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Assuming your outdoor FTP is likely a little higher than your indoor one, may be worth reducing your indoor FTP until you can hold it a little longer? Assuming (again) that your ramp test was performed indoors.
Yeah, I don't train at my indoor FTP, I knock it back nearly 10 watts for ERG mode.
Joe - I rode really hard in 2018 & 2019 when re-discovered the pleasures of an XC bike at the same time as I finally took up monitoring myself electronically. I don't know what my power:weight was back then, but I'm unlikely to match my Strava times again. But, bearing in mind the work and wider family stresses I was under at the time, I was probably overtraining. It's perhaps an obvious explanation in hindsight for the series of unexplained urinary tract infections I had at the same time. I later changed my mindset when it comes to work and fitness from the end of 2020.
I still keep my performance in mind, but I regularly ask myself: to what end? Ultimately I want to be able to take on any ride at the drop of a hat, and to enjoy good health for the benefit of me & my family. Some of your own motivation will depend on whom you ride with - maybe you need to ride more with @ianpv if you want to be able to use 4w/kg. 😉
I've found my stats to be quite deceptive anyway in that I probably have quite a low FTP for the people I match up against in real life. Some of this is probably down to my pedalling style, lightweight XC bike etc.
I try to focus as much on wider factors than just those that influence FTP. You mention your busy life and I can relate to that very much from my own experiences of family. At one time my philosophy was to "lean on the soft bits" of my life - e.g. getting out at 6am to ride the long way to work up hills regularly. I still do that sometimes, but I am much more inclined to take things easier now. Most importantly, I am sure my health is much better than it was despite undoubtedly lower stats.
I still fancy my chances in an uphill race though. FTP be damned. 🙂
I was probably overtraining
unlikely
I’m sure Mr PV would still hand my behind to me on any kind of bike fitness measure no matter how well I do.
At the moment I feel like my fitness is flying - I’m lifting the heaviest weights I have done in a few years whilst also pushing on my cycle fitness again.
Vs you I have memories of chasing round Leigh Woods and AC absolutely breathing out of my behind trying to keep you in sight. I’ve no doubt it would likely be still the same - although hopefully I’d be a little bit closer these days!
Really well put by @Ben_H!
A couple of other points from me:
- I disagree with @dirtyrider that it's unlikely that you were 'overtraining'. Perhaps true by some narrow definition of the word but putting yourself under too much stress is possible even with very modest workloads. All of life's other stresses also contribute.
- More broadly I find the comparative power discussions really uninformative. Talking about your watts is a bit like talking about your dreams - really intersting to you but not really to anybody else.
I guess for me the 4w/kg is a random figure I picked out the air to aim for - and have a structured ish training plan to push on.
As I mentioned a few posts back it’s all really to make mtb more fun where I can blast up hills and not be last to the top / not be too knackered to enjoy the downhills.
Ben will know some of the lads in our WhatsApp riding group are either really cycle fit / technically very good or both. I’ve really had to uk my game since riding with them to keep up on the uphills and not be so far back on the downhills! I’ve ended up pushing onto far more difficult trails in the last few years as a result - I’d never gone near Risca before or Staunton or any other difficult off piste stuff. I’m even contemplating having a look at some network R stuff - although the exits of the trails sound terrifying with steep chutes etc.
Risca particularly needs the fitness to get more than a few runs in - the climb is mostly quite steep and about 300m of climbing a pop I think.
One easy way to get to 4W/kg is to use a garmin watch and go for a run. Apparently I did 515W for 38 mins on my last 10k race. That’s well over 6W/kg, so suck on that, losers.
Sadly I don’t think it does watts for cycling, or I’d be a zwift god.
lol had a polite argument with DC Rainmaker about just that - he'd done a (just) sub 20 5K, and apparently his average power was well over 500W. At my current level of fitness I'd rate a sub 20 5K as just slightly over my FTP, say around 250W... Certainly not double. And I did a very easy run yesterday, average power according to my Garmin? 350W.
Rode at Cwmcarn today for the first time in a few months - first time ever I haven’t been almost dying in a couple of parts of the Cafell climb. Just the very last bit at the top hurt a bit. Down Pedalhounds and then up the tarmac road to the top of the Twrch and riding a bit of off piste.
Garmin says my training status is ‘unproductive’ but high load this week.
Strava says I’m in danger of overtraining.
