Time Efficient Winter Training.

ut_och_cykla

80 % of available time is steady measured effort, 20 % harder intervalls - mostly longer ones might be a reasonable breakdowwn of time ... so 6 hours avaliable means 1-1½ hard stuff and rest not easy but not thrashing

amc

Thanks again everyone - i think i'm getting my head around it all now.

How's this sounds - any advice on tinkering/changes etc appreciated - as an aim for a fortnight"s of winter training...

Work commute of 13 miles round trip X 9 (one leg easy, one hard/sprints)

Three of which extended by an hour for 1 * 60 at full effort. (Probably around the flat Regents Park loop which is relative traffic light free or poss a loop around the back of Hampstead Garden Suburb if i can work out a good route)

A weekend ride of 2-3 hours - attacking the hills at full pelt with easy paced zone two inbetween? Or if really short of time a weekend ride of an hour's worth of various intervals.

Cheers

birdy247

rdt wrote:

For that reason, I'll not usually look forward to a 2x20mins, so may swap it out for e.g. 6 or 7 x 4mins (2mins easy in between)

Is the training effect the same for the following? (Assuming the same power is reached each time)

1 x 40
2 x 20
4 x 10
8 x 5

Does rest periods play a role in the effectivness of the 8 x 5 for example? Is there a general rule how short the rest interval should be. For a typical 2 x 20 I would want about 3/4 mins rest else I start to find reasons to not bother with the 2nd.

jibberjim

Pretty much the same yes, the longer interval at the same will be marginally better if you do hit the same av power for all, but it's likely you'll have slightly more on the shorter intervals.

Bronzie

amc wrote:

How's this sounds - any advice on tinkering/changes etc appreciated - as an aim for a fortnight"s of winter training...

Work commute of 13 miles round trip X 9 (one leg easy, one hard/sprints)

Three of which extended by an hour for 1 * 60 at full effort. (Probably around the flat Regents Park loop which is relative traffic light free or poss a loop around the back of Hampstead Garden Suburb if i can work out a good route)

A weekend ride of 2-3 hours - attacking the hills at full pelt with easy paced zone two inbetween? Or if really short of time a weekend ride of an hour's worth of various intervals.

Ok, well it's better than just doing your 6.5 mile commute twice a day with an occasional chaingang.

Bear in mind that you really need to build some progressive overload into any training plan. If you do the above routine between now and March, I don't think you'll be ideally set up for the start of the season.

Maybe add in some more tempo (L3) and threshold (L4) sessions from December and some shorter intervals (L5/6) in mid January in readiness to start the season in March.