanced program. No need to poke around looking a every crack in the road if you are riding 10 hours per week.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

As we often say in emergency medicine, "there is no cure for stupidity" :)

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Colorado Triathlon Company, CO2UT 2021, Crooked Gravel 2022, Steamboat Gravel 2022

Or because they have a shit position. Or both...

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

aren't you the guy who works with my buddy Coby? the tarpon are ripping down here this year.....let me know if you guys come down. for the first time n a long time it's like the old days.....catching not fishing.

Similarly, so are terms like "waste of time" unless you know what the ride goals are.

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Chicago Cubs - 2016 WORLD SERIES Champions!!!!

"If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." - Samuel Adams

I agree up to a point. If the 8-10 hours are divided into 4-5 rides, those z2 are almost worthless as nothing is likely stressed enough to force adaptation. However if those 8-10 hours would be divided into two weekend rides in order to maximize aerobic adaptations, at high Z2 intensity of 0.70IF, 8-10 hours gives 560-700 TSS points, which i'd say is quite considerable (at least to my 4.0w/kg FTP slow ass). Then again, this is purely for base and early build periods.

If i ever get the luxury to train 15 hours, I'd do 9 hours on the weekend at high Z2 and 6 hours in a mix of SST and tempo. Below 15, the hours of SST+ tempo becomes comparable to hours at Z2. When i was doing 12hrs, it was just one weekend Z2 (~5 hours) and a ton of SST + tempo. However, i don't think this built wide enough a base for me.


sorry for the confusion. I was referring to bicycle only training.

AND because they have a shit position.

Fixed that for you

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

I'm confused, obviously. How fast are you supposed to do your long rides? Or should you not do them? I would think going fast and long would take time to recover from.

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Running is a gift.

I'm doing tempo work at between 22-26mph (Depending on wind, hills, fatigue, etc), and my long ride is 4 hours at ~ 18-20 mph. I'm on a very similar schedule to what dd described, about 16 hrs a week with 9 of it on the bike.

John

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Top notch coaching: Francois and Accelerate3 | Follow on Twitter: LifetimeAthlete |

I've got over 1000 power files and can't recall a single week where someone even if scheduled 8-10hrs at high z2 got in 560-700TSS by riding 8-10hours at high z2. When you see what they are actually doing with traffic lights, cars, dogs etc, to get >560 TSS you are going to have to do intervals.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

If you ride lots of "long slow rides" you will get very good at riding long ... and slow.

Training should reflect race demands.

8-10 hours at .7IF = 392-490 TSS

yeah in primary care we say that too!

Long, slow distance is fundamental in any program, in my opinion. However, I think most people misunderstand what "slow" means. It's relative. Think of "slow" compared to how fast you are capable of going vs. what you think is slow in general terms. Long, slow rides should be a zone1 or zone 2 effort. For some people that might be 15 mph or slower. But for some that may be much closer to 20 mph (or faster). To some that may not seem like a "slow" ride, but when compared to how fast those people are capable of going it is a slow ride.

Personally, I hate the term long, slow distance because it's misunderstood and people think it means they need to putz around all day putting out very little effort. A long ride in zone 2 is a hard effort. If you go long enough in zone 1, that can be a good effort too.

I biked 1,000 miles in May. 70% of my time was spent in zones 1 and 2. 20% was tempo. 10% was threshold or above. I finished the month (Memorial Day) with a slow 150 mile ride (by "slow" I mean it was a low zone 2 effort which ended up being a little more than 18 mph). After a few days of recovery, I set a new PR on my 20 minute threshold test.

Long, slow distance works (especially if you're training for an ironman), but it needs to be part of a balanced program that includes some harder efforts.

Really? The above sounds like a very good time...

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I know enough to know I don't know enough...

agreed - this sounds exactly like the sort of thing that will keep me enjoying cycling, and thus keep me coming back to my bike to do the tougher stuff that provides more aggressive training stimulus. if cycling is all lonely suffering, i become more reluctant to put in the time in the saddle.

cheers!

-mistress k

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ill advised racing inc.

Setting aside the precision issue (per other posts, replace 'slow' and 'fast' with specific HR or power zones), there are very well understood and established reasons to do long rides in Z2 (as well as long rides w/ lots of Z3 intervals, and shorter rides w/ Z4 intervals, etc) not least because you need variation in training to force the body to adapt (the root of the "make easy days easy and hard days hard" mantra), but also because long, steady Z2 workouts build blood volume, which makes the Z4 stuff more effective, and allows you to recover from the Z4 stuff more quickly.

