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long rides HR + recovery week/periodisation
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At what HR should long rides be. I will do Ironman Switzerland on July 27 and plan to do the bike with a HR of about 135 (~70% max HR - do you think this is ok?).
I read that you can only race what you trained for. That means I should train (some of) my long rides at a HR of 135. Currently my long rides are at 2-3 hours. With spring coming I will increase the duration.
Should I do the long rides at an easier pace for now and go faster nearer to the IM. Or should I already train at a HR 135.

Because this is the first year where I train really serious (10+ hours) I have no experience with periodisation (recovery weeks). I plan a recovery week every 3 or 4 weeks. Often I will combine them with tapering for a race. Here are my questions:
How much of my average weekly training should I do in a recovery/easy week? I understand that I should train as frequent as in a normal week but with but shorter, easier workouts.
In my first easy easy week in March I trained about 70% of the previous weeks. But this training included a short duathlon (1h20) at the end of the week. Therefore the recovery week was only 6 days.
This week is the same as I taper for Zurich Marathon on Sunday. But I train only about 3 hours to be fully rested on Sunday.

http://www.weilenmann.ch.vu
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Re: long rides HR + recovery week/periodisation [felix__w] [ In reply to ]
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felix,

70% MHR for your IM goal effort sounds good. With your general periodization plan, working backwards from the A race, you would want to start your 1st build cycle on May 1 or thereabout. So right now you should be in base training mode. In base you have the luxury of riding below your goal effort pace and should be concentrating on long easy miles. But you can also include a weekly ride with 1-2hrs at your 70% effort. When you get to build cycles, focus more on riding at this 70% goal pace with steadily increasing miles over the weeks, and throw some infrequent sub-LT and LT work into the mix (but keep your focus on steady long rides at goal pace for IM racing).

I would suggest doing 50% or less of your biggest week in the preceding cycle during your recovery period, yes, with shorter, easier workouts with a few minutes here and there of increased effort (to goal race pace for example).

Racing at the end of a recovery week is a good idea as you can use that race as a 'breakthrough' workout. The recovery period doesn't have to be exactly 7 days, it depends on you and can be as short as 3-4 days or as long as 8-10 days (though that's approaching a true taper). A race at the end of a recovery period can be viewed as a doorway to the next cycle rather than a closure to the previous one.

Good luck,

MG

Marty Gaal, CSCS
One Step Beyond Coaching
Triangle Open Water Swim Series | Old School Aquathon Series
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Re: long rides HR + recovery week/periodisation [martyg] [ In reply to ]
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Thanks for your answer. In this two recovery weeks I did this year I always felt tired and not really fit. In March this feeling disappeared at the end of the week and I felt very good for the race. I hope this happens this week too and I will run a good Marathon.

There is one more question about long rides (and runs). Should I try to keep the HR not much higher on shorter hills or is it better to push a little bit more (and let the HR increase to about 80% HRmax).

Thanks, Felix
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