Ok, I hope this is not considered stupid question, but here goes. In the area where I live, I can do my longer rides on a very challening, hilly course, or I can choose a much flatter easier course. Obviously, after riding the hilly course, I am sore and exhausted, considerably moreso than the flatter course. I am wondering which is the better way to go for building endurance etc for preparing for IM LP. As well, during the week, I am doing a couple days of riding indoors where I am going 2 x 20 minutes at 85% FTP which seems to be quite popular.
it doesnt really matter hugely power/HR so if you feel you can work in hills that may be better but if your race is flat then riding on the flat would be better
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Do you have a coach? It really depends on the workout prescribed that day. Not all days can/should be hard. But the hard days … In general, I’d rec the hard/hilly route, but if you are primarily a long distance triathlete, nothing wrong with hammering along for a while on a flat course.
Ok, I hope this is not considered stupid question, but here goes. In the area where I live, I can do my longer rides on a very challenging, hilly course, or I can choose a much flatter easier course. Obviously, after riding the hilly course, I am sore and exhausted, considerably more so than the flatter course. I am wondering which is the better way to go for building endurance etc for preparing for IM LP. As well, during the week, I am doing a couple days of riding indoors where I am going 2 x 20 minutes at 85% FTP which seems to be quite popular.
Thanks guys, any help is appreciated.
If I recall correctly, Lake Placid is pretty darn hilly and that second loop is nearly always challenging. Specificity, specificity, specificity …Ride the hill course frequently and learn to ride the hills so that you aren’t totally wasted for a long time after. Consider regearing the bike if this is impossible. IM LP is a tough course with the correct gearing and a real bear without it.
Hard and hilly.
There will always be ample time to prepare riding ´aero´, so make it as hard as possible.
If, on the day of your hard training ride, you´re not feeling great, well do the easier route. Otherwise mash yourself up.
some days, ride the hills. some days, ride the flats.
as long as you ride a ton, it really doesnt matter.
I dont think for 1 second you have much of an advantage at IMLP because you rode hills a ton.
My money is going on the guy who trains more. hills or no hills.
just FYI, I can head south and get hills, or north and get flats. I just rotate…little bit of both. Mainly to mix it up.
today I did hills, and I felt great the hole way. A few weeks ago, I rode in the flats and felt like complete shit. Watts/HR very similar. todays ride much longer, 6300 feet of gain.
If you are unquestionably more exhausted after 4-5 hours on hills than you are flats, you may need to work harder on the flats, or go easier on the hills…
yeah, but hills dont necessarily make you stronger or faster.
watts are watts, but the perceived effort to hold the same watts up a hill is greater than on the flats. when i ride flats, i can keep my wattage goal in the range i want it to.
I think many people find it easier to put out more watts on hills.
Regardless. You advised the OP to ride flats when she’s training for Lake Placid. Shouldn’t we be advising the OP on how to climb all day without blowing up?
The question was, which is better for endurance? The answer is both, or it depends. Once again the real question is, why is she gutted when she gets home?
I don’t know as I don’t use a PM, but since this is Slowtwitch I would estimate my avg power was around 400-425 watts. That’s all easy zone 1 work too, of course.
You need to spend some time riding in the hills if you are going to ride a hilly race. You will naturally pedal and ride differently and probably at a slightly different cadence if you are in the hills vs the flats.
But also, either way you should look to induce the same training stress for any given ride, whether on the flats or hills. That means neither is harder or easier than the other. Just that the same training stress will be incurred slightly differently on the respective terrain.
I live and train in Charleston, SC which is flat land. The last two years I have done American Zofingen ultra duathlon, which has some 8000+ feet of climbing over 84 miles. Although I rode the same effort in the race that I rode in training rides, the effort was applied differently and, for me, I felt the ride in my calves and buttocks more than on flat land, which tends to hit my quads more. The position on the saddle and the amount of ankling probably account for the difference. So its not about being harder or easier. Its about differences in pedaling action and whether the effort is steady (flats) or more broken (hills, where your power graph will have more ups/downs for any given normalized power figure).
That’s a long explanation for a simple word: Specificity.
I don’t know as I don’t use a PM, but since this is Slowtwitch I would estimate my avg power was around 400-425 watts. That’s all easy zone 1 work too, of course.
That’s all? I rode today and averaged 1000 watts for 6 hrs. Is that good??
Pft, 1000W couldn’t even power the microwave I used to heat my breakfast.
I don’t necessarily think hilly always means hard and flatter always means easier. I would always, anyday, pick a hilly ride over a flat one. The way I see it, flat courses offer the ability to tuck into the aerobars and just crank away at a hard clip - basically a trainer ride with a little more scenery. Skip the flat riding, you’re doing good work on the trainer with the 2x20’s. If the hills are kicking your butt, adjust your effort or the distance just a little, and you’ll see you’ll adapt to them faster than you thought.
Personally, I was interested in this thread as well as the “preparing for hills but live in flatlands” thread. I recently moved and there is practically zero elevation around here. I rode 60mi yesterday and didn’t climb more than 300ft total (my best guess). And given I’m still adjusting to this lack of terrain, all that time straight cranking cooked my legs for the run I did afterward. It all got me worried that I won’t be able to do well at IMWI this year. I miss my hills
Pft, 1000W couldn’t even power the microwave I used to heat my breakfast.
I don’t necessarily think hilly always means hard and flatter always means easier. I would always, anyday, pick a hilly ride over a flat one. The way I see it, flat courses offer the ability to tuck into the aerobars and just crank away at a hard clip - basically a trainer ride with a little more scenery. Skip the flat riding, you’re doing good work on the trainer with the 2x20’s. If the hills are kicking your butt, adjust your effort or the distance just a little, and you’ll see you’ll adapt to them faster than you thought.
Personally, I was interested in this thread as well as the “preparing for hills but live in flatlands” thread. I recently moved and there is practically zero elevation around here. I rode 60mi yesterday and didn’t climb more than 300ft total (my best guess). And given I’m still adjusting to this lack of terrain, all that time straight cranking cooked my legs for the run I did afterward. It all got me worried that I won’t be able to do well at IMWI this year. I miss my hills
As far as fitness goes, prob does not matter if you are doing the work.
before now, my best season on the bike came from riding the summer at my parents house (mid/north ohio) and riding a lot of mid and long flat rides. I would do a lot of longer harder riding, and it got me very very comfortable in the aerobars.
only a day or two a week had any sort of real hill (over maybe 30 sec of climbing). I loved the fast hard rides like that.
Where i am now, i have to do at least 15-20 min of hard hills to get to flats anyway, so i get both.
Fav workout on the bike includes 30-40 min of hard bigger hills/long rollers, then an hour of tempo/TT work on the flats.
training for a hilly race, i would totally be riding hills all the time if i could simply to know what it would be like and mentally be ready.
