Guidance for 10-15 hours weekly indoor training

Yes - I add this in when I have the time available (and the motivation)

I do nearly all of my training starting at 4:30-5 AM (depending on my schedule). The interval rides I fuel as soon as I’m up and then throughout the workouts. The endurance rides I do fasted. Usually I’ll eat around the 90 minute mark on the 3+ hour rides, but anything 2.5 and under I’ll end up not eating at all

This is all custom

Usually not a problem, but I always put my most important intervals on Tuesday and Friday with the least important or least challenging ones on Sunday. Most commonly I’m doing only 2 days of intensity a week (Tuesday/Friday) since with three I dig a hole pretty quickly

Also worth noting - I don’t know that what I’m doing here is achievable for most people - this is a high volume I’m doing and will take a long time to adjust to. Both the time and TSS are at the far right of the bell curve, so be careful and don’t just jump into something like this

Monday (Lazy Mountain or one of the minus variants) is my recovery day. Pettit on Friday is not quite a full recovery day, but close as it is a decent drop in training load. I used to feel like dooty on Tuesday either because I went too hard on Monday or didn’t ride. Lazy Mountain or one of the variants gets the legs moving and blood flowing but doesn’t feel stressful. If I’m really tired I’ll bail partway into the workout, but doing it in erg mode forces me to take it easy. One of the big benefits of TR for me is actually doing recovery rides at the appropriate power.

For the long, solo z2 rides I try to be about .7 IF on the flats and then do short hills at sweet spot / threshold with the a couple at 110 - 120%. If its a group ride I go with the flow. If the weather is bad and I’m zwifting I either do the same pacing as outside on the virtual course or just try to dial in .7 - .75 for most of the ride. If I’m doing a zwift fondo I usually go with the flow.

In terms of gains, FTP is up about 6% since last Sept and 1% off a PR from January. Time to exhaustion for sub-threshold power is improved across the board and I’ve set PRs for normalized and avg power for 2-4 hour rides. I would say fatigue resistance is improved, I feel much better after 3+ hours even putting in hard efforts.

My FTP dropped slightly after SusPB because I over did things with the schedule I followed, but I realized and adjusted too late and took me several weeks into SSBI to feel back to normal. I’m hoping with the next build and new schedule to really smash the VO2 workouts (Tues) and the 105% FTP intervals (Thurs) and then will make a best effort to do the threshold workout (Fri) , but if it doesn’t pan out I’ll do a recovery day and not feel bad about it.

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Indeed - I only have a power meter on my tt bike…which has gone nowhere this year yet unfortunately. However, I know that my zone 2 HR is 110 - 130bpm and so that is what I keep it at for long outdoor rides on the road bike. My zones are pretty well set as that is the range I get when doing aerobic TR workouts like Andrews or Boarstone @65-75% FTP.

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I was thinking about this more last night and think there are a couple of things you’ll need to figure out through trial and error:

  • Priorities - At the stage you are in (i.e. base vs build vs specialty) what are the important workouts and what are your non-workout rides you want to prioritize? If you’re riding 6-7 days a week you can’t hit each ride feeling fully fresh so you need to prioritize recovery before the important workouts / rides and expect to carry fatigue into the lower priority workouts / rides.
  • Daily Schedule - Does it work better for you to extend planned workouts with z2/z1 or do a second z2/z1 ride later in the day? Might have to try both and see which works better for you.
  • Weekly Schedule - Based on your schedule and priorities you’ll need to find a schedule that works for you and gives you sufficient recovery prior to your important rides / workouts. My schedule is changing from base → build because of the extra intensity and recovery required.
  • Assessing fatigue and recovery - You’ll have to figure out when it is appropriate to push through the fatigue or whether a recovery day is more beneficial and to scrap planned workout. If your scheduling and prioritization are good this should hopefully just happen for lower priority rides / workouts. Ex. I did Mary Austin -1 this morning and have Darwin on the schedule for tomorrow morning. If I feel bad in the first interval I’ll just finish it out as a Z2 ride and not feel bad about it as I smashed my priority rides on Tues (Mills) /Thurs (Mary Austin -1) and Fri is lower priority.
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