My guess.
Looks pretty good to me. Looks like a Dylan Johnson structure by the way. You seem to have the opposite constrains to me. I can (want) to train max 3 sessions, but I can make them longer and I love my sunday 4-6h ride.
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yes. I’m doing a similar day schedule, this week is shaping up as follows:
M: 1:45 tempo/sweet spot
T: 2:05 zone2
W: 1:51 group ride which at the moment looks like a long sweet spot/threshold effort
Th: OFF
Fri: 2-3 hours of zone2 + ‘stuff’ (short power)
Sa: “175 TSS” as gravel or climbing ride
Sun: OFF
so thats already 5:30 hours and lets say Friday is only 2 hours that takes me to 7.5 hours WITHOUT Saturday which goes back to your point of the ~8 hour tipping point. Even as empty nesters it is a challenge to do 8-11 hour weeks with all my other responsibilities and forum time wasting 
In your shoes I might consider M/T/W at 90 minutes a win, assuming Saturday can’t go beyond 3 hours.
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Thanks all. I feel like I’ve pretty well optimized my 6-8 hour week. Just wanted to see if anything stood out.
My other idea was to work in one 5+ hour ride per month and have that fall on the third or fourth week of the month, which generally coincides with my last loading week of any given training block.
I would think for an amateur who only carries at most 75-80 CTL in a season that a 5-6 hour ride 1x per month could be highly beneficial. So long as a good amount of compliance is kept up through out the week > month > season.
Either way, last year had me doing a lot of long-steady-distance in what I would assume to be 95-100% of LT1, it paid off huge, even if my longest rides were only 3-3.5 at that “intensity”. I’m just not buying the notion that one needs 5 or 6 hour epics, but won’t deny the massive potential upside to them if you have the time.
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yes to the once a month big ride if you can swing it.
I averaged 8 hours per week for 2020. There were times when I was riding 10-12 hours per week. Was I significantly faster??? Nope.
My first experiment with a polarized base led to a 20 point FTP boost and breaking all my PRs on Strava. I started at 5 hours per week and then kept increasing time by .5-1 hour per week until I topped out at 13 hours. It was around week 7 (10 hours per week) that I was breaking all my PRs. Doing the training for 6 more weeks and increasing time do 13 didn’t seem to give me any more FTP boost at all. The training did increase my endurance dramatically. After this block a 2-3 hour group ride no longer left me shattered for the day.
I think that when you can jump past 8 hours to the 10-12 bracket you want to insert a 2nd 3-4 hour long ride and/or extend the long ride you already have. You really can’t do more intervals or more interval days and you still need recovery days.
In a strict sense, nobody needs to do anything. But I would submit that if your events are that long, it really pays off to have those long rides. Moreover, at least for me, the long rides with big climbs and remote roads are in themselves a goal/challenge, a reward and a workout, all in one. Cheers
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I would suggest that while upper z2 isn’t ‘painful’, it certainly gets tiring after - for me anyway - about 3 hours.
While not explicitly an ISM model (at all), I’ve seen very pleasing progress on the following plan:
Monday: 90 mins- 2hrs endurance pace
Tuesday: 75 minute intervals (FTP or above)
Wednesday: ideally, as Monday, but family schedule means 75 minutes is more likely.
Thursday: if weather permits, off-road ride with (11 year old) daughter. Typically a 30-40 minute ride. 6 months ago, this was not even recovery effort, but as she gets faster it’s creeping up
Friday: 2-2.5 hours endurance pace, but pick a hilly route and go at RPE 7-8/10 on the hills
Saturday: 3.5-4.5 hours endurance. Avoid hills so steep that you can’t ride up without getting close to/over threshold.
Sunday: ride with daughter, getting to about an hour.
Endurance pace is c.0.7 IF, except on the Sunday ride where it’s 0.65. Constant pressure on the pedals is priority 1 unless it’s dangerous to do so.
Nb - Thursday and Sunday are clearly not training rides, just including them for completeness!
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I think this beautifully demonstrates 2 things:
- In the old coaching saying, most things work, but nothing works forever
- There is more to fitness than an FTP score. As an aside, one of the things I’ve noticed is my ability to go faster towards the end of a long steady ride. Previously, by the 3hr mark, I could not sustain any surges beyond maybe 5 minutes. Now, I can complete a fairly long threshold segment at that point.
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Yes, fully agree that you need to train to your event or riding-preference demands. I’ve just seen too many folks here putting in 700+TSS weeks and they are no where near you think they would be w/kg wise. It’s astonishing really.
