On the up... only not so much

neuk01642

Sorry if this is old ground but I just wanted to ask some advice.

I'm putting in a few miles during the week in preparation for a 119miler with around 9.5k of climbing.
I'm doing 1 22 miler with 1300ft of assent against the clock (currently average speed of 19.5mph), a 1 hour interval session (15 min warm up 30mins of 1 on 1 off trying to maintain or slightly exceed LT heart rate for the on sessions) and the 1 hour of hill repeats (around 1200ft in total) during the week. Sunday I'm out for about 4-5 hours at the moment and am up to around 74 miles with 4500ft of ascent maintaining an average of 17.8mph. However looking at my data it looks like I'm getting marginally slower going up hill but obviously compensating with quicker recovery on the flats... I WANNA GO UP HILLS QUICKER DAMN IT!

Any directions/pointers/advice greatly appreciated.

Matt :roll:

Tom Dean

Can you lose some weight?

HR is a very poor guide for pacing 1 on/1 off I would think. - did you read that session somewhere?

sungod

what cadence are you climbing at?

if it's too low then muscles fatigue quicker

if you've run out of low gears and find you're grinding up long ascents then get lower gears, you'll probably climb faster

neuk01642

Tom Dean wrote:

Can you lose some weight?

HR is a very poor guide for pacing 1 on/1 off I would think. - did you read that session somewhere?

Tom - I have a few pounds to loose but not much I'm 183 and want to get to 178lbs - do you think those 5 pounds are the key? And it's not HR in it's own right more as a readily available indicator of Lactate Threshold. LT has been on numerous forums including Bike Doc as a useful tool for increasing power and stamina for endurance events. I kind of combine and LT program from Bike Doc so as to give me a level which I should be pushing to for the on sets.

sungod wrote:

what cadence are you climbing at?

if it's too low then muscles fatigue quicker

if you've run out of low gears and find you're grinding up long ascents then get lower gears, you'll probably climb faster

Sungod - I can't for the life of me remember the ratios on my bike. It's a standard groupset not compact. I'm going up 13-15% gradients on the small cog a couple of gears up from the bottom. I've gone through the spinning the hell on the smallest and I find if I'm much lower I'm spinning to hard and much higher then it's grinding. On average I'm looking for 75 - 85 rpm, on hills I try to keep it inside 70rpm for sit down (sub 10%) and on my regular 13-15% it does get down as low as 43rpm. Should I try staying in the lower gear to maintain speed even though it feels like I'm spinning?

Thanks for the input. look forward to hearing your responses

ut_och_cykla

My personal opinion - no - those 5 pounds will make no real difference on the day. The key factor is weight to power ratio. You can lose weight but if you lose power too you wont go faster up hills, and will be slower on the flat. What you need is more power just below your LT but quite which intervals I'm not sure - 5 x 4:4? or 2 x 20? and whether you have time to improve is another qusetion I can't answer.
But either way - make sure you are fresh for the hill training/intervalls otherwise you won't get best return for the work. You're probably at a stage where you can do the distance anyway. Focus on the hard stuff & recover well in between sessions would be my advice.
Gearing is a personal thing - too low a cadence might damage your knees in the long run but a lower cadence is usually linked to lower heart rate which might avoid you running out of puff too early ( I can't 'spin' up hills - I'm faster & more comfy at lower cadences - 60 sish)
Good luck

Tom Dean

neuk01642 wrote:

Tom Dean wrote:

Can you lose some weight?

HR is a very poor guide for pacing 1 on/1 off I would think. - did you read that session somewhere?

Tom - I have a few pounds to loose but not much I'm 183 and want to get to 178lbs - do you think those 5 pounds are the key? And it's not HR in it's own right more as a readily available indicator of Lactate Threshold. LT has been on numerous forums including Bike Doc as a useful tool for increasing power and stamina for endurance events. I kind of combine and LT program from Bike Doc so as to give me a level which I should be pushing to for the on sets.

5lb isn't much, but every little helps.

