3-5 hrs at 75% AP or greater. Base ends after 12 or so of these. It was a chore for the first few (barely holding 205W) for 4 hours, and sometimes I was at 71% instead of 75%, but i eventually got to 230W for 4 hours. This corresponded to an increase in FTP from 265W (previous season best was 275W) to 305W, and I got up to 290W while not having done many threshold intervals.

When I started holding 210W for 3.5hrs, i kinda realized that I was going to have a good season: 8th place in a climb heavy-race, a podium in a hilly circuit race, and a lot of time off the front in race-winning moves. That said, it was only my third year of cycling, so take the gains may be quite a bit higher than what a more veteran rider would see, but on the other hand, I went from 255 to 275 the previous year, so getting more improvement in the third year than i did in my second despite having less time to train makes me a believer.

Right now, after getting burned out pretty badly (sore muscles for 6 weeks or so), I'm just beginning to rebuild. I'd be lucky to do 210W for 3hrs now, and the first one of the 12 is scheduled for next Saturday.

How many days a week did you do this? Also, what did a typical week look like for you? Thanks.

on my schedule, once a week. but do realize that my average week was 8-9 hours last year, and i'm focuses on solely bike racing. I was lucky enough to do two in a week when I was on break. Typical week would mean half of the volume come on Saturday with the other 4-5 hours spread out over 2 to 3 days.

I've since come to learn that more accomplished riders can do these type of rides back to back, though it's not easy.

This has been a great thread. Thanks to all for the info.

My volume is very similar to yours, echappist. I end up with about 3 rides of 1 hour each during week days, a 3-4 hr ride on Saturday, and a 2-3 hr ride on Sundays typically. This thread should help me focus my training this winter. I want to have a successful bike racing season next year.

I hope you appreciate what your simple question has generated. You just pulled a Jed Clampett and struck oil. Read all of Kevin's post, including his credentials, and ask yourself "Would I like to have results even remotely like this guy's?" Unless you are a fool, your answer should be "of course!" Read the rest of the thread and catch the long session attributed to Carl Spackler. You're pretty new around here, so just in case you don't know, Carl (he's not really the grounds keeper from Caddy Shack) has some pretty impressive credentials, like also having a red, white, and blue jersey and, if memory serves, second at world's by a painfully small margin.

Thank you for posting this. You have unintentionally set up most of my winter training for me. Thanks nlsckevin and echappist (and Carl) for posting these sessions. Simple, straight forward, and seemingly right on target.

I will add this caveat, don't get down if you can't pull off these sessions right away, these guys are seasoned cyclists. Oh, and just ignore the power numbers posted in the thread. Worry about your numbers and pushing them up. The problems with comparing to ST posters are 1) some guys lie and 2) some guys are competing at really high levels. If your numbers approach their's, congrats, if not, hey it's ok to be a mere mortal.

 

Thanks for the kind words, i'm flattered as my name really shouldn't be mentioned in the same line as that of Carl & Kevin.

I do want to emphasize one point you just made, which i've bolded. Last year, I was still fairly new to structured training and had many wrong concepts regarding training. Anyways, there was one week when i pushed on instead of resting, and it wasn't pretty. The previous week, i did 4hrs at 74%. One week later, i ran out of power after 2.5 hours and was still a good 40 miles from home; I crawled home at 62% FTP for the last two hours. I should have known right there and then to take a nice long rest, but I didn't. Went out again a few days later and was savaged by the ride, again doing something like 57% FTP for the last three hours. They were so bad that I have yet to ride those routes since.

Those weeks were really not pretty, and it took me two more weeks before I went north of 75% FTP for more than three hours. So, for new rider trying this, take your rests seriously and don't try to bit off too much at once. Above all, consistency, rather than approaching it with "i want to shatter my previous PB," drives your fitness.

incredible advice... I almost burned out of tri's because of an injury and wanting to do only hard workouts on the bike...

