in my case, no. Too many red lights. I'd rather be heads down following my workout, not having to worry about which idiot in a car on their phone is going to try to kill me.

can you get the quality? most likely no.
can you get close? yes

is it worth it to train outdoors? MOST DEFINITELY YES!!!

remember: you're doing this for a 20 cent medal. it's a hobby. riding outside, breathing fresh air, crawling up hills and pouring through turns so fast you scare yourself on descents is FUN. you lose that... what's the point?

do your work indoors, but don't quit riding outside like so many do. otherwise, tri becomes just another job

I think you *can* but within a different set of boundaries. Certainly it's a less controlled environment but it opens up additional possibilities that are of coruse possible indoors but not practical.

Example: I have a big hill but it's about 50 miles away from my apartment. I have sometimes combined a long ride with a zone 4 day by riding out to the hill and then seeing whether i can hold at or near FTP all the way up. It's one thing to do intervals when you're rested, quite another when you've already got 2000 KJ of work in the legs.

This might not be a relevant training for a triathlete but for a road race cyclist it absolutely is. So you can get quality but different quality.

I think I can get pretty close now that I've picked up some assiomas. I have a few options: Use my gravel bike on the never ending dirt roads with no traffic around my house, or head to a park about a 20 minute car ride away with a six mile loop for the TT bike. It's still only on the weekends though. It's just too convenient to get the work done in the before the sun's up during the week on the trainer.

Fully agree!! I do all of my rides outside but for me it is pretty safe in a country (Netherlands) where there are more cycling lanes than roads. I just do not see the fun of looking at a digital screen on a trainer inside and then think I am doing a climb. Cycling to me is an outside event and the fact that it is not controlled makes it more fun and I think the training is better.

In essence the answer is yes, you certainly can get quality training outside provided you have somewhere suitable to train.

Obviously if you want to do quasi steady state efforts then the nature of the training course and terrain will determine what's feasible. If you are in a city with very few long stretches of uninterrupted training road (traffic lights, traffic etc) or no suitable training circuit, or the terrain is highly variable, then it is harder to perform such workouts.

In this case then you do the training outdoors that is feasible to perform and which provides the desired metabolic stimulus and if you need to do long contiguous efforts as part of your training diet, then do them on the trainer.

I would suggest that if you race outside, then ensuring you get some efforts outside is important, primarily because while metabolic demands are essentially the same, the neuromuscular demands are different (aside from the different skill and environmental demands). Even a flat road isn't perfectly flat, plus wind conditions also vary and can change the nature of a course. Fortunately it doesn't take long to adapt to the neural demands, while improving metabolic capabilities is a much longer process.

Here's an item I wrote over 10 years ago, which examines 2x20-min threshold efforts done on an ergo and outside on a lightly rolling 4km training loop. Through the use of Quadrant Analysis, you can see that while metabolically the rides are the same, they are different in neuromuscular demands.

https://wattmatters.blog/...adrant-analysis.html

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New Training/Racing Log - http://www.earthdaykid.com/blog --- Old Training/Racing Log - http://colinlaughery.blogspot.com

I can. Long stretches of roads with flat stretches and the occasional hill. Problem is the speed limit is 65 mph and people usually run at least 10 mph over that.

It’s just not worth the risk. I can start riding before dawn and be finished before the family is awake, all in the safety of my pain cave.

I still sneak out for outdoor rides every now and then but always feel relieved when I make it back to my truck.

First of all: I thought treshold intervals are longer than 6*8: those short intervals are generally done over treshold. 320 W is a huge value: can you sustain that for 1 hour? (that should be how a treshold or ftp-value is defined at least how I understand it).

To your question: do you have the same position on the trainer as outside? Even if yes it is not really a yes because you have to watch the road outside which means you probably have to move your neck every couple of seconds: outside is a different effort for your neck which should be trained. Otherwise said: you will have problems in the race if you were not enough outside in position. I have to get accustomed every year again to the aeroposition and that does not happen in a couple of rides.

Yes you can train indoors. Yes, you have to train outdoors too. The skill/fitness sets are just not the same.

Pool vs open water. Zwift vs real hills, downhills and corners plus steering and balance of even straight line riding. Treadmill vs tarmac.

While it's far safer to train indoors, it's not optimal because the real races are not indoors. Do outside workouts frequently enough or in a block beforehand to regain outdoor fitness/ability.

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Indoor Triathlete - I thought I was right, until I realized I was wrong.

longtrousers wrote:

First of all: I thought treshold intervals are longer than 6*8: those short intervals are generally done over treshold. 320 W is a huge value: can you sustain that for 1 hour? (that should be how a treshold or ftp-value is defined at least how I understand it).

I was keeping in a little light for my question, but now that you ask, my current FTP is 310w, and yes, tested 3 weeks ago using the 8 minute FTP test. So these intervals were done just above, which sounds easy enough, but you definitely feel the extra 3%.

Thanks for the answer: I like to ask those things because sometimes I wonder if I understand myself the whole training-theory thing. But I‘m satisfied now and think our perception is the same.

Why do you think you can't you do shorter threshold intervals?

O yes maybe you can, only I do not do them.
I do shorter intervals (lets say 5*5) above threshold, I think they‘re also called „V02max“ intervals, correct me when I‘m wrong. I tend to do threshold intervals like 2*20.

But that‘s what I got used to and which worked good for me to get faster. There should be many ways though.

Intervals are whatever you want them to be.

There is no rule to say they must be a certain intensity, duration, frequency and recovery. The only limitation on intensity and duration is that set by your mean maximal power capability.

Normally you choose an interval intensity, duration and frequency to match the primary physiological adaptation you are targeting, but of course adaptations are on a continuum.

Of course whether such a session is as effective a component of one's training as alternatives is what's debatable. Many, many factors are in play on whether you should do intervals, and if so what intervals to do, when to include them (and when to stop), how frequently to do them and for how many weeks you do them.

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