I dunno what your plan or goal is (if any), but if it's just to get more time on the bike, I think you're in the right direction.

Trainer work is not intrisically enjoyable. I do it a fair amount, and even with a good setup, Zwift/Rouvy/videos, etc, it's still hard to get on there all the time especially when there is no race looming.

For awhile during COVID I just committed to riding 1-2x indoors on weekday mornings before work, almost all Z2, and just throwing in short pickups randomly. Rode hard on weekends or when I got a chance an additional weekday afternoon.

I feel like it worked - I'm restarting structured training for a Nov race and I don't feel burned out on the bike at all (rearing to go!) but I have good bike fitness for myself.

I think it's really important to not mentally burn yourself out, especially with no race on the horizon. Work on improving your trainer setup or trainer entertainment if needed, mix it up for variety, and at the least, just do easy rides on the trainer like I did with no pressure and no time goals. With your outdoor riding, it'll take care of itself.

I always approach the trainer like pool swimming. Just focusing on the sets/intervals rather than the fact that I will be staring at a black line for two hours. Plus, I find that trainer workouts result in better fitness than just tooling around on my bike. Just like pool workouts are wayyyyyy better training that open water swimming.

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Strava

Riding inside simply doesn't work for me. Perhaps I scarred myself to badly riding inside 30 years ago. If I really *have to* I will ride no more than an hour (usually 30 min) a day or two during the week. I ALWAYS ride outside on the Sat and Sun about the same as you, and usually quite hard. I have remained FOP (age group) on the bike through many age groups with this routine.

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David
* Ironman for Life! (Blog) * IM Everyday Hero Video * Daggett Shuler Law *
Disclaimer: I have personal and professional relationships with many athletes, vendors, and organizations in the triathlon world.

good to know. there's hope yet.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

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2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Yeah, it's mostly just to get time on the bike and establish consistency without burnout. If I try to do too much, eventually it always gets derailed, so I figure if I keep the midweek rides to "no big deal" levels, in duration and intensity, then at least that's 2-4 hours of saddle time that I otherwise wouldn't get. Then when we know what is happening for races I'll be able to ramp up and switch to specific training at that time.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

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2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Why not try to get your FTP as high as possible? You don't need an event to do that and you're not wasting your time "waiting" for a reason to get fit. Then, by the time real racing rolls around, you'll be stronger than you ever have been on the bike.

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@floathammerholdon | @partners_in_tri

burnout / motivation.

I did an FTP block on zwift in May / June. after that was done (and I was pretty motivated to do it) I had zero desire to start another one.

plus, I found that it didn't translate all that well to outdoor riding, for whatever reason. My outdoor kms were pretty limited up until June, when I started riding more regularly, but after going to riding on the weekends and just easy (sporadically) during the week, then the times I've been posting on various strava segments, and avg speed, has all gone up since I stopped doing the FTP work.

Really, I don't have great bike fitness now, I used to be a lot stronger on the bike. I think consistency is the most important thing. Once that is established, then I'll look at specific programs.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

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2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Endurance sport is hard. And flogging yourself for perceived shortcomings (I hate riding the turbo) makes riding that much more difficult. I don’t reply often but read a lot here, and enjoy your posts. My guess is you get the work done inside or outdoors if you really have to. Maintaining fitness along with all the other things life has to offer the remainder of the time is often the best we can do. Right?

At least for me as n=1, the hyperstructured program of TR plus the crushingly high intensity of many of the workouts in the Oly plan I did was a surefire recipe for burnout, even if I was slacking off on the run to compensate.

I've yet to come across ANY plan that was as hard as the all-interval TR oly plan when I did it. And I barely got faster on the bike - and lost wayyy more on the run as a result!

Can I suggest a higher fitness payback for your weekday workouts?

30 min outside jogging warmup then 20 min on trainer during week. 20 min hard on the trainer, treat them like swim sets.

Just do 5 min warmup then 8x1 min hard 1 min easy, or 20x50 seconds super hard 10 second nothing (like swimming 50's), 10x1:30 hard, 30 seconds easy, 20x 30 seconds hard-30 seconds easy. Basically like swimming 25's, 50's, 100's but only for 20 minutes. You know the drill in the pool, just make those short trainer workouts hard and spend your warmups jogging which will help your body composition more than sitting on a trainer doing nothing at low intensity.

Then when you go outdoors on the weekend, you'll be set. I literally used these 20 min trainer sets 4-5x per week to train for 70.3 Dubai back in December and January, and my big fitness workouts were swimming, run volume, and longer run+XC skis on the weekend (typically a 3-4 hrs session) and 1x per week I did a longer trainer ride for 80 min watching the Rio Olympic tri and basically doing 6 min intervals per loop the pros were doing and then I cruised for 1 min going into transition (well virtually). I biked 2;18 for 90km on super low bike mileage but I had all intensity on the bike, high volumexintensity swimming and high volumexlow intensity running and low volumexhigh intensity on skis.

Once I got to Dubai I did one 3 hrs easy ride, a few 2 hrs rides with intervals and then I was ready to good to go. If you get enough volume from the other activities you don't NEED to bike so much indoors for age group purposes.

Running is a no go. My knee gave me grief the last time I ran (old injury means that it’s pretty unstable). I’m not really willing to risk it anymore as I’m getting worried about developing arthritis.

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2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

I feel you. Hate indoor cycling, it turns bike riding into exercise. Next winter I'l do Zwift race or two per week purely for forced intensity, and go for a run when weather sucks.

