I come out as a sprinter, I’m a big person so putting out 1400w in a sprint isn’t hard. But my FTP/stamina is awful. Before my latest lung infection, my FTP was about 250w, it’s now dropped to 150w.
I want to be a diesel engine that can sit on 200w for 12 hours. When I look at the plans, the rides that interest me are 9 hammers, attacker, defender, cobbler etc. But the plans for the longer rides are all quite dull, mostly recovery rides/inspiration rides.
The plan for criterium racing looks like it has the most interesting rides, but that’s not the style of riding I want to do.
Am I “attracted” to the rides I find easiest (I feel like they are the hardest), or am I just missing the point of the plans? The long distance plans won’t keep me interested or motivated, even when I do my long rides outdoors on the weekends.
To my understanding, the best way to build your diesel engine is to do at least one hour in the high end of heart rate zone 2 about four times a week, combined with some HIT training.
If you want to ride for 12 hours, you have to develop a sustainable pace, and that means part of your suffering is going to be fighting boredom. Your are going to be in Zone 2 most of the time.
A plan is intended to improve your 4DP performance as appropriate for the objectives you specified when you selected the plan. Yeah, it ain’t always fun, but it does work for the large majority.
I also wonder how much you enjoy certain types of suffering influences how well you perform on different parts of the FF.
Having spent a couple of years working hard to improve my 40km bike split (aquabike) when I really don’t enjoy sustained efforts I do agree with the others - choose a plan that meets your goals and follow it as best you can.
Yes. I love being a diesel, but I find short punchy climbs are my favorite. So I do a lot of Zone 2 rides. There just aren’t many Zone 2 rides in SYSTM other than turning down the Open series of workouts (20, 30, 45, 60, 120). I do the Endurance series of workouts a lot, but I usually have to do them while riding along to IndieVelo or Zwift because a blank wall gets really boring… and it’s that was The Sufferfest, Zwift, and all these indoor cycling apps were created for? To get rid of having to stare at a blank wall?
That’s also probably why my favorite videos are Cobbler and ISLTA. Two of the longest Sufferfest videos, even tho they are definitely not Zone 2. At least they have a lot of sustained efforts.
One thing the others didn’t cover is you are going to have to get used to LONG hours in the saddle. Start with one and a half to two hours and keep adding on. Yes it’s going to be BORING but necessary. Aim to get to at least half of your expected ride time.
Yep. I like to do 3-4 hours rides on the weekend. In the past I’ve gone up to 5 hours semi-regularly. But doing 90-minute rides just doesn’t cut it. Have to regularly put in at least 1 or 2 2-3 hour rides in a week along with the long weekend ride.
It’s similar to marathon or half marathon training when I was mostly doing running. I would have 2 runs of 5 miles+ during the week along with my LSD run for 10+ miles on the weekend.
If you want to run or ride hard for a long time you have to put in the time. Doesn’t need to be every day. But needs to be regular and more than once a week.
@Fezzek I will add that long duration, lower intensity “Zone 2” rides that keep the contribution of glycolysis to minimal levels build capillary density around the efficient Type I muscle fibers and encourage mitochondrial biogenesis within these fibers.
The issue with above threshold work is that your body only has so much that it can “spend”. When you do high intensity work you need time to recover from that work which limits your ability to increase your training duration.