Trainer road is fine with it 🤷♂️
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There's another easy way - see if you can get an Avio power meter second hand. My FTP jumped from low 300s to 354 on my last ride! I'm sure it's accurately recording my fitness, and the 20 seconds or so of 2,000W it recorded was a true and accurate reflection of my awesome power.
Lol - that seems like an easy way to gain power 😘
I'm a little bit disappointed that it only reads 2kW though. I've recorded a peak of 1.8kW a few times in plausible looking readings, so if I trained really hard and beat 2 I'd be annoyed it wouldn't record it!
Did a ramp test today and bumped from 240w to 255w. Currently at 76.8kgs so a bit heavier than I have been but the weight training has also toned up / bulked out my upper body a bit so I’ll live with it.
Got a big day at Risca planned this weekend depending on the weather. Thinking 1200m+ of climbing so that’ll be a good test of my fitness for sure.
Nice!
I'm ramping up this week before starting 6 weeks of dirt destroyer, current FTP is set at 222 but I think it's a bit low so I'll do a ramp test at the end of this week, I think I'll be about 240w ish.
Did 'The Gorby' this evening which is 5x 5min @ 110% of FTP then 5 mins @ 55% of FTP. Renowned to be a bit of a ball buster! I found it tough, but not 'I'm not going to complete this' tough. Which makes me think my FTP is set a little low.
If I can be back to 260ish watts after dirt destroyer which will then lead straight into 2x weeks in Scotland, I'll be very happy.
5 x 5 mins at 110% ftp should have felt pretty hard I’d have thought - maybe the ftp you’re working to is a little lower than it should be. Have fun with your ramp test - always a pleasure 🤮
Interestingly my garmin keeps telling me my load is good but my training is unproductive.
When I go into connect it seems to be suggesting I’m doing too much high intensity but not enough base. Strava has been showing I’m trending faster on matched rides and saying I’m getting fitter - but I’ve just stopped paying the subscription as it was getting too expensive so that data is going out the window. Just have TR and Garmin going forward.
TR has the next block of training as a mixture of Vo2 and Sweet Spot…I’m wondering if I’d be better trying to reset my training plan for some more sweet spot / base sort of stuff?
I popped in a few ‘endurance’ ad hoc sessions in the last 2 weeks to chill a little bit watching tv and just ignoring what my legs are doing and didn’t find it too bad.
I think it just comes down to the latest thinking on intensity distribution.
The old description was that training ‘slow’ around 80% of your time kept you fresh for the hard days.
What I’ve now learned is that adaptations happen at the lower intensities that you just do not get when you go too hard.
From my own training, I’ve noticed as I’ve progressed through Base 1, 2 and 3 over the last 12 weeks is that I’m starting to get ‘Unproductive’ on my Garmin more often.
Although last week I was perfectly in (their suggested) balance as I did an extra easy day with a bad toe 🤣
Tempo and above counts as “high aerobic” on Garmin connect. If you’re lacking low aerobic- it is definitely worth trying to squeeze in some more time riding easy. They’re not for ‘recovery’- they are training you slow twitch fibres to be efficient.
Interestingly my garmin keeps telling me my load is good but my training is unproductive.
I've found the Garmin training status can be really finicky, if it thinks your vo2 max is decreasing because you're doing base miles and not vo2 max efforts it'll put you as 'unproductive'.
5 x 5 mins at 110% ftp should have felt pretty hard I’d have thought – maybe the ftp you’re working to is a little lower than it should be. Have fun with your ramp test – always a pleasure
Yeah exactly, which is good in that I'm closer to where I want to be, but bad in that future workouts are going to be tougher!
I did the Nino Schurter over/under workout the other day too, and knowing how much over/unders hurt me before, it was far too comfortable.
Connect your strange to intervals.icu. It’s much better for analysis, and free.
Connect your strange to intervals.icu. It’s much better for analysis, and free.
Fwiw there was a message on intervals.icu the other day asking people to connect using something other than strava if poss - there's a daily limit on the number of api calls which they were running into. So if you can connect via garmin or some other platform that'd help them out (same goes for existing users too)
There's a recent thread about requesting Zwift direct upload to Intervals site on Zwift forum.
You can go into Intervals settings and untick download/sync with Strava, then use direct upload on Intervals home page to upload fit files you download from your Strava activities, bit of faff but reduces Intervals stress.
You can download Zwift fit files from clciking activities on https://www.zwift.com/uk/feed , then clicking cog symbol to download fit file, which you can then directly upload to Intervals.
