Anaerobic intervals for long endurance events?

[grwoolf]

@Power13

When I did it in 2019, I made the conscious decision to drop off at ~90 minutes. we hit a pretty technical section and I just instinctively said “Yup…time to let go”. But as we discussed, gravel racing has changed so much since then that I honestly have no idea how realistic that would be today for me.

People pushing it on the technical stuff early actually concerns me more than pushing too many watts on the hills. From what I remember, the downhills are steep enough to get some real speed (often with chunk and/or blind water at the bottom). I can only imaging what the yo-yo effect is early and chances folks are taking on the descents to stay connected. I can recover from going too hard, but I really don’t want to crash or slash a tire early.

[Power13]

@grwoolf

I can only imaging what the yo-yo effect is early and chances folks are taking on the descents to stay connected.

My only advice is “Do NOT bomb the descents”…people are grabbing all kinds of brake at the end and it gets stacked up VERY quickly.

and yeah…flats.

[Pipipi]

Thanks very much.

That’s about midday in uk which makes it a bit more awkward but it’s still very useful to know.

[Pipipi]

Thanks for extra info. I was thinking that a ride that long would need a toilet break!

[Pipipi]

I completed the BMTR ride D on Saturday.

Really enjoyed it. Very strange to be cruising at 20mph and only doing 150 watts but it was very useful to spend 5 hours in the saddle.

Thanks for the heads up.

I definitely find fitting in a longer ride hard to do. I either feel like I have to follow Coach Jonathon and be as consistent as possible (we look at y’all and we know if you’re not following the plan consistently) but then fitting in the longer rides which I’m also meant to do to familiarise myself with nutrition and bike fit and clothing. Or that might just be my excuses talking!

[Theyids61]

Have a slightly different question on anaerobic rides….

I generally do one VO2 and one SS or Thr per week with two or three endurance rides. I find the latter quite boring and struggle to focus so is there any impact on replacing one with anaerobic? I find them fairly easy so it doesn’t seem to impact my recovery or create extra strain eg it’s essentially endurance with perhaps 5 or so 45 secs hard intervals

Thoughts?

[svens]

Maybe try Sweet Spot with hard starts (a la Buffalo series in TR workouts’ catalogue).

Or if you really want anaerobic, take a look at “Anaerobic” / “Attacks” (Morrdor, etc) that have number of anaerobic bursts followed by SS/Z4 interval. I decreased my usual cycling volume 13-16h/week → 5-6h/week during January to work more on SkiErg. Over this period used only this kind of cycling workouts (2-3x/week), according to AI FTP remained same (which I was hoping for)

[Jolyzara]

So if I am reading this right…. Endurance is boring on the trainer so you want to incorporate an acceleration ranging from 5-30 seconds?

There are some who are in the “keep it in the zone” camp and others who will say “it doesn’t matter.” Reality is you gotta do what keeps you engaged and on the bike. I say do what you gotta do.

[Theyids61]

Yeah fair enough. The body doesn’t seem to be fatigued from a fairly easy anaerobic and I do dread it less than a boring endurance so will keep knocking them out I think

[Theyids61]

Thanks. I’m not looking to do another SS to be honest

[svens]

I hear you, Buffalo & co still have pretty long SS intervals. Morrdor is somewhat more interesting, you’ll have 4x (Z6-Z7/5x30s + Z4/7min). For me, this was hard enough to keep it interesting. Plus it used my natural strengths, so it was like “easily achieved hard stuff”