My current dread for tomorrow morning when I start my sweetspot block.
Here’s my plan:
Week 1: 3x20, 3x25
Week 2: 3x30, 1x75, 4x25
Week 3: 6x18-20, 1x90-1:45
As discussed earlier in this thread, I’m someone who needs to focus on interval duration progression. I also have more confidence knowing I can lay down big watts for a looooong time.
Big start. Have you done any kind of sustained work (tempo?) lately? 3x20 is no joke. I’d also probably keep to 2x per week. Normally when people get up to 75 or so I will even single many of them up, obviously depends on background, etc.
Free unwelcome advice. 
So I just did my first block and here’s how I did it:
3x20 3x25
4x20 3x30
2x40 2x45
I’m starting my 2nd block now and will progress to 120mins of time but my philosophy is to either build total time in zone or individual interval duration (or both in some cases)
Just editing to add I also add tempo intervals in one of my weekend rides so I ended up doing 2hrs or more of tempo work in addition to my sweet spot days. Doing it within a longer ride makes it manageable to mix in with some easier endurance
A little less than a month ago I had stretched out to 90 min TiZ. Coming off a 10 day rest period with a short lead in. It’s an ambitious start (and I’m aware of it), but I’m not coming from nothing.
I didn’t love putting three workouts in week 2—it was a necessity based on my work schedule. I’ve done some pretty stout progressions in the past. Last year I got out to 95 min TiZ in intervals and 105 min continuous at 85-90%. I got sidetracked by illness prior to starting the progression and my work schedule was insane (I didn’t have a circadian rhythm for a month). Year before I stretched out to 6x20 and 105 min continuous at 85-90% (and 75 min at 90-95%). My only point is to say that I’m reasonably experienced. Something I’ll definitely be focusing on is making the hard rides hard and the easy rides easy.
I’m going to have to eat so much food (my FTP is 365 so all of these workouts are well over 1000 kJ/hr). Bring on the Christmas cookies!
Y’all amuse me. I have learned from VERY hard and repeated experience failing workouts, that I can’t extend TiZ more than 10% per week, or I go straight to workout fails and a deep fatigue hole. When I complete a 3x15 @ 90%, I give careful thought to whether my next SS workout is 3x17 or whether I can be so bold as to reach for 3x18. 
These cavalier increases of 30% or 40% in a week are madness. Glad to see someone can do it, and part of the reason I keep reading these forums and other things is to gradually improve my ramp rate when extending TiZ. At least now, I’m done with the years of workout fails, fatigue holes, and burnout… but damn, people, y’all are freaks. Rock on. 
Last week I finished SS Workout 100min @92%
This week I did a 90min workout (10min @92% - 10min @100%, repeat).
What do you suggest for the next level?
I don’t mean for this to come off snarky but 3x15 @90% shouldn’t be that hard, and progression beyond that would be expected. Perhaps your FTP set too high? Are there maybe other areas of fatigue and stress that are impacting?
Just a quick thought on SS vs threshold intervals. Like I laid down in my earlier post, I’ve only done sweetspot for the autumn. Two-three weeks ago I tried an FTP test and did 30min at 340W. Since then I did a few sweetspot workouts, building up to 95min SS. Yesterday I tried threshold intervals for the first time – 2x22.5min with 5min rest between– but my legs felt pretty good and I decided to try and do a single long set. Ended up doing 1x50min at 342W.
Peak timing aside, are there any drawbacks of simplifying it further to infinite loop of SS/Z4 ↔ VO2max?
By SS/Z4 I mean weekly structure like:
not seeing anything else, my best guess might be you’re ready to move on to a vo2 block, you’ve got a good duration near threshold already
if you were on zwift you could have done an Alpe du Zwift ride with your coach (and me!) yesterday.
Stupid question, but better be stupid for a moment than forever.
When one is doing 60min plus in 95% neighborhood, shouldn’t this person increase his/ser FTP? I mean, TTE should be around 60min, if more than this, it’s becuase FTP is a bit low, or, a FTP bump is iminent.
I understand the concept (idea or goal) to “push the curve” to the right by alonging the TTE, but keep pushing it at 1x90 or something like that is useful?
eh, not necessarily regarding increasing ftp, first thing we’d want to know would be the TTE at FTP (assuming it was derived from an algorithm or shorter test for estimation), the 95% could very well be threshold. But I would push that time to 90mins
Yep, but you got my point. Let’s assume that you’re doing 90min straight @95%, chances are your FTP is a bit low, isn’t that the line of thought or theory behind it? After all, FTP shoub be 60min.
edit: bear in mind that is more a question than a suggestion, I’m in a ongoing learning process.
it could very well be, I’d probably feel that way if I was easily doing 90min at 95%.
but keep in mind FTP isn’t necessarily 60min power, it’s more of a range of 40-70min based on time to exhaustion
I did a bit of cyclocross racing this autumn so I’m not unaccustomed to going deep. I generally can gut out VO2max intervals with little to no prior history of doing them as long as my FTP isn’t exaggerated. This will be a fun little experiment. In the end, I’m only doing 4 total max-aerobic workouts—which isn’t that many. It’ll either do nothing for me, or give me a little boost. I need a bit of excitement to kick off my indoor training season—the thought of slogging out 45-60 min TiZ @ SS isn’t exciting yet.
I think many of us like to be ambitious with our progression when it’s on paper. However, when in reality it’s probably too ambitious given all that life can throw at us. Don’t feel bad.
yeah, this has been sticking in my craw lately. i’m at a point where I’m wondering if I’m so clouded by my own ability to start my own sweet spot work with a min of 60min TIZ and feeling everyone can and should be able to start their own progress easily from 45min TIZ.
There is no harm in starting easy. It’s just one workout before 60 min TiZ. It’s still productive work. Tack on additional easy riding at the end for the volume if you’re so inclined.
(says the guy hellbent starting on 3x20)
Not quite. An indicator could be current training status. If you’re training hours are highest of the season, then maybe ftp is correct. But if youre coming into this winter training having spent some time off and started with reduced hours your endurance should be pretty low, and would assume your TTE to be low as well. Even so, what does it matter in that particular workout?
Review with yourself how that workout felt?
Can you pedal harder next time? Give it a shot. Can you find a power that feels like difficulty got a lot harder? Ride right under that when things get semi comfortable. Then keep riding and see how long you go. This would be kind of an ad hoc test. And then next time with some recovery between, try to break that duration up. Do the same duration again to reconfirm you weren’t having some magical day. Then progress from there
