Afraid of losing fitness outside

Sounds pretty normal.
You did a treshold workout with anaerobic bursts, then over-unders and on the 3rd day rode outside.
I’d wager you’d have felt the same Sunday if you tried a 2 hour sweetspot session, probably even worse without the outside joy and distractions.

There are so many good quality workouts you can do outside with a little planning and imagination.

For example, Rattlesnake is basically - go nearly all out for a minute, rest for 15secs, then do 30/15s for 11 minutes as hard as it takes to keep HR above 90% of max. You don’t even need to look at power really, just have time and HR on your display.

Most 3-4min vo2 sessions can be done as repeats on a short to medium climb.

Anaerobic sessions are great outside, just blast for 30secs, rest, rinse and repeat.

And if it goes slightly wrong, improvise. I just headed out in Tenerife intending to do 2x20 threshold. First climb was fine, then I turned onto the second climb and parts of it were too steep to stay below threshold even on 34-28. So I turned it into over-unders instead.

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I agree with Martin! I, too, have felt the anxiety of going out and riding with buddies (or deciding to commute to work, etc) in place of a structured TrainerRoad workout.

What I’ve realized is you need to do both indoor & outdoor to achieve your best results. Partly because it keeps you sharp (bike handling, keeping eyes on the road, riding in a pack, etc) but even moreso because it keeps you sane!

I’ve started substituting tough group rides for my Tuesday intervals and then an outdoor ride for my Sunday workout. I don’t try to stick to the plan too specifically, but if the calendar says to go hard, I go hard outside too :).

Yeah like @STP said, you can train outdoors.
I’m doing mostly indoors this winter and I definitely feel more flat than doing my usual 10-14 hour training weeks like I’ve done in the past. A lot of slow endurance rides for a very long time. Then slowly progressing into intervals. I was time crunched this year and went with TR, but I feel slower than ever. I’m about finished with my sustained power build and during yesterdays race I could really hammer the flats for 3-8 mins with solid power. Something I have struggled in the past. But once we got to the climb, I was in shambles where in the past I would normally excel.

I’m not giving up on TR, but I did email my old coach to figure out what is going on.

I’ve been thinking about this recently as well. We still have lots of snow lying around, but it’s been between 5-10 degrees for the last few days, so lots of friends are out riding. I might join a group once a week, but I agree that the structure of indoor training is hard to beat and I don’t have much desire to ride outside (apart from the weekend races, which start in May).

From what I remember from my last two seasons I seemed to be at my fittest right at the start of the season after structured indoor training from February-April.

Cheers!

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A couple things:

  1. Get a power meter for your bike if you don’t already have one. The Favero single sided pedals are inexpensive and will do the trick.

  2. Your outside ride can be incredibly useful if you do it right - and by right, I mean try to make 90% of the ride in the upper area of Zone 2 w/ a little overlap into Z3 with little or no coasting. This means you will probably need to be on the front the entire time and let the wankers hammer the hills while you slowly wind up the hills and catch back on as they coast down the backside.

As an added bonus, ride your bike to the start of the group ride and home afterward holding the upper limit of Z2 as much as possible. Use your Wahoo or Garmin similar to TR - and pick a wattage and try to get your 1 min, 5 min & 20 min power to average that number.

Pack in as much Z2 outside as your schedule will allow and your indoor training will benefit immensely. Check out the articles below for additional insight.

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The loss of fitness happened to me every year the last 3 years where I would stop doing any TR rides. This year, however, I will do at least 1-2 TR rides all year and mix that in with my outdoor rides with friends.
This should maintain/increase my fitness.

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I just did my first outdoor ride since early November and noticed the same.

I now have much more smooth sustainable power than in the past on the flats/rollers, but the steep stuff, where I’ve always thrived, hurt a bit. I did however set PBs on all the climbs, they just didn’t feel as easy as I expected. One in particular was around 11% for ~2.5miles and it hurt. I think a lot of it is just getting used to being out of the saddle and pushing that hard. My low gear is 39x28 and I’m so out of practice with lower cadences I was having to push 350w+ just to keep the legs spinning in the saddle.

