Bike Intensity...

Ride hard or go home .... always been my philosophy as well ....

If I have a training ride below 20 (even on a hilly route) I tend to get very cranky.  Yesterday was the exception because it was only my second ride outdoors and I was a little pooped going into it.

There is something to be said for putting in the longer slower rides in the saddle, but as the training wears on these should be fewer and farther between.  After all, the pro cycling camps at the beginning of the season are 16 - 18 mph rides for 6 - 7 hours a day ...... day after day after day ....... But working triathletes don't have the luxury of riding 130 miles a day 5 or 6 days in a row for 2 weeks to get that killer base.  So we have to make the most of the time allotted.

Hey Brian.  Just to keep this thread going, I'll play devil's advocate.  I'd like to think I'm an above average cyclist with a 2:32 HIM bike split under my belt.   Living in CO affords me the opportunity to ride any type of terrain an IM will throw at me.  So most of my rides will have hills, false flats, mountain climbs, long flat sections and fun downhills.   Needless to say, I get my fair share of intense work in every ride, and when I say intense, I am talking about HR 20-25 beats above where I would like to average for my IM.   And I don't shy away from ball busting rides, as I love pushing myself on the bike.  So my thinking is, as my mileage goes up, so will the time I'm spending at or above my target for CDA.  I plan on 3-4 overdistance rides.  My expectations in my IM is to keep my bike HR in the high 130s to very low 140s, then hold upper z2 (150ish) for as long as possible on the run. 

Is the bike that less demanding on the body that you can have every workout at race pace and intensity vs. the run where that wouldn't be recommended?  Especially when you are putting in 15+ hours a week of swimming and running too???  I think I know the answer, but I'll let the experts chime in........ 

I think this thread was started after looking at my logs.

First things first, unless you are doing all out intervals up to 2:30 min (+/-) in duration ALL of our training intensities will be done at AEROBIC pace even when doing intervals at our lactate threshold. We should try to use the proper terminology so we can all understand what are talking about and have better discussions. Also we should avoid using confusing and/or coined terms such as AeT, AT etc.

The reason why increasing your training load via volume works is because it allows you to do MORE total training, IOW by reducing your intensity you should be able to log more training time with less recovery time in between. The bigger total load will place more strain in your body and the sum of the work at the end of a training cycle will allow you to adapt and increase your fitter level = be able to go faster, longer or both.

However if you reduce your training intensity to focus on the so called ‘base training’ you have to increase your total volume, otherwise you will be just training less at lower intensities without accomplishing much training adaptations. i.e. if you usually do 5x runs avg 30 Miles per week including some easy and some hard runs and then you switch your focus to do ‘base training’ you should cut some of the intensity out in order to do more runs, maybe 7x a week or the same number but longer duration/distance hence in the end you are now avg let’s say 50 or more miles per week.
You can also read the post I did about ‘base training’

The success of any training program lays on pushing the athlete at the appropriate training load through the annual training plan and move from general to specific training.  Let’s assume an athlete follow 5 training zones:
·          Zone 1 – Recovery/unload
·          Zone 2 – Endurance
·          Zone 3 – Tempo
·          Zone 4 – Lactate Threshold
·          Zone 5 – VO2 Max

I agree with every thing you are saying on bike intensity, After riding all winter with local roadies, the only way to get fast on the bike in my opinion is ride fast and hard. If you ride long and slow the only thing you are learning to do is getting good at riding/racing long and slow.

This year I have decided to use an Endurance Nation power plan for IM Mooo, they espouse bulding fast then building far on top of that for the Bike leg of an Ironman. Rides have lots of FTP drills and riding at an Intensity factor at .8 - .85 i.e. Half IM pacing for the remainder of the ride. I am already sooo much stronger on the bike than where I ended last year.....

They also advocate the same approach to running which I am not so convinced on, even though run leg is my strongest leg I find the recovery cost and the risk of injury a disensentive to training this way. It is only my second season so maybe I just need 1 more year of long endurance runs to build the miles and strength to enable the speed training on the back of increased base. Would be interested in anyones thoughts?

I hear you last year I rode with a group of 5 - 6 guy's, great guy's, one or two would always be late wheels up was always 30 minutes after agreed time. We would always stop for a 10 minute break at a coffee shop and a lot of the time would be chatting and riding slowly. This year I am riding by myself, the only person I have to blame for a session is myself. Does get lonely but my sessions are way more focused now....

Ride lots.  Ride hard.  I think I've said this before. 

It is much easier to use intensity on the bike (or swim) versus the run.  And carries far less risk in terms of injuries.  I trained last year for IMLP (and continue to do so this year with no IM on the calendar) with lots of rides 'shorter' than many people, but at much higher effort levels.  In fact, except for some race rehersal rides, I would say that most of my riding was much harder than IM intensity.  It works for me because I simply can't put the time on the bike during much of the year (weather, family, etc.) to get enough training stimulii at IM-pace.  But I can still build up the engine and teach it how to go hard.  As race day approaches, then I can layer going far on top of that over several weeks (mostly just adapting to long stretches in aero while putting out IM watts and practicing fueling at that pace).

My ride at IMLP was the easiest effort of my entire training plan.

This is what I do, but in layman's terms ........ long rides are fast ..... medium rides are faster ...... short rides are painful .......

(Now if I could just get my azz out there more and do it more!!)

What is interesting for me is that for running I tend to be a lot more methodical and rigid in my workouts and my pacing.  But on the bike it is ride as hard as I can for whatever given distance I'm going, but my HR rarely reflects that on the bike.  Even in my HIM I only averaged the upper range of Z3 (by HR).  On the bike I am more limited by my "muscular endurance" (I know everyone hates that term, but it is the best descriptor for it for me) and not by my aerobic capacity.  Quite simply, my legs can't keep up with my heart/lungs because I'm not getting the volume of riding that I need/would like to have for the paces I want to push.

Good post Bryan. Certainly provides food for thought. 

I'm forutnate to train on terrain similar to LP (my IM) so my intensity is generally where it should be. Unfortunatley, my speed is not where I'd like it to  be . 

I'll disagree a little there ........

I do the Princeton Sport's training rides on Tuesday nights once they start them back up on the Columbia Triathlon course.  I do a warm up to get to the meeting place, ride off the front with the fast roadies and really push my comfort zone big time to stay with the front few guys and then turn off when we get near my house and ride a warm down home.  This gives me a 33 mile ride with about 18 or so at Olympic/Sprint pace for me, which is an awesome high intensity workout.  But I also plan on that for my Tuesday workout so it has a specific purpose.

Doing a long group ride I can understand the apprehension and would shy away from them as well, but shorter stuff can have it's place if you have the right group dynamic.  That ride I do typically has anywhere from 40 - 100 people in it, and there are some very strong riders in the group.  For those that don't want to push it, they just have to enable a little self control.

I do all my long rides with some portion at IM watts. I'm just over 4 months from IMLP and my long rides are 50 miles with first 20 at aerobic watts and last 30 miles at IM watts. We are still dialing in my IM watts as the last few long rides have seen low HR with high end of my watt range which is good so we are bumping watts up a bit. Part of practicing pacing helps with making adjustments based on how you are doing that day..HR up or down, watts up or down, all compared with RPE.

It does take focus to keep at right intensity for last portion. I could not do my long rides in a group ride situation as I need better focus and control over how I ride.

My other 2 rides a week vary from intervals just under my FTP to hard short hill repeats over my FTP. I do have one fun ride a week too.