Suggested trainer workouts for Olympic distance racing

make them hurt, a lot.
its a short ride, use the time well.

15 min spent warming up,
40 min of intervals or steady tempo if you can stand it,
5 min cool down.

check out the spinerval DVDs for a little more fun, or watch old TdF videos and ride hard with them, it breaks things up a lot.

20 min wu

5x5 min hill grinds.  use a gear that generates 60-70 rpms, 2 min recovery

5-10 min cool down

descned the set..i.e....get stronger as you go throuh the set...hold some back and finish strong...

Thanks guys,

Would a 10x1min hard(vo2Max) with 1 minute easy session  fit into this? I never really understood how that would help endurance riding????

thanks

I would guess that you are saying that an Oly distance ride would be considered endurance?

It's not. It's a sprint distance... 25 miles should be fast and quick. 50-100 miles... that's endurance.

Good luck with your upcoming Oly!

It could.  But most of your time is probably better spent on longer intervals 10-20min (or more, if you can take it).  A warm-up with 2 x 20min with about 5min rest between, at the best effort you can hold through both intervals, is a very solid workout for any distance tri.

Yes, it is.

Sorry, I'm sure generally speaking it is an endurance event... but 25 miles on a bike... I would think most of you fast guys on here would see it as pretty solid hammer fest... vs. what you might do on a 50 or 100 mile bike ride.

People gave him some interval sessions to do on the bike... which seemed to be smart recommendations for a 25 mile bike portion of a race.

25 miles is close to an hour even for the "fast guys" around here.  Very much an endurance event.  Different pacing than for 50 or 100, sure.  Still all about endurance though.  And those long intervals are entirely appropriate for HIM & IM training, as well.

i have never rode my bike over 63 miles..........

a 25 mile ride for me in most cases (unless its a flat race) is deff over an hour.

Thanks.
Ok, now I'm just digging here and looking for some hope..... Can anyone attest to the fact that they managed to improve much by doing only 1 outdoor ride and 2-3 indoor trainer rides (non-computrainer)? If so how long did it take and what is your best advice?

Also, I've read numerous times how recently turned pro Tyler Hamilton does the majority of her rides indoors and has always. Granted she is very gifted along with the hard work she puts in, but is it possible to make big gains? (I would love to ride outdoors more, but just doesn't fit into life for me).

first question, yes.  I do (1) 2 hour ride per week outside and (2) 1 hour trainer rides per week, and on some weeks I do another short 10 mile ride outside, which is just a weekly tri training series through my tri club...you'll notice gains.  the longer you've been in the game, the greater you will have to increase volume and/or intensity to continue to improve.  just starting out, you'll notice great gains on 3 rides per week.

second question, I think trainer rides can be better than outside for training purposes.  your in control, no need to worry about wind, hills, or anything.  much easier to do an interval session on the trainer...i in fact think it is better.

and a sprint race is an endurance event. 

Edited by cusetri 2009-08-03 2:10 PM

You are getting a long endurance ride in on the weekends, so that is great. The next important component to work on for Olympic distance racing is  threshold training. You want to concentarte on increasing your 1 hour power or FTP and this can be done quite well with hour long workouts on a trainer. You should focus on doing longer intervals such as 2 x 20min with 5min rest, 3 x 15min with 5min rest. Try to do them at an intensity that you would be able to sustain for 1 hour if you were to go that long.

I feel like I make some of my big gains on the bike in the winter with my trainer.  I always use Spinervals workouts and Coach Troy kicks my butt.  I love to get back outside when Spring comes around, but if I have done my winter work on the trainer 2-3 times a week, I can stay up with the 'big dogs' I ride with.

I have a hard time just doing the interval work without having the Spinerval DVD on, so that Coach is 'yelling' at me.

~Barb

Thank you all for you replies, really appreciate it. 2x20 is something I have not been doing, mostly 5x5 with 1 min rest and 3x15 big gear low cadence with 3 min rest. I am going to begin to incorporate 2x20's Thanks again for giving me HOPE! :-)

The definition of long/endurance rides has a lot more to do with the definer than it does the mileage.  It's all a matter of perception.  To some, a 10 mile ride is a long ride and to others a 50 miler is a warm up.

The definition of "long" could be relative to the person using the word.  Much less so for "endurance".  Almost every event a BTer participates in is an endurance event.  This includes 5k running races up to multi-IM races.  It's not just semantics when we're discussing the appropriate ways to train for these events.  They are much more similar than different.

Thanks for the workouts.

When riding 2x20's what effort and what cadence should I be riding at?
I don't own a power meter, but I do use a heart rate monitor.
Is there a ballpark heart rate equivalent to FTP? high zone 3-low zone 4?

Thanks

Whatever cadence you are comfortable riding.

FTP would be very similar to LT.  Basically, you want to use the highest effort that you can sustain throughout the entire workout--don't fade much and don't leave much in the tank by the end.  They're fun! 

Sorry, I have to point out that Tyler is a he not a her.

Yes, he is. I apologize, I meant Tyler stewart. :-)