Hey just trying to better understand how an easy ride vs a moderate ride feels for you all. I think this is a reason why my Ai FTP may be out of wack with my tested ftp.
For a 60 min endurance ride that has intervals at 75% of ftp, how does it feel for you and what do you rate it? What does moderate feel like for you and how do you gauge it (ex. Heart rate, fatigue,etc)?
That’s the top end of zone 2. For an hour I would probably rate that easy but would likely depend on how I was feeling on the day. If it ended up being a lot longer than an hour then it would spill over into moderate.
For me its more of a mental line in the sand rather than a specific physical feeling. If at any point in the workout I catch myself really wanting it to be done then I will usually rate it Moderate. I don’t use heart rate or any metrics I just use RPE.
A lot of my endurance+ workouts (70-74% FTP) are just relentless middling discomfort for up to 2.5 hrs and some days it just grinds me down. I’ll go Moderate in those cases.
Other days I’m cheerful all the way to the end and could go again. Kinda just depends on what life has given me in terms of job fatigue and life stress.
But I don’t use HR, I find that HR can be really misleading. Low HR could mean you’re firing on all cylinders or it could be suppressed from fatigue. Higher HR could be fatigue or caffeine or temperature, etc, etc. I just go by feel.
If I’m looking forward to the end (physically I mean, not just from boredom) then its Moderate.
You are going to hate this response, but if I feel it’s easy I report easy. If I feel it was moderately hard, I report moderate. And so on.
It’s about how I feel on the day, not the prescribed intensity or duration.
If I get to the end of a workout and I barely paid any attention at all, or I’m surprised the workout has finished, or things like that the. I’m likely to say it was easy.
If my legs felt it enough or I really didn’t want to keep going, I might put moderate or hard.
If I physically struggled and didn’t want to finish, I’d go with very hard or all out.
I have learnt to distinguish between physical and mental difficulty: I have failed some workouts simply because I couldn’t go on mentally. For other workouts I have pushed through mentally, even though I couldn’t quite reach the power targets, i. e. the limiting factor was my body.
In the end, both factor into the RPE score. If 60 minutes at 75 % no longer feels easy, I’d score it moderate. That’s it.
Easy, pedalling force is so light I have to make conscious effort not to spin out
Moderate, feel like I should change up a gear, but don’t to keep a lid on the effort
Threshold maintaining cadence is an effort, want to change down a gear but don’t
Maybe our Post-Workout Surveys Help Center article will help here.
Here are the guidelines for RPE surveys:
Easy
This ride felt easy and non-taxing, requiring little effort or focus. You could repeat the ride and pass it without issue.
Moderate
This ride was somewhat comfortable but required some focus to complete. You felt a little challenged but had confidence that you could finish. If the ride had an additional set of intervals, you could complete it.
Hard
This ride required effort and focus and was challenging to complete. It felt tough, and you looked forward to the ride ending. If there were an additional set of intervals, you could have done it with significant focus.
Very Hard
This ride was very difficult to complete, and it tested you. If there were one more set of intervals, you wouldn’t have been able to complete it.
Maximum Effort
This ride was extremely difficult. It pushed you well beyond your abilities and took a massive amount of energy and focus to complete. You’ll feel like you barely made it to the end of this ride, and that you had to pull out every mental trick in the book to finish. If you had to pause during a workout to catch your breath or adjust the power demand down, the workout was likely a max effort.
From all your responses I think some of my previous endurance rides should have been rated moderate. Thanks for the feedback.
jforsythperson: But I don’t use HR, I find that HR can be really misleading. Low HR could mean you’re firing on all cylinders or it could be suppressed from fatigue. Higher HR could be fatigue or caffeine or temperature, etc, etc. I just go by feel.
You’ve articulated very well the same reason why I stopped using HR this past year.
In my opinion, power and rating of perceived exertion are king. However I would always recommend beginners use HR while they figure out how to gauge RPE well.
75% is definitely work. Z2 is work, especially at the top end.
“I have learnt to distinguish between physical and mental difficulty: I have failed some workouts simply because I couldn’t go on mentally.”
Yeah, this-especially on the trainer. Was it hard because the effort was hard or because being on the trainer that long melts my brain? I have to remember to rate the work, not the mental effort to sit there that long.
SA
Absolutely agree.
To clarify, when I say “I don’t use HR” I just mean that I don’t use it to decide about how to fill out the survey. I do wear a heart rate strap but I largely pay no attention to what the number is while training. Its a curiosity at most but I rarely make any kinds of training decisions or assumptions based upon how the number looks
But I would agree, you do need to pay closer attention to HR at first to understand what it is your body is really doing under different circumstances. Hopefully you will eventually you get a deep enough understanding that you don’t really need the strap to tell you how you’re feeling.
That’s my issue, I’m partially tempted to add extra Z2 before work to get more in instead of one longer Z2 TR suggests, because 90 mins indoors is just mind bendingly boring (and sore arse inducing) so I’d never do it even if it’s suggested in the plan.
I think this and will added my cadence to it also.
From riding I know that high 80/90’s is normal for me but notice that if a ride is a bit harder or I’m going into it with fatigue it’s in the low 80’s even 70’s if it a ride that i really don’t want to quit but should.
The descriptors are helpful here:
Easy is essentially “didn’t have to think about it”, where moderate “requires a bit of focus”.
So it boils down to: did you have to consciously push harder to hit target power, or were you in the right ballpark without thinking about it.
For me on an endurance ride, less than two hours at the top end of z2 will be “easy”. Three hours at the top will likely be getting towards moderate in the last 30mins or so. Four hours will definitely be moderate.
If you want a metric; heart rate decoupling. Your heart rate will rise for the same effort.