The key point in Kevin's training is that running and cycling are a bit different in how the body responds. You can spend the winter running pretty easy and because of the weight bearing nature of the sport, your body gets a lot of stress and adapts. Just riding around easy on the bike at "endurance" is not a very effective use of limited time on the bike. A pro racer who does stages races and 5 hour events 10 months out of the year can take some time to just putter around, knowing he'll be riding himself into shape as early as Feb in a stage race.

For the rest of us, use the trainer time for that tempo and get the fenders out for the weekend longer rides. Because you are running so much, it's hard to picture you doing a ton of additional quality on the bike without compromising your recovery. You might want to experiment with some shorter blocks of tempo on your easy days and see how your body reacts, maybe even workouts that total 30-40 minutes of trainer time at 85% rather than longer hunks droning along. The objective isn't to get better at riding slowly for longer periods...

I think what's magic about 2 x 20 at "tempo" is it allows you to get a TSS of just under 100 in 60 minutes. Perfect. In theory you should be able to do this continually day after day after day and still recover.

Personally, I only do 2 x 20 once or twice per week and rotate thru some other similar workouts which keep me just under 100 tss. 3 x 10, 3 x 8, and a nice 6 x 6 @ sst with only 2 min recoveries. On the weekends I do 3 x 20 & a more complicated workout which bring me over 100 tss. All workouts are CompuTrainer .erg workouts. Every month I bump up the wattage by 5 watts for all or some key parts of the workouts to apply progressive resistance.

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Lewis

Are you sure you have your FTP set correctly? 60 minutes straight at threshold is 100 TSS. 2x20 at tempo with a warm up and cool down will probably be more like 60-70 TSS.

2x20 at 85% gets me 61 TSS and 2x30 at 85% gets me 85 TSS.

That would indeed be magic.

40 minutes straight at tempo ~= 50 to 54 TSS, leaving you just 20 minutes to find the other 40-45 TSS to get just under 100. That's where you insert the magic trick.

I do 90 minutes with a long warmup and cooldown with 2 X 20 @ 90-95% and am usually right around 100 tss for the whole workout. If I cut the warmup and cooldown shorter it would probably end up being closer to 85 tss. I find with the longer workout that I can tell if I am going to "have it" that day or not whereas with a shorter warmup I can't tell until I'm about halfway through the first interval if my legs are good or not that day.

"Tempo" = somewhere between tempo & sweet spot. And "just under 100" isn't 99. With a decent warm-up/cool down it's in the range of 85 or 90 TSS. A solid workout that's repeatable daily.

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Lewis

Ahem, you do realize who you are giving advice to, right?

Ditto

Here was me thinking tempo was tempo and an hour was an hour. OK, so Level 3 is the new level 4 and an hour is now 75-80 minutes. Got it.

85 TSS requires an IF of 92% - for the entire hour.
90 TSS requires an IF of 95% - for the entire hour.

2 x 20 at 100% FTP with the rest at Level 2 (~ 70-75% FTP) will net you around 86-88 TSS.

~68 to 76 depending on tempo vs. sweet spot and how many DTMYLM's. Usually slightly over 1 hr. 1:03 or so.

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Kevin

http://kevinmetcalfe.dreamhosters.com
My Strava

You're right. I went back and checked and my 70 minute "2 x 20" doesn't have nearly as much TSS as I thought it did. My bad.

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Lewis

I honestly don't' find anything special or magic about 2 x 20 @ SS or threshold. I do them often as well, but I get more training load from just sub-SS rides of 75-90minutes, mixed. I honestly wish I could say those 2 x 20s @ ss were so awesome for my performance, but they haven't been any better than anything of similar TSS at least for me. I will say they're good for at least maintaining performance, but even at my mediocre level, I tend to seek out more TSS for the 4x/wk I ride indoors. A 90 minute aerobic subSS ride has a lot more TSS than a 2 x 20 for me and at least I'm finding is a better training stimulus for me right now, but I do plan on changing those up to 90 min with a lot of SS and then a lot of Threshold intervals as I get closer to race season.

I'm a week into what I call "Kevins" 4 days a week, one other day I will do a 3x20@ SS just sub threshold which is pretty tough then one outdoor ride where I just ride for enjoyment, hammer some hills, noodle downtown whatever. Feel great and think I can hold right through winter.

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"Base training is bull shit" - desertdude

Kevin.
Have read this post dozens of times, bookmarked it, but this is the first time I have 1)a power meter 2)time 3) motivation.
Did the ride yesterday outside.
Ended up being 20m warm-up, 2*20 with 5ez between, 5ez after, ~20m to get home at regular pace.
I had guesstimated my FTP to be 300-310w.
First interval was 284 (goal was between 265 and 285) and second was 303w. The second was harder, but mainly mentally (harder more rolly course with more wind).
It felt tough but I was never dying or really redlining it. Avg hr was 10bpm higher on the second rep. I could have done 10 more minutes at that wattage, but it would've gotteb ugly.
Am I doing these right?
Tried to stay smooth and consistent throughout the second rep in spite of the rolling course
% wise these look to be too hard, but 85% pits be at around 260 which I can do all day.
Thoughts, Kevin et all?
Can provide a file if needed.

Whether you were going too hard depends on how that ride fits into your schedule. If you're setting up a plan where you are going to do this workout many timew a week, then yes, you were going too hard. Those intervals were 91% and 98% of FTP. That's fine for a one off, once a week type of FTP workout, but you won't be able to do that day after day after day. If you want something repeatable for like a M-F indoor program during the winter, I'd say you should stick to the 260 watt level.

The point (strictly in the context of 5 days of week of this workout) is to do something that is hard enough, but not too hard. That 85-88% range is something that you can do day after day, week after week and build yourself up without hating your bike. Much harder and I don't think it is as repeatable. Also, it will take a week or two to get into the used to this.

Hope that helps.

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Kevin

http://kevinmetcalfe.dreamhosters.com
My Strava

But could I do it as a 2* a week workout with one easy ride between and a long ride on the weekend?

I'm certainly not a coach, but that seems reasonable.

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Kevin

http://kevinmetcalfe.dreamhosters.com
My Strava