Fwiw there was a message on intervals.icu the other day asking people to connect using something other than strava if poss
My apologies I forgot about this despite having ch age my own settings to upload from Garmin Connect.
What does intervals icu do that Garmin or Trainer Road don’t do out of interest? If it’s free I’m happy to sign up to have a look but slightly loathe to buy a subscription to something else!
Trainerroad analytics are one of the only things I miss to be fair. Especially for ease of use on a mobile.
But intervals.icu is kind of like free training peaks for geeks. You can literally create any kind of chart or graph or analyse any metric you can imagine. Has a better Fitness/Form/Fatigue chart too.
It has a quick and simple workout creator that you can use to write a plan onto their powerful calendar and either export the workouts to a Garmin etc or just see your forecast tss etc.
I use it a lot on aerobic rides to measure decoupling (Loss of power/HR for the first half of the ride V the second half).
It's free with the option to donate.
Cool cheers - I’ve downloaded it but on the phone it’s not immediately obvious what it’s telling me. Needs a bit of a study later once I’ve got some time to myself (hopefully anyway)! Might try and login on desktop for a better look on a big screen and see what’s what. Linked it to Garmin Connect and it’s instantly pulled a stack of data through which was slick 👌
It's free (donationware) and is particularly useful for selecting intervals (surprise!) from your trace to look at your power curve etc. Also various models for FTP estimates.
I like the fitness plot. You can put future workouts (and sync previous ones from Strava) into the calendar and it'll plot, with the aim of managing your load to stay in the green zone, and include rest/taper periods too. Other programs have similar. Take a look https://intervals.icu/fitness
Did my first sweet spot workout with the new ftp and that was difficult 🤮
TR suggested a 1 hour session but I wasn’t feeling the love so picked a 45 min alternative - had 4 x 7 minute ladders. Got through it but you could feel it was a decent step up. Heart rate didn’t get above 160 ish but legs definitely felt it.
Got a 1 hour vo2 session on Friday then sweet spot next week. Swapped next week’s vo2 session for an hour endurance one to tone down the intensity a bit and work on a bit more base.
Got a 1 hour vo2 session on Friday
As a final training session I just did a 1.06h Zwift race at an average of 3.55kg, suggesting that I’m good for exceeding my prior 3.6wkg FTP via 20 min test. A recovery ride and 3 days rest now before the first IRL MTB XCO on Sunday.
I should be good for close to 4wkg by May I reckon, racing and sharpening lending itself to lots of threshold/vo2max from here on in.
@crosshair how are you pasting that image in?
@kryton57 Using https://imgbb.com/ and then cutting a direct link out of one of their pre-made links for the img button.
Great work on the training too. Can’t wait to see how Sunday goes for you 🤞🏻
Well done on your session Joe. Always a double edged sword training at the new ftp 🤣
I found it interesting that Crosshair and I have very similar overall profiles, with the exception I have more higher end Z2:
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And this shows my progression, coming from a max of 81 in 2021 you can see that by November '22 during which I had the 7 weeks off the bike with chest infections how far my fitness dropped by has increased since:
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...which also includes 4KG weight loss.
Not sure if that gives Joe some help / indication of other riders normality!
Cool, yes that's pretty similar! That's great work on the lack of coasting too- great zone discipline!
I've been trying to actually ride more during recovery weeks as, back in the days of using TR, I would often just have four days off the bike, so I guess that's reflected by more Z1 time, especially as my Z1 goes up to 181w nowadays 🤣
You got me interested in my Fitness chart too.
I don't really worry about CTL etc too much as it doesn't account for work and life stress but it is interesting to note that I'm kicking on towards last year's peak already.
I'm trying to peak for June but I'm not convinced I can find the energy to keep ramping up much beyond 80.
I'd also like to do a better job with the back end of the year too and try for a second peak in September.
13 months:
My 2021 peak was 80 which was when I came 9th in the 12hr national. Not sure that’s a year I want to repeat tbh!
Re Fitness scores, I wear a Garmin band on my right wrist - a Vivosmart - so that albeit not super accurate adds some stress of the day via Body battery & HRV to Intervals.icu. That might help if your into it.
Just having a little look at totals - clearly my activity is a lot lower in terms of number and distance etc - but how does this look - I.e is the load score low / high vs where it should be etc?
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Looking at this you can see the break in TR sweet spot workouts for a rest week and then an ad hoc week. Load should start to go up again now I’m back into the next block I reckon. Big Sunday coming off climbing too.
What’s not recorded here is any swimming / weight training / dog walking I do - mainly because I can’t be bothered to log it all.
