Are over-under workouts suppose to be this hard?

Well that was definitely one of the toughest workouts I’ve done so far but also the most rewarding upon completion. First 2-3 intervals were relatively smooth sailing. Last 2 started to burn especially with the pedalling drills thrown into the valleys and increased fatigue, but I still felt strong enough to finish. I got Palisade coming up next saturday and now I’m really looking forward to it :smiling_imp:

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YES, I managed to complete Mcadie+1 today:

After bailing out on Palisade previous Saturday:

Lately I have been taking a good look at the impact of Flywheel speed. So the last couple of days I am using the big ring, maybe that helped.

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It definitely helped. You increased your tracking error for the prescribed watts.

Faster spinning flywheel means ERG mode has a harder time adjusting the resistance to my own variance in power. However, the average is still spot on with target and when riding outside the power is perhaps even more volatile.

If you struggle there are loads of other o/u workouts in the catalogue or you can lower the intensity. I have been doing some of the longer easier o/u workouts as racing may still not start on time next year and I wanted a more sedate start to winter training.
I did Castle Peak+1 today, will do +2 next week - I have done some of the Vennacher variants as well along with 3 sisters, wheel, mooses tooth etc.
Come Jan I will do Tioga, then get back on the McAdie/Warlow/Fang/Avalanche/Carpathian train as I ramp up the intensity for racing to hopefully start in the UK in March/April…we don’t always have to do the workout in the schedule - plenty of other similar :grinning:

I should really keep this in mind. I can manage the easyish/midrange over under workouts. I just cannot for the life of me manage mcadie +1 and similar though…

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nope - me neither - with the Ramp based FTP SS and endurance plus most of the VO2 work seems fine but although I can complete McAdie, Palisade and the Fang/Avalanche versions I know McAdie+1, Mary Austin or Leconte would not work …I’m right on the limit with Palisade - no point in failing a workout when you can do something else. Same with 108% FTP stuff - I can do versions of Red Lake and Wilhelm but the Elephants recoveries are to short so it’s either 108% with long recoveries or some of the 105/102% stuff with less…eventually you know what you can do. I could lower my FTP but then SS would be a breeze. You won’t be surprised to learn that on the UK TT rankings database (Spindata) my 50m TT performance is far better than my 10m :laughing:

But SS should feel like breeze, except maybe if you go for the 40mn+ repeats… I don’t know why people think they should suffer and feel a struggle to do 4x12 or 4x15 at SS… maybe because of the macho belief that you should wreck yourself every time you train… yes you feel you had a good workout at the end but you could do it again the very next day without a problem. Like coach Chad repeats it in each start of a TR workout… you are doing some work but you recover very fast from it. Main struggle is that sweet spot is boring. Not enough work to only think about the effort (this is threshold) but too much work to focus on something else completely hence the discomfort.

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I consider SS to be my 50m TT pace/HR/watts as that is usually a race of just under 2 hours…but without a number on my arse I wouldn’t call it a breeze…intervals in the 90-94% FTP range require focus regardless of how long they are. In addition cumulative fatigue is an issue as well - I did over/unders yesterday, 6x8mins@95-99% on Thr and Bluebell Tue adding in a couple of tempo runs, Brasstown, Beech and Antelope+4 today felt pretty fatiguing after about 4 of the 10 min blocks - yeah sure if it had been my first workout of the week it would have been easy but it was my 8th…so it er wasn’t :laughing:

Don’t lower your FTP. Just drop the intensity for the over under workouts. And probably makes sense to drop more than you think for the first Interval (maybe 10%) and bump up if you fell good for later intervals. It’s better to complete the full workout.

IMO, people get way to stuck/focused on their “FTP” and not enough on completing workouts. As coach Chad says, there is a switch or absolute line going from one energy system to another.

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Indeed - I have only ever failed 2 workouts from about 500 on Trainerroad…not including the odd backspin but then I know which ones are within my abilities…well age at 52. Also I am a regular TT racer in the summer - well virus allowing and I am a firm believer in the fact that you only have so many mental matches and you shouldn’t waste them in training (this is a throw back to my marathon running days!). So I try to train hard but race harder. Workouts like Leconte would need my race face - which doesn’t appear during training workouts! :grinning:

Carpathian Peak +2 just ruined me. First 16 minutes - done, HR topping out at 176 (183 max). Second 16 minutes, needed a 10 second backspin after the last ‘over’ before the downslide (HR now hitting 178). Last 16 minutes, had to scale to 97% for last 8 minutes, as HR hit 182…

Horrific.

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If you are in SSB2, when you get to Mary Austin -1 next week, I’d recommend starting the workout at -10%. If you feel ok after the first interval, bump to -5%. You should be able to complete and it will give you the adaptations Coach Chad is trying for.

Also how fueled were you for the ride and during the ride?

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Cheers.

I was tired and slept badly the night before, and didn’t take on any carbs during the ride. Basic error :man_facepalming:t2:

Lessoned learned!

I thought I’d check in as I did a 20 min test today, indoors. Unfortunately GIGO is the best description I can find. I was way to conservative on pacing and the result is not reasonable as a result.
I’ve done a few workouts where I lowered the intensity to 98% right off the bat and it all feels the way I excpect it to. I’ll go with that for now and see what it does over this block of SSB 2

Hello, guys. I’m new on TR and need advice on SSBHV.
I’m 29 5.10" 182lbs doing TR plan builder and working on SSBHV I since 5 weeks ago. Quite diligently doing 3 weeks structured training and only fail at 1 workout because of lack of sleep. (Can I assume that my ftp is correct?)
On the week 4 I fail on Tuesday workout. I guess the fatigue catches on and as the tips suggest I took an emergency rest week.
On the rest week I’m doing 3 outside ride back to back on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday (z2 ±4.30hours) and still felling fresh on the Sunday. No riding on Sunday and Monday.
Tuesday is a ramp test and my ftp going down from 318w to 309w.
I’m relatively feeling ok before taking the ramp test, but after that it feels that my body is on verge of wrecking. Wednesday Glassy is very bad. Barely finish the 1st interval. Thursday, my rhr is wildly increasing from 55 to 75 and I know that maybe this is too much for me.

The question is i’m planning to take a longer rest day (full of z2, lower Tss per week) until my rhr is normal. Should I restart the SSBHV from scratch?
Or should I continue week 4?
Or should I change the plan to SSB MV?

Thx and pardon my bad English
Sorry for the long post, just happy to find this thread

If you found Glassy hard then you have a problem…I would take 2 days off completely - then do zone 2 for a week e.g Pettit, Fletcher etc. Then try restarting SSBHV from the start of the week you were in. I did HV 2 years ago - it’s tough!

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Yes it is. It’s very though but I think it’s still manageable since I always finish the workout completely. It just I dunno since when it went wrong. Lol.
I hope after taking this longer rest I can do better at structured training.

Are you new to structured training? Then I would switch to MV or even LV. If you notice after a few weeks that the LV or MV plan is too easy, you can add some Z2 rides for extra volume and slowly build up towards a higher volume plan. More is not always better (I am very experienced in making this error :slight_smile:).

The HV plans are very tough and I find SSBHV1 the easiest one of the series. If you have issues with this one, you will probably have more issues in the future if you stick to HV.

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