As part of the all purpose road plan I am scheduled to perform “It Seemed Like Thin Air”. This workout comes in at 2:27. I am not sure about being this long in the saddle in one sitting. My previous long was Blender at 1:46. Blender did not come without some discomfort and residual soreness. I was wondering about a substitute session or perhaps pausing the workout and splitting it into 2 sessions. Another possibility is performing 1 session tomorrow and another on Monday. It is an off day at the beginning of an easy week.
Duration is calculated as part of the effort, so MAYBE you’ll be sacrificing somewhat the intent of the work. HOWEVER there’s no reason you couldn’t split it in two and do a morning/afternoon (or approx) effort. There’s good science that a split AM/PM workout provides the majority of the benefit of a single long effort, if that’s what it takes to complete the workout without causing yourself pain or discomfort (of the bad kind!) Been there for sure when I was starting out SUFF.
Guess what I’m wondering is how your program is throwing an effort like this at you when it seems like you’ve not progressed enough to handle that kind of volume? Is it possible you overestimated your fitness or available time when planning your AP road plan? I mean no offense at all, just curious.
ISLTA is one of my favorites. Always amazed how much I have left for the last climb and of course battling the… well you’ll just have to find out who. Weird because I’d rather do ISLTA over ISLAGIATT.
It’s not a matter of fitness. Other than 1 workout (Blender), I‘ve been able to finish all workouts at 100%. This even after Half Monty increased my FTP and MAP by approximately 10%. Threshold heart rate also increased from 153 to 163. Even with Blender, I came back the next day and did at 90 to 95%. (Maybe not full blooded Sufferlandrian, but working toward it.) The discomfort is more physical from saddle soreness and back pain. I had lower back surgery in the summer so I try to be cautious in overdoing things. I have a pretty high pain threshold so maybe should just go as long as I can.
Yeah I guess this is what I was talking about more than fitness, per se. You can clearly do the work, but conditioning your body includes building up endurance to posture, positioning and seating as well.
Back surgery in the summer? OK, I’m NOT a doctor, but I vote for caution! Have you consulted your doc about what you should/shouldn’t be doing? First and foremost, take care of yourself!
Pain (the non GvA kind) is your body telling you something…
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Well, I had to stop a couple of times, but I completed the ride. I tried to stop during a recovery periods so the impact might be minimal. Based on my post workout review of the data, I think my main issue was probably a nutritional deficiency. My heart rate never hit levels above threshold, but my legs were just gone. For the longer rides, I need to figure out the right amount and form of nutrition to keep me going.
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If I’m doing longer rides I usually have at least 2 bottles of water and a couple of manuka honey gels but it’s more the legs aren’t used to that much cycling and maybe after 90 minutes or so they just feel drained, you might still have the mental will to go on you feel strong but your legs are just going no that’s enough for today thanks
What’s your biggest issue with sitting on the saddle for that long? Personally I had some chafing issues but since using chamois cream for all indoor rides over 45 mins I’ve been fine and I don’t mind it, as long as I make sure to bring enough water and some gels like others have said.
Well done on your suffering! How was your back?
My rule of thumb for indoor workouts: everything longer than an hour requires food along the way. What works for me is to take something in every 20 or 30 minutes from the start.
When I did this mashup I had a banana and a few gels at regular intervals.
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Back survived okay. Other than expected discomfort from sitting on a hard surface for 2.5 hours, there was no additional residual pain. Overall not as bad as I was anticipating.
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This was my primary issue. Just trying to a comfortable position for prolonged sitting. It turned out not quite as bad as I expected. As mentioned previously, I think my biggest issue was energy due to a lack of nutrition.
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