Hi! I was just wanting to get other people’s feedback on this. I find that almost universally as a ride progresses, efforts at the same wattage feel easier (both from an RPE and a HR standpoint). What feels reasonably hard at 20 minutes in feels considerably easier an hour in. Does anyone else experience that? Just want to make sure my equipment is working as expected.
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I experience this . I think it is the fact that your body takes time to come up to speed. All systems are go. I wonder how long the pro,s sit on the trainer before something like a TT.
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It takes your body time to warm up. I often find the first interval in something like a sweet spot session is the most challenging.
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The bottom bullet point. Which I have experienced before.
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Warmup. As I’ve gotten older (way) I need more warmup for harder workouts. Sometimes I reset the workout to the beginning after finishing the warmup so I can do the warmup again. Other times I just do a free-ride warmup before starting the workout.
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Do you do any muscle activation before getting on the trainer, or just hop on and start the workout? I’ve been much more consistent in doing activations before rides for the past month (even shorter/easier rides) and have found that it helps quite a bit.
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I’m the polar opposite. Efforts around an hour or longer start to feel incredibly tough, until I get to basically the last part or interval.
I can jump straight into VO2 work no problem or a long sweet spot interval.
Had a 2 hour and 15 minute easy ride(55%) and about an hour in my legs just started feeling sluggish and achey. I’ve noticed this on long rides before too where the 65-85% portion of the ride is just a slog and I want to be anywhere but the bike.
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For me it depends a bit on the workout intensity.
If I’m doing a bunch of tempo, a few minutes of threshold make the tempo feel better.
If I’m doing threshold, nothing seems to help. 
If I’m doing VO2, then a harder-than-I-think-it-should-be warmup usually helps.
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Fuelling related maybe?
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I just hop right on tbh. What kind of muscle activations are you doing?
Doubt it, taking in 60+ G of carbs an hour. Probably could push more but don’t really want to be taking in 90 every interval day.
Some of it may be from a new bike fit. Others are during 4+ hour rides/races. Miles 35-45 out of 60. Lap 4/5 in a 4 hour endurance MTB race(was pushing 115 G/ hour)
Think it’s just a mentally taxing point where I am like shoot I’ve got a lot more suffering to go before this is over
yep, me, too. i seem to pick up about 30-40 minutes into a ride.
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As much as I’m not a fan of Roadman, in general, the activations in this video seem to work well for me:
And this video from Dynamic Cyclist is pretty good, too:
And, if you’ve got the time before riding, this one is (IMO) very good:
Interesting, I have noticed this in particular during long sweet spot intervals, especially ones at slower cadences where its more about muscular endurance. After a long stretch of continuous pedaling the pain in my legs just fades to the background and I don’t even really feel it anymore. I love hitting that zone! But then when there’s a break and a new interval I have to start over again to get back to that place.
I also find that during continuous uninterrupted endurance work it will slowly rise from the beginning of the workout and settle as normal and then after about an hour or so it will tick gently back down a beat at a time over about 20-30 minutes and land about 7-10bpm lower. It’ll stay there for a long time until fatigue starts to accumulate and then I’ll get the typical cardiac drift back upward.
Yea, zone 2 gets my heart rate up a bit when I first start, but then it settles down and over a longer ride, and it will drop about 5-7 beats and stay steady.
It usually takes me about 30-45 minutes to warm up.
Just out of interest, do you use a particular trainer? I’m wondering if the fluid warms up or something mechanical like that?
I use the original Zwift Hub so not sure
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