One hour at FTP is 100 TSS points. One hour at 0.70% of FTP (IF of 0.7) is 70 TSS. Eight hours give you 560.

fair enough, there's often 45 or more minutes worth of stopping time when i do a 5 hour ride (also from stop at café, etc). But it is possible to accumulate that much TSS for the moving times. Let's do a conservative estimate and say i get 350TSS on Saturday and 150 TSS on Sunday from 7 hours of moving time, i can still do 3x2 hours at Z3 to accumulate 120 points each day to push the total over 800.

fail.

One hour at FTP IS 100 TSS points; one hour at 0.7IF is 49 TSS points.

While I don't live and die by TSS, people who use the term should at least know what it is and how to use it

TSS = [(duration in seconds * NP * IF)/(FTP * 3600)] *100

to reduce that equation, NP/FTP = IF so,

TSS = [(duration in seconds * FTP^2)/3600]*100

In other words, one hour at 0.7IF is just less than half the training dose of one hour at FTP.

Isn't there a squared term?

TSS = IF^2 * Time (hours) * 100

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Jed

"If you want to ride by the Force, you had better make sure that you are a real Jedi." - FastYellow (6/13/2011)

opps, i stand corrected re: the calculation. my previous FTP wattage wasn't nearly high enough for me to see the difference. With a new FTP of 280, the difference is actually becoming apparent, and i was wondering why the TSS from my 2hr Z2 ride on Tuesday was lower than my 90min high Z3 ride.

waste of time? not if you have the time....

Anyone who thinks riding 30 hours a week at zone 2 is a waste hasn't done it.

Zone 2: 56-75%

I would agree that 4hr at 70% is not a bad ride. But if we are talking 56-65%, then yes it is a waste of time. I think Zone2 (by AC) is really a bad range. From my training it seems that better ranges would be:

Recovery: 0-50% - no more than 1hr ride
A: 65-75% - Long Ride / Extra Miles (most training that isn't one of the below)
B: 80-85% - 1-1.5 Tempo Ride
C: 90-95% - FTP Intervals / Extended Climbs
D: 100-105% - Shorter 5-10min intervals
E: 120% - vo2 intervals
F: 150% - anaerobic intervals

A for long rides and when you are

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Ride Scoozy Electric Bicycles
http://www.RideScoozy.com

Do you like Dr. Phil's Apollo performance manager? Does he use some sort of 30s averaging in his work calculations? I have had no luck with TSS and was thinking of trying something new. I was thinking of using the impulse model with 'normalized work' as the input - NP * ride time. This *could* be what Apollo does but I don't remember. That way I don't have to keep entering in an arbitrary FTP that may or may not match my fitness at that point in time.

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Ride Scoozy Electric Bicycles
http://www.RideScoozy.com

well, there's always TRIMP, but cardiac drift is a whole nother can of worms to deal with

Well I would think my muscles respond to the amount of work I am doing. They don't divide that work by a factor to come up with an effort level. The more work I can do the more fit I am.

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Ride Scoozy Electric Bicycles
http://www.RideScoozy.com

Define "fit" and "work."

Being able to ride 60 miles in z2 is "work." Being able to ride 1 hr @ FTP is also "work."

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Chicago Cubs - 2016 WORLD SERIES Champions!!!!

"If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." - Samuel Adams

Physiological cost is exponential as intensity increases.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

both are work genius, try riding 60 miles in z2 every single day

LOL...try working on your reading comprehension, "Einstein." That was exactly my point.

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Chicago Cubs - 2016 WORLD SERIES Champions!!!!

"If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." - Samuel Adams

Fit - fitness, aerobic capacity
Work - F*d

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Ride Scoozy Electric Bicycles
http://www.RideScoozy.com

Exactly....the point being that there are variables. To imply that doing 60 mile z2 work is not "work" is kinda silly,

There are differnt types of "work" and "fitness", usually dependent on goals.

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Chicago Cubs - 2016 WORLD SERIES Champions!!!!

"If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." - Samuel Adams

to no one in particular...

TSS does not equal training impulse

i think the muscles do divide the work by a factor. time.
if you run a mile in 5 minutes they will respond differently than if you ran that mile in 15 minutes. same amount of work - one mile - but different response.

'fit' is a very relative concept but it's not as simple as 'the more work i can do'. i think fit is dependent on the goal or objective. a lot of people can do more work than others, but are they more fit? not always.

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"Competetive sport begins where healthy sport ends"

I haven't used Race Day, but it uses a 25s exponentially weighted rolling average to calculate xPower. I believe that NP uses a 30s exponentially weighted rolling average.

I also think that Race Day and WKO+ treat stops differently when computing BikeScore/TSS.

I interpreted the article to read: long slow rides as part of a brick workout are generally a waste of time.

Do you guys ever just get on you bike and ride for the fun of it?