This thread is incredibly long, and I feel like I’m showing up to the party at 5 am. So forgive me if I’m asking things that have long been addressed.
I listened to ISM’s last interview with the FastLabs guys when he was discussing Pogacar. I need to re-listen. But I kept waiting for him to drop a nugget for the amateur, and I guess I was left hanging. Is there a certain minimum-effective-duration we should be striving for with regards to a fatmax or LT1 (sorry if I’m using these interchangeably) ride?
I know someone who’s just coming off the coach is much different than someone with 5 years of structured training, but for simplicity, let’s say those of us with 3-5 years of focused structure.
Personally speaking, I feel like I’m at the point where 3 hours around LT1 just isn’t that demanding, hence why I posted earlier about finding a way to modify my schedule to include more challenging long-steady rides. I think I just answered my question.
I’ll re-write your week and simplify:
M: Hard day 60-90 minutes
T: zone2 90-min
W: zone2 60-min
Th: OFF
F: Hard day 60-90 minutes
Sa: zone2 + ‘stuff’ for 2-3 hours
Su: OFF
You could take a page from Frank Overton’s sweet spot part 2 plan (look at example weeks) and do something like this:
M: Hard day 60-90 minutes
T: tempo (advanced aerobic) 90-min
W: zone2 60-min
Th: OFF
F: zone2 60-90 minutes
Sa: sweet spot (advanced aerobic) ride 2-3 hours
Su: OFF
and that would progress your zone2 basic aerobic work with advanced aerobic (tempo and sweet spot). Ideally you would swap Fri/Sat and do the longer sweet spot ride on Friday but I’m guessing that isn’t possible due to other obligations.
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I don’t know about you but I am pretty tired after two hours at 70% ftp. I am not shattered, not sleepy, I don’t have hot flashes through the night, my legs are ok but I do need to take it easier the next day (ie 65%). Three hours at 75% sound like a proper workout! Usually though I would do the LT1 ride after a tougher day because:
- they are still doable
- will require easier day anyway
The nugget ISM dropped in the last posted interview was that he is interested only in Z2 and Z5, or LT1 and Vo2max, or fat oxidation and carb utilization, or diesel and turbo.
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he actually said z2 and z4… and for the z4 he implied that training lactate threshold is event and duration dependent and without pulling up the Jason Koop / ISM podcast again he said LT for an 8 minute climb, or LT for a 40k TT, etc.
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Yes, you are right. He said that. But looking at @sryke’s postings in this thread (Iñigo San Millán training model - #739 by sryke, Iñigo San Millán training model - #750 by sryke), it is more like longer suprathreshold efforts.
But I would rather believe in what ISM is saying then what I see with my limited knowledge of actual thresholds in the Strava extracts. Especially after hearing how he determines zones. From the Strava extracts it’s pretty easy to figure out LT1. But it’s a different story what he sets as upper hinge point. And this does not have to be in alignment with the zones laid out in Strava.
At first I was surprised when he said lactate threshold and zone4 and “turbo,” because from the studies I’ve seen on increasing mitochondria content/function my conclusion was zone2 and HIIT work.
So perhaps I wanted to hear that zone4 “turbo” zone is fluid and dependent on duration. And if I recall correctly, that he stated a preference to longer suprathreshold like @Dostring stated.
upper zone 4 is not HIIT for you?
I do a fair bit of controlled zone5 / anaerobic / sprint work, and think of that as HIIT. And further, those intervals seem to be designed to push on glycolytic flux rates, which I believe ISM also mentioned on the Koop podcast (did he?).
Love it, thank you. I actually have some flexibility on Friday’s (thanks World-Wide Global Pandemic) so logging 2hr isn’t a big deal. I actually quite like the Z2 + Stuff rides that are 3+ hours long. I’ve really wanted to start doing the “stuff” in a fatigued state after say 1500-2000KJ as I find that’s when my race-performance really deteriorates.
Looks like a very solid training plan and weekly distribution.
You could work in the confines of that - playing with the intensity distribution on Mondays and Fridays. E.G. going for some extensive TTE (Time to exhaustion) work with sweetspot or threshold work. You could also occasionally switch the hard days around: M 60 mins LT1, T 90 Mins with Tempo included, W Intensity to build a nice block inside the week.
And then there could be the rare weeks where you could include a Sunday long ride - kind of like a mini training camp.
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