For a lot of people this doesn’t matter. You typically have glycogen stores of 1500-2000 calories in your body if you start a race fully fuelled. You can top up at 3-400/hour, plus even if you’re not fat adapted you’re going to get some energy contribution from burning fat. Even if you only get 200 cal/hour from fat, plus 1500 carbs to start, plus 300 carbs per hour fuelling, that’s enough for a 3 hour event burning at a rate of 1000 calories per hour which isn’t far off 300W. There aren’t that many people going both longer and harder than that
The plans are aimed at those who are time constricted and giving bang for the buck. A lot of the blogs and podcasts talk about the value of a long endurance ride every 1-2 weeks, and certainly people who are doing Ironman, century rides, etc would be well advised to throw in some 4-5 hour rides on a regular basis. Not just to enhance fat burning but also to identify and address other weaknesses when you go that long, whether they be muscular, nutritional, or equipment-related such as saddle and chamois comfort, bike position, or even sun cream. Very few people want to do sit on a trainer for 4-5 hours though!
Ultra distance riding does interest some of us, though. I’m looking to PB Parist-Brest-Paris this year. Being able to ride near 30kph on the flat and burning 70% fat would make that so much easier. I was holding close to this speed last night, heart rate in the 130s. It feels like I’m close now. 6 weeks to go.
Absolutely, but I’d guess (or hope!) that nobody is trying to race ultras with a longest training ride of 2 hours though!
Do think there is maybe an omission in the TR plans though as I notice the full distance triathlon plans include long rides >4 hours but none of the road plans include anything >2 hours as far as I could see. I would say if you’re racing anything that’s likely to take 4 hours or more then you need some training rides longer than 2 hours. I assume in practice a lot of people do a longer outdoor group ride at the weekends anyway, slightly surprising though that they’re not on any of the plans.
I adore TR, the team and the podcast
The title implies that TR is doing something “bad” whereas as someone above posted, its really the time starved nature of modern life that is the culprit. Books like “Time crunched cyclist” imply you can do in 4hrs what used to take 20 hrs - and on some metrics its close (ie the “sexy ones” like a 20 min test) but for lots of hidden metrics you just cant beat long endurance…
I have a question on eating on these long 4+ hr rides; if its in a fat zone should one really try and limit carbs to maximise fat burning adaption? I can now do these rides on 1 gel. Or should we do the opposite and in tribute to Nate really consciously train ourselves to consume 100+gms an hour on the bike?
Or maybe alternate approaches per day, to train both?
This is in context of a fondo, DK200, IM event athlete who is looking at ‘A’ events in the 6-10 hr range?
We just had this in a different thread. As usual different views.
My view: underfuling is worse than eating carbs during a ride. There are several sources detailing how pro teams fit in these rides. Usually only once or twice a week. And they would still have a breakfast. A protein breakfast. And start eating carbs 1 hour into the ride. However, not at 100g/h
As said before, I did these underfuled low rides for two base periods. Ditched it this winter and saw progress again.
Look in the weekly tips, and you will see one or two suggestions for Endurance level workouts from 2.5 and longer rides, that are options to swap for the long Sweet Spot ride on Sunday.
These actually used to be the prescribed workouts a few years ago. But compliance was low, so they changed to SS versions that were shorter.
Most lab results will have a fat max at your LT1, which is around 75% of your max HR. People with really high lactate responses, also have elevated HR at relatively easy submaximal efforts. This is what at least we’ve been told based on lab results and why many people are going back to testing lactate levels to optimize their training. So to say to ignore HR isn’t quite right, but to use it as the only metric is incorrect. Say in this case the OP does have lactate and HR data to calibrate them to each other.
to add, I believe that even though there is not gas exchange, with the lactate measurement, and power output, they can get a pretty good estimate on how much energy is generated through fat metabolism. The only estimate then should be efficiency since we know how much energy is produced from each molecule of CHO or CH2 through the different pathways. But it is still an estimate without gas exchange.
