FWIW, such a leveling off after only 4-5 wk does not fit w/ my personal experience, or what I've seen in training subjects in laboratory studies. Assuming the weather holds, yes.

I'm showing similar increases this year by doing a similar routine.

Don, for what it's worth, runners will typically do L4 work consistently 8-10 months out of the year.

---

-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

Okay, but how does this help us in programming for duathlon/triathlon?

Is the point you're making that:
a) It's okay to do some intense work virtually year-round
b) It's best not to do very intense work (i.e. L5) as often as I'm proposing, which is in every second 4-week period (~5-6 months/year)
c) both a and c?

What's your take on the alternating model I've proposed?

The model you proposed isn't too dissimilar from what Greg Watson used. Keep in mind, however, that the 8 week cycles *should* set yourself up to peak at races and it is up to you to figure out if you need 4 weeks of L5 of 4 weeks of L4 just before your race.

Also make sure you schedule in good rest periods. Greg raced about every 2-3 months and would begin with 2 weeks completely off, and then build back up with L4, hills, and then L5 work.....though I don't know the specifics. It is quite possible that for a long course event he may have focused more on L4 in the month before his race.

Personally I've always been more of a 6 month plan person. 3 months to recover and then build base, gradually phasing in L4 training, and then 2-3 months to sharpen up with L5 and L6 training.

---

-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

I'd be very interested to see week 6. It appears that the athlete lost all of the gained fitness in week 5. (Probably just a temporary set back?) The heat in the velodrome should not explain the decrease as rolling resistance decreases when it is hotter at the same wattage. So I would think that the heat would make it easier for him and decrease his heart rate.

sounds like runners (or coaches thereof) got this right some time ago!

At the same power output, heart rate will tend to be higher when 1) it's hot (due to greater thermal stress), and 2) when cadence is high(er). Both of these conditions existed during the last workout, which likely explains why their power:heart rate ratio was lower (see the discussion Paulo and I had earlier in this thread about the limitations of power:heart rate ratio). As for rolling resistance (and aerodynamic drag), it's a non-issue, since power (and not speed) was measured.

Thanks Barry - I hadn't necessarily intended the 8 week cycles to be timed to peak for a race, though they could be used for that as well. My intention was that, by alternating L5 and L4 focus, the cycles could be used pretty much year-round to keep performance improving perpetually. Maybe once or twice per year, a 2-3 week period away from the intervals could be used to "freshen up" - maybe after the year's A-race. What do you think?

It's not necessarily the way *I* like to do things, but it seems pretty reasonable and has worked well for others.


Personally I like a rotation of base build, L4, L5, race......more or less. However, some have argued that after a while, the base building is really uneccesary. Other's can make the case that you never really have the available time to base build in multisport training.....ie, a real base build might be 25-30 hours a week. Are you willing to spend that time training, or just get rid of the whole phase and make the best of 10-15 hour weeks with L4 or L5 training in it?

---

-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

That's exactly my line of thinking...I can't train 20+ hours per week, so I have to make the most of the time I have. Doing 10h per week of easy base training isn't going to do much for my fitness, so why not leave it out and throw in the occasional rest week as necessary.

At this point in my understanding of the sport I am in agreement. That being said, however, I still have a lot to gain from 11 hours a week of cycling. In a couple of years I won't be surprised if I will need more intensity to get something out of that.

*Most* triathletes don't get in enough running and never get around to building their base. They spend 2-3 hours a week running too fast when they'd be better off running 5-6 hours a week. You, on the other hand, may be beyond that point.

---

-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

I would probably benefit from running 5-6 hours per week, and some weeks I manage to, but I don't have enough time available to do that consistently and still fit in enough hours on the bike. It would be nice, but it's not on the cards at the moment! I can get by with less and still improve, so that's what I'm going with for now.

Can anyone hypothesise if there is a greater benefit by increasing the frequency of this session and doing it twice a week providing suitable recovery is available ? I get the impression that people are only doing this once and using their other sessions to train their other systems...........

You can also consider periods of time in the off season where you can ramp up the mileage in one and cut it in the other. For example, you can do 2 months of 8-9 hours of cycling and 1-2 hours of running. That may give you the added stimulus needed to get to the next level on the bike. During that period you'd probably make most of the running at tempo pace (1hr race pace).

Just as an example.

---

-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

Here's a similar question given the discussion of 6x4min... I've been doing 3x4min at ~305W, which is about 17% above my estimated 260W FTP. It's a fairly typical L5 VO2Max interval, and I could easily change that to 6x4 min probably at about 285-290W (10-12% over FTP). Either one is possible but I'm sure I couldn't do 6x8 min at 290W right now.

So here's the question...how much recovery time in between them is too much? My favorite (and almost only spot) anywhere near my house is a 1.5mi uphill rise at about 2%. There aren't any other roads within any reasonable distance of my house that have no lights and a slight uphill to keep my speed down. I average about 22mph when doing these, and if I did them on a flat road I'd be cruising at over 27mph and would run out of road too fast. So my tactic has been to hammer up the hill then cruise down at ~150-180W and 25-27mph which gets me back to the bottom at about 3.5mins ready for another one. Is this much recovery time likely to affect the training effect? I feel I could probably be ready for another interval at about 1-2mins.

---

---

Any update for recent weeks?

---

-------
Joe

I enjoyed your discussions through teh various forums here an in the wattage forum. Being new to cycling I am using one of the training plans from cycling peaks with Hunter Allen. I was wondering if you would be drawing up a few plans with your new intervals from the research or passing this information to Hunter for new plans that included the 4min and 30sec intervals ?

Pretty interesting stuff, thanks for sharing. Well worth reading through all the posts.

What is the intensity of the interval?

Hi UKGM, didn't see your post here until Dr C's thread made it back to front page. Somewhere in the middle of this thread I listed some ref's of a well controlled series of studies by a group from in South Africa / Australia. The reason I listed these specific studies was that in addition to simply "training hard" as AC suggests, their interval training program was practically the same as AC's (in terms of intensity and duration), except that they always had their subjects do 2x sessions/week, for ~3-4 weeks. The % improvement in performance was about the same as AC shows, albeit with more direct/important performance measures and more subjects (absolute and relative threshold power, 40km TT, etc, etc). It could be surmised that, if we take ACs data on face value, that 1x/wk is enough and 2x is overkill, given that the SA studies show similar improvements, but that they are not sustainable, and fall away after 4-5 weeks.

Note: I know one prominent and very good quality IM athlete/cyclist does this session religiously 3 weeks before important races (ironman included), and does 1x/wk.

Week #7: ?.?? W/(beat/min) (+?.?%) (intervals not performed as the subject raced instead)
Week #8: 1.96 W/beat/min) (+11.4%)

Back on the road at 90-95 rpm again, but in warmer weather similar to that encountered on week #5. The only other point worthy of mentioning is that the values for power and power:heart rate are approaching the highest this former national champion has ever achieved...and the real work hasn't even begun just yet.

No. I'm not a coach, have no desire to be one, and anything that Hunter might have been able to learn from me he undoubtly learned a long time ago.

    I am sorry, I thought you guys work in cooperation as you published the Power book together and I thought you run cyclingpeaks together. I am misinformed, sorry. Is there anywhere that this new data is incorporated into coaching plans that you know of ? Thanks