QRNub wrote:
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.