I like to do my endurance rides outdoors when possible, and this should be the easiest thing in the world to just go out and ride in zone 2 power. But I live in a hilly area, so it’s pretty difficult to stay in zone 2 the whole time, as at some point I’d end up crawling up a hill at a very low cadence trying to stay in zone 2, so invariably I end up with some time in higher power zones.
From a training perspective, does this matter? Am I over thinking it? Or what should I do differently?
This was my 2 hour endurance for this week for an idea of what time I’m spending in each zone. Sorry if it’s a bit of a dumb question but on a trainer everything is so controlled and it’s in my nature to get things pretty exact!
Couldn’t agree with you more I have exactly the same problem. I’m a stickler for staying with the plan so on Sunday I’m going to do my 3 and half hour zone 2 ride on the trainer while watching football on the telly.
Palace beating Brighton and spurs beating West Ham
I totally understand your situation. As an athlete I’m also always trying to complete my training session exactly as it’s planned. But you can only spend so much time on the trainer…when it’s a beautiful day you just want to go ride outside and enjoy it. As a coach, I’d look at your data and say that 62% of your ride in Z2 would achieve “success” status. A wee bit of time in zones 1 and 3 are ok. You had virtually no time in zones 4 and above, so that’s great. If it were supposed to be a recovery ride and you had 12% time in Z3, that would be another story!
Not a cheater but I live in a hilly area and went with a greater range so I could spin those hills easier and keep in those zones.
Greater range does mean bigger jumps in gears so the only downside is back on the indoor trainer in level mode has me hunting around the gears to hit the numbers.
I believe the answer you are looking for is N + 1. Or even eN + 1. I’ve borrowed my wife’s e-bike for a few recovery rides this past summer. It helps flatten the hills so I can stay in zone 2. However, I don’t record them on Strava, so technically they didn’t happen.
Gutted that the Palace didn’t win but did ride for just under 3 hours and 48 miles, looks like the Metric Century is well within reach. Easy week now with HM, will be interesting to see the scores. I feel like there will be improvements but hopefully not by too much
Follow-up Question ---- For Endurance+ outdoor workouts, I don’t have a power meter. When it states 50-70% of FTP, would you suggest targeting heart rate zone 2? Open to suggestions on how to follow this guidance with HR, speed, and cadence meters only. Thanks!
Thanks Suzie. Question - I would like to make sure my Wahoo Bolt has similar HR zones configured as my Sufferfest app. My Sufferfest IOS app shows LTHR of 170; would you know how to translate this figure to zones on my Wahoo app? Thanks again!
@lapingv755,
There are 2 ways you can configure HR zones in your Wahoo Bolt settings. In the Elemnt app, under the profile tab, scroll all the way down to HR Zones. You can enter your max HR from your last Full Frontal and hit Auto Calculate, which will then fill in your zones accordingly. Or, you can manually enter them. Since The SUF zones don’t perfectly line up with the 5 zones in the app, this is how I would set them:
If your LTHR is 170:
Set your “peak”/red zone = zone 5: 105%+ of LTHR (180+ bpm)
“Hard”/orange zone = zone 4: 95-105% of LTHR (163-179 bpm)
“Cardio”/yellow zone = zone 3: 87-95% (149-162 bpm)
“Fat Burn”/green zone = zone 2: 70-87% (120-148bpm)
“Easy”/blue zone = zone 1: <70% (119bpm)