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Same. Did the local training ride a few weeks ago and did set all bests on certain spots, but it felt so sluggish compared to the past. I really think there needs to be more over/unders in the build plan honestly. Maybe I am stronger, but this weekend did not show it.

I’m baffled. It could also have something to do with a very heavy training week prior to the weekend of racing - all outside, 650 TSS in three days where I did somewhat feel strong.
I might redo the sustained power build or go back and do general before I roll into rolling road race next week because I have felt no rewards from that plan that I could get from doing 2-5 hour rides everyday outside.
Then again, it’s only march and maybe I’m not the climber I once was.

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I seem to be having a totally different experience.

Trained my short power for the early crit season and that was meh at best. On the road and in the hills and mountains, I’m like a new man. I’ve never been a climber yet I’m setting PBs left, right and centre.

I haven’t done any sustained work and this really is new territory for me.

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Just the opposite, I’m afraid of losing top-end while training inside! To answer your question, it is pretty easy to avoid junk miles. Ride with a purpose outside.

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@JHow My guess is that I’m feeling flat because I’ve only started doing threshold work in the past couple of weeks and I don’t have the snap I’m used to.

I did SSB last year, then GBHV but felt like it was too much intensity to early so have been doing almost exclusively SS and Z2 with a few hard efforts or the odd Zwift race.

@PusherMan I’m not missing any fitness, just the feel. I set a number of climbing PBs yesterday without really trying. The sustained steep climbs are just a bit of a shock vs the work I do on the trainer at higher power/cadence.

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This is awesome! kudos.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not out of shape. I am about as fit as I ever have been, my quads actually hav some definition compared to the past and in certain areas yeah I am way stronger. I fell off the back in the 2/3 race and had to TT myself back to the group before the climb and that was an all out effort with a smooth cadence and power output on a 2.5 mile section that was flat, some downs, and a bit of false flat. I caught back on, but only to get dropped again a minute before the crest of the climb. Ha!

But a tough 5% 1.4 mile climb just gave me all the fits in the race. THat’s where I just fell off. And the deciding factor in the race. The climb itself was 3.75 miles in length, but didn’t ramp up till that section.

Yeah, could be it. Rolling road race is next on my schedule, but I just feel I didn’t get as much out of the build plan as I wanted. I’m probably going to go back and do short or general build before rolling road race.

This is exactly what I do. The group rides are my reward.

@Tanner1280 @JHow

I think I understand what you’re saying, I’m just not sure I understand how my training has got me to this point.

One example I’d give is a mountain climb I did last week in Spain. It averages 6% with short sections around 9%. The climb goes from sea level to over 3,500 feet. Previously that would have cooked me. Whilst I didn’t race up it, I did a sustained effort from top to bottom of 12MPH, putting out 260-265 watts. That isn’t even in my locker, or so I thought. Nothing in my TR plans has prepared me for that.

Add to that the fact that I did three days, back to back with mountain climbs and I’m certain the TR plans are mixed up!

I’m an hour guy, full gas. I don’t have an engine, never have and I sure as **** can’t climb. TR has completely messed me up! :rofl:

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@PusherMan That’s the best kind of messed up to be! There’s no doubt that indoor training works, and for most people your outdoor numbers will be even better, especially on a climb.

In all honesty I shouldn’t be complaining about fitness and my flatness was probably more to the cold I’ve been fighting. I looked back at yesterday’s ride and it was ~42mi and 5000ft climbing @17mph. I stopped to meet family, ate a big lunch and rolled another 25mi and 2500ft @18mph. Not bad for being under the weather I guess…

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You should complain and get your money back.

‘YOU MADE ME BETTER IN AN AREA I DIDN’T KNOW I COULD BE DECENT AT’

:face_with_symbols_over_mouth::face_with_symbols_over_mouth::face_with_symbols_over_mouth::face_with_symbols_over_mouth:

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You’re right, I’m angry and I have access to the internet. Fear me world!

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You’re a machine :wink: I’d need a week off the bike!

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