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Looking at your intensity distribution Joe, I'd say your Garmin is being harsh- you're plenty close enough towards 80/20 easy/hard workouts 👌🏻
There's loads of other factors too- trying to train for longer events like Kryton and I means we need a higher volume/load than someone looking to improve FTP.
Friel recommends building aerobic fitness to 2x the length of your 'goal' event for short events, so if you're focussed on FTP (not going to open the 'Hour of Power' = FTP debate 🤣 but lets say loosely you want to be able to go hard for an hour) then you don't have to do much more than an occasional 2hr ride.
What's important is to calibrate it against your own results and feelings to look for clues as to what's working or not.
Trainerroad plans are not high in TSS so you can get good FTP gains without getting a high 'fitness' score.
while we are sharing, more or less a full reset, 1 outdoor ride from July 22 - 1st January 23 in September, and only 5hrs on Zwift sporadically in early November, down 6kg or so from 88 to 82kg, mostly all Z2, there about 5 sub 40 minute efforts in there comprising of a couple of efforts up the Epic KOM or Zwift races, and 3 laps of Sherwood
Best 20minute effort is 265w, matching anything in 2022, quite a bit below 2020's high of 319w though, which at approx 80kg at the time, put me on or around 4w/kg, which I'd be happy to get back to
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Awesome! That's base done right 😎
I wonder if the amount of time in Z1 kind of has to increase with absolute FTP.
I notice a lot of Pro's still ride alot at 180-220w even though the top of their Z2 might be 300w+.
Even my Base spell had a lot of Z1.
Or maybe I'm just lazy 🤣
might be a fuelling thing? must be hard work trying to keep on top of 1000cals per hour at 300w and maintaining body weight, 30 hour base week would have you at 30,000, drop that to 180w and you drop 10,000cal, of course most mortals don't have 30 hours a week to noodle about
Yeah that’s it I think. It’s just physiologically too hard to ride right at 75% when you’re burning over 1000kcals hour! And as you say, they can add enough volume at lower percentages to compensate.
Did a sneaky mile swim this evening - first swim in about 3 weeks I think. Felt a little slow after a few weeks off. Going to start recording swims going forward as I guess the fatigue will add up.
Vo2 session this morning - it was hard but not as hard as the sweet spot session on Wednesday I’d say.
I find these kind of vo2 sessions easier than with 7+ min sweet spot interval sessions. That said I’m at a low progression level on vo2 and a bit higher on sweet spot - so I’m on ‘my first’ vo2 session level at the moment.
Perhaps a sign that the level was too easy for you. You could nudge it up a bit until it gets hard 🙂
Just measured my W yesterday and in order to get to 4W/kg my only realistic option is to reduce my weight to 25kg (without losoing power) 🙁
@thecaptain - I didn’t feel the need to notch the % up this early in a training block - just wasn’t as hard as I expected after Wednesday’s sweet spot workout!
@DrJ - reduce your weight to 25kg? That would mean only a 100w ftp if my maths is right? Or did you mean reduce your weight by 25kg…
@DrJ – reduce your weight to 25kg? That would mean only a 100w ftp if my maths is right? Or did you mean reduce your weight by 25kg…
A joke was intended, but still, I am on such a different level from you guys it ain't funny 🙁
I completely missed that irony - sorry!
I’d have thought I’m middling fitness wise - so many people on here have so much better fitness / lighter weight or both together…
Ramp test done.
🤢🥵
I'm confident I gave that 100%, I could barely turn the pedals over at 75w afterwards even with a 2 minute break! Those 2-3 minutes of hurt are the worst ever!
I’m ramping up this week before starting 6 weeks of dirt destroyer, current FTP is set at 222 but I think it’s a bit low so I’ll do a ramp test at the end of this week, I think I’ll be about 240w ish.
New FTP: 247w. Max HR, 191bpm. That puts me, at my current weight of 74.7kg, at 3.31w/kg. Back on the road to where I was last September, at my peak of 279w and 73kg (3.82w/kg). Here's my FTP and weight over the entire time I've been training, since Sept 2021:
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I reckon 6 weeks of dirt destroyer will set me up nicely, hopefully back up to 260w or so.
Good work - most recent ramp tests I’ve had slightly wobbly legs when I’ve finished!
Although on the most recent ones I had a 5 min breather and then did a 30 min easy endurance turbo session to chill out
You’re nearly bang on the same w/kg as me right now - although this is my peak ftp output so far. Would love to get near 270-280 for the summer but it might be too much of an ask vs the time I’ve got for training.
