I was to illustrate how my fitness might progress as I trained. One thing I didn’t want training to ruin was my outdoor rides. I’ve always enjoyed the long outdoor ride, but I don’t want them to turn in a training session where I’m thinking right need to hit that next hill hard. I want my outdoor rides to be fairly relaxed affairs.
Thus I decided that any structured high intensity would be on the turbo, leaving my outdoor rides to the natural joyous outings that they are. I also decided I’d restrict any turbo work to at most two sessions a week. I’m also not one for complex intervals, I keep them simple. What intensity range do I want to hit and for how long and how much recovery between intervals do I need?
I’ve also shied away from being overly prescriptive on what days I do my hard sessions. As long as I’m managing to fit them in sometime during the week that’s fine. I’m also a great believer in listening to my body. If I’m feeling a bit fatigued on the day I was due to hop on the turbo, that’s fine. I’ll delay it to the afternoon or following day. It’s consistency over weeks and months and years that matters rather than individual sessions.
Because my outdoor rides have remained the pleasurable thing they always were; I haven’t lost motivation for those. The volume comes natural because I’m enjoying the rides I do.
I’m lucky in that my events aren’t competitive. You aren’t trying to beat others. They are hard, but you are competing against yourself, trying to finish the audax / brevet in good shape. Thus my maxim is to be fit enough to enjoy my cycling events. I don’t need to be fitter.
Given the above I’m a natural fit for the polarised model. I already have the volume of low intensity from the outdoor rides I do and enjoy. I just need to sprinkle some high intensity on top.
I hope you find your slope of enlightenment where your training and recovery are in balance , and that you reclaim the pleasure that drew you to cycling to start with.
Before joining TR, I had hired a coach. I was supremely motivated, hit all my workouts like you. There would always be some point where I would mention something in a workout report, or on a Strava post and my coach would say - “OK. That’s it. Time for you to take a break.”. At first I’d be like, “Huh?”.
One time after months of training, (mid-summer) I went on a weekend trip with friends to some normally really fun trails. Instead of having a blast like I normally would, I was riding like shit, felt low energy - got frustrated with my bike and threw it down a couple times. Yeah.
I mentioned something about it on a Strava post - I felt an inexplicable loss of cajones. Next day, coach said - time for a break!! So that meant, no structured workouts, take some time completely off the bike and then return to riding whenever I felt like it. This unstructured time lasts a couple weeks or maybe even more. When I return to the bike, I inevitably feel the motivation return. I just wanted to add that these unstructured breaks occur at least twice a year - I usually require a mid-season as well as end of season break.
So with TR, we are essentially self-coached athletes. We have to be our own coach who says - “OK - time to put a pin in it!” Trainerroad isn’t going to have enough AI to be able to sus out how you’re feeling on the bike. We have to be really careful, pay attention to the signs and take time off both physically AND mentally when we need it!
Thanks for your honesty in posting this, because I think it will help a lot of people.
I used to look at HR on group rides outdoors, and would freak myself out, so I stopped looking at it, and eventually created a custom screen with Di2 info, and speed, cadence, and other rather meaningless data, and was happier that way. I would upload my data and THEN freak out. I believe that it gave me the ignorance to progress to a higher maximum. I only started looking at the power stats after a guy on many of the rides was teasing me on my efforts. He stopped after I blew some of his away (jerk).
There are times when too much data is just too much data? I was sure I was going to kill myself on the bike. I was riding with ‘young bucks’ that tended to drop me a bit, but it got less over time. Not watching the data seems to have worked?
BUT if someone has a known or suspected medical problem, or a fear of death (?) watching the data would be a great idea. YMMV
I’m the opposite. I would MUCH rather end my pull a few seconds early and finish with the group than blow up because I went too hard for too long trying to extend a pull beyond my limits.