increasing fat oxidation and VO2 max at the same time isn’t mutually exclusive and shouldn’t be an either or decision. This is the main goal of the polarized plans (which even if you read one of Seiler’s first papers admitted cycling intensity was mostly middle zone intensity)
This is EXACTLY what I started to see in my own data. HR for SS sessions was in the VO2max range, and tempo efforts were creeping significantly higher than in historic efforts. I can’t help but to believe that HR is an indication of the internal stress on the body, and seemingly clearing lactate to keep the muscles working is an added stress—I wish I had a INSCYD Lactate test from before to confirm or refute this hypothesis
My last 9 moths of TR:
I doubled up on the SS base phase this past winter, and saw some nice fitness gains—about 40w added to the TR Ramp Test estimated FTP. During the base phase, I was able to do many of the workouts early morning before work, as the workouts were “easy enough” for me to power through—I note that I would have obviously been more carb depleted. I would take a get to start the workouts and “power” through.
By the time I got into the build phase, I was no longer able to complete the harder workouts in the mornings, and started shifting them to the evenings and “carb” loading during the day of those efforts. I would then double down on the fueling with gels to get through the hard vo2 and long threshold workouts. I did see a nice bump of another ~10w through this phase.
Then came my Wilmington Whiteface qualifying race—which was a “bad” day for me as I had some GI issues the night before, slept terribly, and then proceeded to cramp badly for the back 4 hours of what was a 5:58 race. Good enough to upgrade my LT100MTB corral, but 11 mins slower than I expected to be. Not horrible, but confidence shattering. Fueling and hydration during the race seemed “ideal”. A couple of weeks post race, my FTP fell a full 5%, and looking at all the threshold work of the Century Specialty Phase just did not sit well—i.e. it looked like it was going to destroy me, and did not reflect what would be “adapting my training to reflect the type of effort I would put out on A-Race day.
There is now significant disparity between my estimated thresholds. TR Ramp Test indicated 293, 3 min Ramp Test using Xert and WKO4 indicate 285, and INCSYD Lactate test indicates AT at 230!
Hence, I am now taking the Steve Neal approach employing more volume, and a pyramidal approach focused on training fat utilization. We’ll see where this takes me over the next year…I will be taking quarterly INSCYD Tests to document the progress. Wish me luck!
What is the TTE from WKO associated with that number?
Are you sure aren’t misinterpreting the INCSYD zones? AT usually means “aerobic threshold” which is a different thing than anaerobic threshold aka FTP.
I don’t personally use WKO4, but the 285 is what my coach reported to me. I’ll ask about “TTE”—what does that stand for?
Yes; INSCYD anaerobic threshold is 230–214 to 246 was the range. This seems to be corroborated by the 1st of 3 30 min interval at 256 where my average HR was 162, and max was 166, or 90% and 92% of max respectively. I couldn’t complete the 2nd and 3rd ones, despite 10 minute recovery valleys.
The lactate results at 285 indicate that he was not in equilibrium after the interval, as it still took 2 minutes before reaching peak lactate afterwards, while the lactate result after the 240ish interval dropped after the first one, so even if it isn’t quite 240ish, it is probably pretty close.
What volume TR plan were you following up until Wilmington? Were you also doing any longer outdoor rides?
There have been good discussions on the topic of FatMax, VLaMax, and VO2max on several of the polarized threads on this forum. From what I have read and understood, a pyramidal training distribution seems like it can work to move the needle on each in the desired direction for something like Leadville (increase, decrease, increase respectively).
/i was doing mid-volume plans and tacking on some AE work towards the ends of many of the rides. May was a tough month with a brief illness that took me out for a bit, and a crash that took me off the bike for a week. A handful of longer 2.5 to 4 hour rides preceding WW.
Note there are “cracks” in the last two intervals, and my HR was 162/6 against my max HR of 180;1. Pretty high percentage, and basically where you’d want to see it for VO2max work.
The one “bright spot” in the INSCYD test was VLaMax was .35, towards the lower end for where a endurance MTBer would be…or so I’m told.
One or two 15-20s breaks in an extended interval towards the end of the workout isn’t concerning or indicative of anything.
90-92% of max hr is solidly threshold; even if you remove the HR, there isn’t a person on the planet who is doing 75 minutes of VO2max TiZ with short recoveries.