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_________________________________
I'll be what I am
A solitary man

Yes.


Fortunately I enjoy seeing how much I can torture myself!

hell yeah, did that last night! whats more fun than dropping the whole cat4/5 field ?

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

Great point.

...That's what she said.

Is that the Jackmott fan club behind you in the 2nd pic?

Nothing on this earth is more important than the local cat 4/5 race. It is bigger than the superbowl, and every single one of those people know who I am.


none of this is true

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

But, did they stay dropped?

BTW, put some socks on so you don't look like some tri-geek out doing a crit ;-)

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

Warm up lap?

 
/compression/ socks.

But I *AM* a tri geek doing a crit. My damn jersey says "Austin TRI-Cyclist" and I am riding a TT frame.

;)

they stayed drop for the whole prime lap which is all I was after.

maybe next week I will go for the race win with a similar approach after the 3rd prime....

but don't tell nobody

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

there are no warm up laps in Texas. we go all out from the gun.

there's real gun too, with bullets. they shoot the guy in last place each lap.

again, none of this is true

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

How far (long) is the 3rd prime from the finish?

If you take that approach though, I suggest NOT actually trying to win the prime, but use the guys actually going for it as a "launching pad" for your break...and after the initial gap, try not to drill it SO hard that you blow up...remember, you've got to be able to average the same speed as the pack solo (plus another 0.5-1mph due to the speed ramping up in the later laps) to stay away ;-)

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

it varies, 2 or 3 miles probably?


yes, exactly. follow the front guys going for the prime, THEN go.

then pray for lack of motivation in the field for a while!


unless, the third prime is really dumb and nobody wants it, then attack the lap before and maybe they let me go because they think I am just going for the prime..

HMMM

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

Damn, that's a hard core Miss-and-Out

Wow, the cat4/5 field!

serious business!
super serious!

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

I can tell you from experience...attacking so hard that you blow up is, ahhh, really painful. I'm an expert at it! However, I am pleased to report that I have typically been overaggressive rather than underaggressive. :)

Ding ding ding on sucking wheels behind a late prime. Last weekend it got me into the winning break by accident. I looked back a half lap after the prime and the peloton was taking their sweet time closing the gap, asked my neighbor if he wanted to go for it, and off we went.

Must not have been a Cat 4 race...from my experience, when that happens in a 4s race, the other guys just look at you like a dog trying to figure out a noise...

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

Fun is riding fast and having endorphine kicks out of it. Riding slow is boring ( I don't like going for walks either, and I would not consider a 5h walk a good way to improve my running). I just get cold, hungry and bored if I ride slowly. Long rides as close to aerobic threshold as possible, and when we ride with my friends we keep 5-7 m apart, not drafting.

More likely, that picture shows the peloton giving lots of room to the guy with a "triathlete" jersey, no socks, riding a TT frame (with deep section wheels for a cat4/5 crit to boot?!) Nobody wants that wheel!!

>>BTW, put some socks on so you don't look like some tri-geek out doing a crit ;-)

It's the Alejandro Valverde look, and a good one at that.

of course you want that wheel!

that wheel will pull you along for as long as you want!

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

 
BTW...that P2K is a pretty sweet lookin' crit bike. How's that working out so far?

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

its great. I've now done 2 crits, a circuit race, and a road race. Had a fun bridge-attempt on a steeeeep downhill with dangerous curves at the bottom and lived in the road race =)

handles great!

Its got about 2.6cm of spacers, and having only 1 water bottle attachment is a downside for sure.

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

Marcus, is your middle name Intensity?

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_________________________________
I'll be what I am
A solitary man

One word: Racebak

Plus, you can fill it with ice (or freeze the bladder) for those REALLY hot days. Take out the back pad and help keep your core cool ;-)

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

yup.thanks for asking.

I feel sorry for anyone who gets bored and can't occupy their own mind on a long ride.

First of all I can't believe were talking about this again. What's it been like 3 or 4 months since the last time? Secondly, why would anyone want to ride slower than triathlon race pace? Isn't that slow enough? How can anyone expect to ride fast in a race if you never ride fast in training? I'm not saying ITT everytime your on a bike but I think triathlon (any distance or at least the one your training for) race pace should really be the slowest and you should do some hard efforts to increase your threshold. Do work people come on!

fastinnerhtml!
I don't know what you mean. I never get bored riding long rides,because cycling is the best thing I know.that said,I do get bored riding slowly,because in my opinion,that is not cycling at all.that's just spending time.working on a sun tan.socializing.occupy my mind..I'm just not the daydreaming type.I do 90% of my typical 3-5h rides alone,and when I do ride with friends we rarely talk at all during the ride,because we are focused on the training at hand.