Indoor/outdoor training load

Hi.

After roughly 4 weeks without outdoor workouts, my mind was craving fresh air (even with Giro, Vuelta, and classics).

Now I have a rest week after the end of build and the weather is looking nice.

Originally, the plan was set for 6:30 of riding in endurance pace, but changing workouts to outside Townsend/Brasstown/Fletcher increased from 1:30 to 2:15 and Boarstone from 2:00 to 3:00.

In my mind increasing the rest week from 6:30 to 9:45 seems like a lot?
Why is this?

It seems outside endurance work is not “worth” the same as indoor, I know coasting and terrain does a lot to make the ride easier.

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Over the summer there was bigger change going on in TR workout database for Z2 rides. They used to be roughly 1:1 in duration (more or less, differed for different workouts), now it seems more like outside = inside + 50%.

While might be the case for city rides, on open road I still ride with VI=~1.01 (variability index). It means, inside Maclure (3h, 128TSS) nears 200TSS at 4th hour and I still should ride another 30min (depending on weather I don’t).

I just take it into account and ride outside in prescribed power range for inside duration or longer. Somewhat tedious but I don’t mind actually, I do like riding :slight_smile:

I completely agree.
This was more in regards to the training load.

I had to cut Townsend (2:15) short and ended up with a TSS of 82 (original 65 indoor) for the ride.

It just surprised me quite a lot

I’m going through the same thing, I do just about all my rides outside, in the early morning before work. Today I had fletcher (1.5 hr inside). The outdoor version is 2:15. That means waking up at like 3 am. It’s just too much time. I know I can hit the target power consistently for 1.5 hours outside, so is the extra 45 minutes necessary? This morning I ended up just getting on the trainer and doing the indoor version because I didn’t have 2:15 to do it outdoors and didn’t want to cut myself short.

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I think it all depends on terrain, traffic and stops. For me in Atlanta GA I have to ride at least 20-30 to get out of town enough to not have top stop regularly. Plus there are so my hills that it is hard to maintain a steady power. If you live somewhere relatively flat with few lights/traffic 1:1 probably works. For me I need to the 1:1.5.

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