1 on/1 off is a bit if a strange one to be fair, I do do it myself sometimes, up to 15x like you. My point is that HR is too slow to react to efforts this short, and that if you are anywhere around a threshold HR, you are going nowhere near hard enough towards the end of the set. You need to ride these at a level where you can only just finish the session.

neuk01642

ut_och_cykla - thanks for the thoughts. Lots to chew over. When you said:

ut_och_cykla wrote:

you need is more power just below your LT but quite which intervals I'm not sure - 5 x 4:4? or 2 x 20? and whether you have time to improve is another qusetion I can't answer.

Did you mean 5 sets of 4mins on and 4 mins off or 2 sets of 20mins on? Could you clarify because I'm being a little dense.

I'm not so worries about getting round the course. I think I'm on target to do it and possibly creep inside the silver time band (15.5mph average speed). My goal is to do it as well as I possibly can.

Tom Dean wrote:

1 on/1 off is a bit if a strange one to be fair, I do do it myself sometimes, up to 15x like you. My point is that HR is too slow to react to efforts this short, and that if you are anywhere around a threshold HR, you are going nowhere near hard enough towards the end of the set. You need to ride these at a level where you can only just finish the session.

Tom - Believe me on my last interval set, pushing to 5 bpm over LT for each on interval absolutely pushes me to the point where I'm only just about able to finish.

What gauge would you employ to judge an appropriate amount of effort for a 1on/1off interval session? I don't have a power meter so heart rate, speed or cadance are the only criteria I have to judge effort.

Hope I'm not coming across as snotty and defensive! All advice and input appreciated.

Tom Dean

Not at all - I dont know your definition of LT or how you measured it so what you are doing could well be fine. 5 beats over threshold sounds on the low side. The point is that HR is increasing quite quickly throughout each effort, so how do you say you have hit a target level? and it is of no use in keeping a constant effort.

Personally I time myself on a stretch of hill to make sure the intervals are not dropping off - the target time is set through trial and error. I have to keep the even pace by RP, it might be easier to do on the turbo but I like to sprint out of the saddle at the top. The problem with the session is that the balance of intensity vs overall load is poor. If it wasn't for the sprint element I put in I would never do it for this reason.

BigFatBloke

If it is any help, I can hold between 156bpm to 160bpm for a good 20 minutes to an hour. If I go over 165bpm and I can go up to 174bpm, I really pay for it. I can do it for a few minutes but have to drop down to 160 or just under to recover.

That said my heart is so slow to respond to increased effort then add to that the delay before the monitor shows it, often the higher heart rate is only seen when I have eased off. So heart rate is useless for really hard shorter efforts.

neuk01642

Thanks all.

I have other training workouts programed with longer intervals. Maybe try one of those tonight instead of the 1on/1off.

Tom - There are a couple of ways to work out LT (Lactate Threshold) according to the usual collection of forums. Obviously they're both liable to error as they don't involve a raft of scientists and a lab. I went for doing 2, 3 mile rides at full pelt. Take an average of the average heart rates of the two runs and then multiply that by 103% (this I think came from an article on BikeDoc). Lactate Threshold as far as I understand it is the point at which the body is still able to process the lactic acid build up in muscles. Above that threshold, you're producing too much lactic acid and the body can't process it. So training based on LT aims to train the body to increase that level. It's apparently partially genetic but can be improved. My LT heart rate worked out to 166bpm.

BigFatBloke - Thanks for the info.

ut_och_cykla

neuk01642 wrote:

ut_och_cykla - thanks for the thoughts. Lots to chew over. When you said:

ut_och_cykla wrote:

you need is more power just below your LT but quite which intervals I'm not sure - 5 x 4:4? or 2 x 20? and whether you have time to improve is another qusetion I can't answer.

Did you mean 5 sets of 4mins on and 4 mins off or 2 sets of 20mins on? Could you clarify because I'm being a little dense.

[/quote]
both might help you - the 5 x 4: 4 mins is said to raise VO2 max (and did for me) but they are hard !1 The 2 x 20 mins is a long time fave on this forum. Done right they give you probably best returns for input (as long as you're not racing/looking for sprint improvements etc). It might take a few tries to dial in the effort right. My take on intervals (both ) is that you should do them so hard you can just so them - no more no less and the effort required should be a steady one - which for the 2 x 20 means a not too hard start of number 1 , and a very focused end to number two. Likewise the 5 x 4:4 should all be done at the same output - not mad for the first two, half nackered for number three & dying number four before you pack in half way through number five!! Hope that's clearer now !