Thanks for the details. I did some of this type of stuff mid-season, but likely not enough of it ~ only 3 weeks or so. I don't remember having much trouble holding 75% AP for 3 hours, but I don't think I ever went beyond that time wise. It's possible that my FTP may have also been higher than I thought as I don't test very often. I'll certainly try at least 10 weeks of this early season.

My weakness seems to be a low FTP compared to my 5min. power, which is not surprising as I did a lot of 5min. intervals this season. Most of the climbs in the races I do are in the 3-8 minute range. Having a good 5min. power allowed me to make the selection and follow any dangerous attacks on the climbs, but I struggled at times in the cross winds when I couldn't get a good draft when things would heat up.

I'm planning a lot of tempo and sweet spot this winter based on the gains it gave me this season.

This has been a great thread, as is the other one going on right now, "tempo, threshold, or VO2max".

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funny that you bring this up as in 2011, my FTP was 275, and 5.5min was 365. I had such trouble bringing up FTP relative to VO2max that i started a thread about it on the wattage forum. I don't think my 5min improved last year, and in fact, and it may have gone down, but my FTP was now 305. Whereas before I had trouble racing collegiate C races, I was now doing well in collegiate B races, though a good deal of it came from better race craft.

The downside is that I've turned into a diesel and lack the snap needed on the hills you described, though I could usually bridge back solo after getting gapped a bit. Actually, my one-time max actually didn't go down (though this could be masked by a higher threshold), but apparently my ability at tolerating repeated efforts in the 3-8 minute range really went down. Given that I didn't spend much time with VO2max stuff last year (maybe 6 workouts total), this is what I'll be focusing on this year as none of my races have hill longer than 6 minutes. Then again, I may have gotten rather close to my 5min power limit, though I really doubt that. We'll see how things pan out this year, assuming i have enough time to train and race as I'm leaving school and starting a new job.

With all of that said, it may be that you are a natural pursuitist, in which case, attack from 2 miles out like Phil Gil and make everyone hurt :). I personally always wanted to be a puncheur more than a diesel grimpeur.

[/quote] With all of that said, it may be that you are a natural pursuitist, in which case, attack from 2 miles out like Phil Gil and make everyone hurt :). I personally always wanted to be a puncheur more than a diesel grimpeur.[/quote]

Ha, I've tried that - though I need a hill as a launching pad to be successful. With being only 65kg I need gravity to work against the others!


You likely didn't do enough VO2 stuff on top of the FTP work you did, where I was the opposite - I neglected FTP in the season, and only focused on VO2 work. It sounds like we'll both get our shit together this season.


Good luck.


BTW - Thanks Kevin for all your wisdom and taking the time to write that amount of detail. It's really appreciated.

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Thanks for the great reply. I love the simplicity of it all. Last question, how important is it that we have to listen to Night Ranger during the workouts? Just kidding of course. Again many thanks.

None of this works if you don't listen to Night Ranger. Specifically, Don't Tell Me You Love Me

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Kevin

http://kevinmetcalfe.dreamhosters.com
My Strava

Check out the trainer workouts on my website: http://www.anaerobiczone.com

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Dean Wilson
http://www.anaerobiczone.com
Bicycle Protection Indoors & Out

Wow, wasnt sure who to respond to but thought that you would be best. Just wanted to thank everyone for the advice. This is the first year of hard training for me, i have been doing sprint tri's and a couple duathlons. I have feel in love with bikjng and really want to improve and push for a HIM in 2013. With all this great stuff i will havs to print the thread and digest it all. Thanks again. For thoss interested leaning towards trainerroad with PM for a couple months to really get comfortable with the trainer and be structured. Then probably taper off and do some mix of all the great stuff here. HIM training begins in May so i have a good amount of time to "study"

Computrainers are the way to go. A bit pricey (pick on up used) but they roll smoothly and ensure you're putting in the necessary effort.

Kevin,
Your results are awesome, especially for your age. You're crazy fast. You are the one that got me going on the 2 x 20's last winter, on the trainer, 6 days/week.
I'm almost 42, and just finished my 1st 'real' season of bike racing having switched from tri's ~2008.