Yeah I'm happy with that considering I've not been doing any proper structured training recently, just increasing my hours on the bike slightly from pretty much nothing. In the past 3 weeks I've done a 2hr night MTB ride, and 4 zwift 40m-1hr workouts. So with 6 weeks of 3-4x workouts per week I should hopefully be back up close to where I was at the end of last year.
finished the last 3 week block with 2hrs at zone 2 and then the remainder of Quatch Quest up the alpe on Zwift, took it steady for the last hour, for a total of 9 hours for the week, legs feel ready for an easier week, will probably drop to half volume and reduce the intensity a touch to lower Z2, catch up with some life stuff during the day as to fit in 9 hours has been tough (kids, masters, life)
don't really have an end goal or race I'm working to (maybe I should, don't feel like 300w or 4w/kg is really a goal, just an arbitrary figure I might not actually reach, older etc), so just going to do what I've been doing for the next block, hoping the weather improves enough to mix in some decent outdoor rides, don't know if to pencil in some actual structured Vo2 sessions yet, as the couple of zwift races and hills I've done sit in the threshold range and of the 60 hours I've done this year, 52hrs are Z2 and I've only got 54 minutes in Z5
I did a big mtb ride today at Risca - about 30km and just over 1400m of climbing - proper broken now. It was riding the rough / steep off piste so even the downs were hard work.
Quite pleased with my fitness to get through that without cramp etc - still riding fast on the last downhill back to the car park.
Probably need a few days off legs now to recover. Might just take the dog on an extended walk tomorrow to loosen up and that’s about it.
First workout of dirt destroyer tonight, 'back to basics'.
Oh, 65rpm intervals, how I've missed thee. 🤣
Interestingly I did this same workout in Dec 2021, with an FTP of 212 and my heart rate was 158 AVG/186 max. Today at 247 FTP my HR was 148 AVG/178 max.
I had a chill 1 hour endurance TR ride yesterday to spin my legs out without too much tss. Felt ok and my body feels back to normal after Sunday’s battering at Risca. On Monday I just felt totally exhausted full body so did nothing at all.
Back on a 45 min sweet spot workout this morning before work - 4 x 7 mins intervals between 88-94% ftp. Meant to be an hour version but not feeling it today.
No big ride planned this weekend due to Mother’s Day stuff seemingly absorbing the whole weekend annoyingly. Might try and pop out for a quick 1-1.5 blast on the road bike from the front door.
On Monday I just felt totally exhausted full body so did nothing at all.
TBH, i've always found that's the best time to get the legs spun out.
Just an hour of "level zero".
Always found (for me) that it meant i could do a session the following day (even a hard session) and staves off DOMS quite effectively.
Well done Joe, I’m awful at feeling bad for not doing what I had planned but consistency is key so at least you moved the needle 😀
Recovery days are a juggling act that’s for sure. If I’ve had a complete day off then I know that the following day is going to likely feel awful but I can still hit the numbers good and strong.
I need to basically do the 60 min recovery ride I should have done the day before, first, to feel in-sync again 🤣
That said, the science on recovery rides is patchy so I’d rather have at least two complete days off the bike each week.
If anyone has read about that Nils Van de Poel speed skater dude and his cycling training plan, they’ll know that he liked to actually take his two recovery days off together (the whole weekend as he was pro so could train five days in the week). And he’d even have an easy day Monday too if he felt he wasn’t recovered enough.
Bizarre week for me, after several issues with Sundays XC race I rested for 2 days then started last night with Zwift race coming 26th in the front pack of 200 over 40 mins averaging 3.5wkg despite a lot of coasting in the group, and was pleased with my short power to stay in on climbs at >5wkg. I’ve set several 12 month best - although not lifetime best - power records recently.
With wheels to rebuild and the travel from London I’m pretty sure I’m going to default the Cannock Chase race on Sunday (it may be postponed anyway) and defer to a long Zwift race such as the Chasing Tour 70km at the weekend instead. Followed by a steady MTB on Sunday to settle in those wheels.
Then, back to proper training next Tuesday.
When I say I did nothing on Monday I did walk the dog for 45 mins to stretch my legs a bit - but I couldn’t have got on a bike - I was just broken in terms of feeling exhausted.
Tuesday I weight trained chest and tri’s and that’s still hurting today as I did more weight for each exercise than recently. Going along quite nicely with that at the moment.
