Subject: RE: How to improve my IM bike split? Since you have HR, that would be much better than pace or speed (which is generally terrible to pace by on the bike). Kind of general ideas here, but more often, try to get in main sets that total 20-40 minutes of hard work, up in Z4. Are you familiar with setting zones? Longer sets will probably be lower in Z4 with the shorter ones up higher. Longer ones would a 2 x 15-20' or so. Midrange 3-5 x 8-12'. And shorter threshold based at 4-6 x 5' or so. All of these will have recovery periods of roughly 20-25%. So 3-5' for the long, 2-3' for the mid, and 1' for the short ones. You can also do 1 x 20' at a similar effort to the short ones. And yeah, that's gonna hurt. Every now and then you can get a little Z5 work in. Something like 3-5' intervals with equal, or near equal recovery, but see the HR peak up in Z5. Well, it might just peak high in Z4 in the first few, but be up in Z5 for the later ones. Try to get somewhere 15-25' of hard work for this. So 5 x 3' and 3 x 5' are the low (15' total hard work), and 5 x 5' for the high. Note that this is not the same as the earlier 5 x 5' with 1' recovery. Generally, Z4 feels quite hard as I get into it, very strong burn that I want to stop. Z5 feels like I'm going to turn inside out. Have you done any work like this before? It can be tough to get it right off the bat, and some smaller work can help to get the idea better. Also, having downhills in any of these can make it hard to keep the effort up. Flats work ok and many find uphills work great. I think especially for the Z5 work. If you're ever on a trainer then something like Trainerroad might be something to consider with virtual power, if an actual power meter would be too much. |