Looking at your training peaks you do put in a considerable amount of time on the bike.
From February 1 to April 30, you averaged 14 hrs/week, and from May 1- July 31, you averaged 16 hrs/week.
I probably averaged ~ 9-10 hrs with a few 12 hr weeks. I had some decent results in Masters but I want to do even better. Obviously I need to do more if I want to take it up a notch. However one of the things that got me out of tris was trying to find the time to put in 15 hrs/week.
2 questions:
1. Do you know many guys that can race well on ~10 hrs/week or is it a must to get up to 14-16 hrs like yourself?
2. What are your deciding facots when choosing to race Category or Masters for different races? I could race Cat 3, but I tend to enter Masters. Maybe I'm thinkin Cat 3 would be too fast for me.
Marty

I do know guys who ride well (some quite well) on 10-12 hours a week. They are not doing so well in long road races, but for criteriums, track and flat road races you can do quite well on that amount of training. It takes hard and specific training.

If I'm going to do a P/1/2 race I need to feel like I'm going well unless the course isn't very challenging. I want to be challenged, but I still want the possibility of doing well. Sometimes I get it wrong like I did this year at Pescadero. It is a hard course, but it conflicted with elite nationals so I figured that it wouldn't be so bad. I neglected to consider that the local pro climber guys like Nate English and Max Jenkins were still in town. I got a pretty good kicking that day! A bit over 7 minutes at 6 W/kg BARELY had me holding on for the first of four trips up Haskins.

As for Cat 3 vs masters, I would wager that masters can be quite a bit faster. I would guess that in a cat 3 race the top quality isn't as high, but the depth of that quality is good so somebody will always be willing to have a go. In the masters you've got some legitimate cat 1's in the group so the top end quality is much higher, but the depth of quality is less. So when the masters race is "on" it will be going really fast and there may be less places to hide, but it may be "on" less often. The masters race will probably be more tactical also. Cat 3's as a group generally haven't figured out the tactics yet. There tends to be a lot of chasing.

Hope that helps.

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Kevin

http://kevinmetcalfe.dreamhosters.com
My Strava

Hey, Kevin. I, too, hate to let this thread go. So, one more question. Are you doing any weight training and from now till spring and are you still trying to get in 2 long 4 hour plus rides on the weekends? Well, I guess that's two questions.

Thanks again!

When you say 3-5 hrs at 75% AP or greater.

Do you mean an average power at 75% of FTP, or am I missing something there?

yes. i said it that way to highlight that it's the AP not NP you are shooting for

I don't lift in the off season mainly due to time constraints. It's either lift or ride and that's a pretty easy choice for me. If I had the time I would probably lift weights. Not so much legs, but stuff to strengthen my core and lower back as I sometimes have lower back issues.

Weather permitting I get out for two 4+ hour rides each weekend. If the weather is bad then I'll just do 3x20' intead. [edited from 3x30' to the correct 3x20']

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Kevin

http://kevinmetcalfe.dreamhosters.com
My Strava

nslckevin,

Just ran across this post. Wanted to ask you what you do about your run volumes during this time. For someone new to the sport with limited time bc of my job curious to hear an opinion on how to work all the training in. Usually I run at least 45 min a day and cycle ( similar workout as you describe ~ 2days week on a trainer) and swim here and there. You think I could brick 2-3 of these workouts/week and keep them repeatable throughout the week? Cycling is my weakest leg...train your weakness right. Would you consider this length of workout to be sufficient for Oly distance training or Sprint distance.
Thanks

So in a nut shell cycle training is quite simple its just most of us make it more complicated than it needs to be. Still no substitute for hard work and consistency though.

i really enjoyed reading this thread, i'm also 51 and am thinking about what I want to do this winter. I'm open to trying the repeated days of tempo, but i'm wonder how it is supposed to progress over time, more duration, more watts or just the same (more or less) workout every day of the week?

I race cross in the fall, so Don't do a great deal on the trainer until close to the holidays. I use rollers and doing tempo is just a whole lot easier on them than trying to go all hard.

How often do you retest your FTP while following that protocol, or do you just aim for an additional 5-10W every few weeks?