Tomorrow will be either a weights or swim day I think. If weights it’ll be deadlift / wide grip pull ups / dumbell rows / flute bridges / bicep 21’s with dumbbells I reckon.
TrainerRoad seems to be wanting to ramp up volume of vo2 stuff over the next month but I feel like I’d still like to do some more base - so I think I might switch some sessions for sweet spot ones a bit ad hoc.
@kryton57 - you sound on another level to me power / ftp / training seriousness wise. What was up with the xc race?
you sound on another level to me power / ftp / training seriousness wise. What was up with the xc race?
Well I am coached an committed to 9-12 training a week for Racing. :). 4wKG is more of an incidental thing for me but I though posting what we do for training to maximise power & fitness here would be of help.
The Race; to cut a long story short I think I had over expectations, would haver finish 28th of 40 Grand Vets if my free hub hadn't exploded 500m from the finish. I needed to remember that I've had a 3yr absence to the format, it was regional A, a lot of the riders would have raced over winter & this was my first, and there were 14 GV's & Vets behind my finishing time. After the race I just thought I was shit 😀
Well I am coached an committed to 9-12 training a week for Racing. :). 4wKG is more of an incidental thing for me but I though posting what we do for training to maximise power & fitness here would be of help.
Yes all this stuff / thoughts / advice are useful 100%! Good dedication there - I could only dream of having 9-12 hours to myself - let alone for biking.
It sounds like you’re being a bit harsh on yourself and the freehub disaster is so random.
I keep wondering about trying a low level enduro race but doubt I’d finish very high. No way I’d enter an xc race 🤣
XC is really accommodating with the cats Joe and are kind of weight/power to weight and skill dependant rather than power. I used to race way better at a lower w/kg and lower weight than I do know at 1.5 stone heavier.
And the big range of categories mean you can find close racing at any level.
And it's (kind of) fun 🤣
I’m not sure racing xc on a coil spring / Lyrik Transition Sentinel would be amazing - it’s probably 10lbs heavier at least than any decent xc bikes 🤣
I guess I could race on my Marino hardtail as that’s only 30lbs give or take.
But no - just not going to happen!
aaaaaand i'm sick during my rest week, typical 😂 kids have been riddled and it finally caught up with me, have done 2x 1hr 20m low zone 2 sessions this week, Monday and Wednesday, cancelled todays, I dare say I won't be feeling up to it tomorrow, had planned 4hrs this week, not a massive issue in the grand scheme of things
Always the same on recovery week 😔 And if you don’t get sick then you feel like it anyway 🤧 🤣
I’m on mine this week too. I’ve had a Baldrick style cunning plan for tomorrow and am going to do the slow group ride on my MTB 💡
If I do it on my road bike I’ll be in Z1 but on the MTB it should be Z2.
The medium group aren’t going out long enough and the fast group will be too hard for recovery week.
But the 70mile slow group ride should give me a lovely aerobic boost before I go into Build 1 😀
If anyone has read about that Nils Van de Poel speed skater dude and his cycling training plan, they’ll know that he liked to actually take his two recovery days off together (the whole weekend as he was pro so could train five days in the week). And he’d even have an easy day Monday too if he felt he wasn’t recovered enough.
TBH, comparing yourself to a pro is a pointless exercise, you don't have the time, genetics, coaching and so on to even make it remotely relevant.
And FWIW, Nils VdPs dad lives about a 10 minute drive from me... So i'm well aware of him 😉
Hey that’s cool 😀
Actually that’s less true than you might think though because stress is stress is stress.
Recovery takes on even a greater importance for working amateurs as it’s easy to think low training volume means you can handle more bike stress. Whereas a busy family and work life means you may be under greater total stress than Nils and his bonkers bike workouts.
The interesting part for me was that he wasn’t afraid to clump 2-3 recovery days together. That’s pretty much unheard of in most cycle training literature where two days a week but evenly spaced is the norm (and even those may include active recovery).
Yes 👍🏻
This is quite good to pass the time on the turbo 😀
Quick road loop from the front door this morning. Not sure if I’m carrying a bit of fatigue from last weekend’s big effort. Was fine spinning along the Bristol/bath cycle path, but lansdown lane was more
Brutal than I remember - got my 2nd best ever time up it - but 52 seconds off my pb last May. Although that was a beautiful sunny day in just bibs and short sleeves jersey etc - whereas this was in a big commuter style coat and I got soaked with rain.
Feeling tired this evening - having a total rest day tomorrow I think.