Yeah, I’ll have to rethink my plan once it gets too cold and icy to ride outside (no fatbike yet). Maybe I’ll restart zwift over the winter and do a race or 2 per week.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

My n=1 experience is just the opposite. I can't ride hard outdoors...too many traffic lights and too much city traffic. I'm too old to be a sprinter anymore so I have been doing a lot of sweetspot training indoors. Zwift has been a great addition to my routine. I think I started Zwift a little later than you did based on your posts on the Zwift newbies thread.

You say you were bored on Zwift. What is it that made you bored? I'm sure you rode in some of the races they offer. They also have a lot of social rides that break up the routine during the week and on the weekends if you're so inclined plus if there are intermediate sprints during these social rides, at least there are other cyclists that you can use for drafting. I find these races and rides exhilarating and have really upped my bike fitness as a result.

I will say it was hard to get comfortable riding indoors. It's a whole different beast than riding outside. With no freewheeling down the descents or just being able to let off the gas sometimes makes it difficult but I have gotten better. I hope to upgrade to a smart trainer that allows freewheeling on descents.

BTW, I suck at cycling more than you do. My FTP is pathetic, so I have a lot of room for improvement.

I found Zwift got a little boring for a while, but once they added the route achievements, I was good to go again. As others have mentioned, the social rides are pretty good if you get into a routine and start doing the same ones. Grab a keyboard and start chatting, makes the time go by faster. Maybe getting on a for a weekly race as well.

The other thing you could try is a super long ride on Zwift (PRL Full, Uber Pretzel, etc), everything after that will seem enjoyable.

Where I currently live I preferred to endure 1.5-2 hours in pissing rain to trainer, and could nearly always motive to do that before misery sunk in. Where I'm moving to will be colder and snowy, so I'll be trying to figure that out too. Likely longer runs and lots of slow rides on gravel bike when weather allows, plus Zwift for suffering.

Boredom - same courses /graphics over and over. It’s an avatar. I wound up just turning it on then minimizing and watching YouTube or Netflix, and if I’m gonna do that why bother with Zwift? The races are nothing like real life races, they’re zwift races. Which is fine if that’s what you’re into, but real races are much more surgey than zwift. I’ll probably do zwift races again this winter, but that’ll be it.

I’m lucky that I have a 50k hilly loop that I can do from my front door with just 4 stop signs getting out of my neighbourhood, then relatively quiet coastal roads after that through a couple of fishing villages.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

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2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Go get a root canal, then flossing will seem like fun!

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Trouble losing weight? Try not eating for 2 weeks and after that a diet will be easy and fun!

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I feel the opposite

Road in a dank moldy basement no tv no music 30 years ago hours at a time. Got so zoned in could take my pulse By counting the seconds by saying one one thousand and just feeling the heart beat keeping count of the beats on my fingers

So now in a nice bright room with full access to music YouTube etc it’s like a joke how easy it is to put in hours a day 6 days a week

If I get bored maybe I’ll try trainer road or Zwift or something

Then again I used to work 60 hours a week on a factory production line. It was great training on learning how to let your mind take you wherever you want to go

I feel you Jason. I hated the trainer but came to have a new fascination with it and it has helped me personally improve exponentially on the bike. Racing zwift was the key for me, but you have to find whatever it is that motivates you to want to bike.

I know we are in covid hell and there is no racing for the most part, but what do you really want? Just to hammer you 'local long loop'? Or do you want to ready yourself for tri or something else?

Time on the bike will always help. Intensity balanced with recovery is a better combination. Keeping the desire to do lots of cycling workouts is critical to maintaining consistency which leads to the significant improvement, as you well know.

So it all gets back to what do you like? Zwift is more than just structured workouts-there are races/group rides and chatting during these has been a blast for me, as has digging deep in races and safely putting it all out there without risk of a crash.

Maybe you want to hit some KOM's on strava in your area and see how far up the leader board you can go...

If you are going to do tri and have run issues, the TM with it's cushioned deck and ability to stop immediately if there is a problem is the best way to get R training in. Even short 10-15 min runs done frequently, along with strength training, can lead to significant improvement and resistance to injury.


I hope you find the balance and routine you are looking for! But we all know, you are really a fish...

Dale

A fish out of water. I haven't been able to get in the pool since March....

My plan (and plans are worth next to nothing right now) is to get back in the water once I can, but swim season goes til April. Hopefully we'll have a cycling season in 2021, so I'm planning on returning to bike racing in May. So one of the things I'm trying to balance is that I don't really want to be sharp on the bike for another 8 months or so, and it will be really easy to lose motivation by doing too much, too soon. So right now it's all about slowly building a base (not even necessarily high aerobic capacity, just consistent time in the saddle) that I can start building on in Feb - Apr in a specific build/prep phase.

Until then, it'll be just having fun challenging myself on Strava segments. I've been picking one to target before each weekend ride, usually a climb (I suck at climbing) and then just seeing how I do against previous efforts.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

You would be sad to know that not only is my pool open (and I was reluctantly there earlier in the year for a crash course on relearning swimming prior to an actual OLY race) but also my lake is warm and it is aptly named Crystal Lake. Beautiful swimming, crystal clear and perfect temps...well, if one actually likes to do that sort of thing...

hope you get to 'feel the water' soon

Highly recommend the fat bike. My buddy and I go 2x per week out in the woods on the trails no matter what the conditions are at night with headlamps. Sometimes we are pushing sections in our boots etc but we have lots of laughs and there is something about getting outside especially in the winter. And we run into the odd moose....