I’ve been cycling ~3-4 years. years 2 and 3 were rather hard core for someone with a full time job and mid 40s (had a very good coach, and consulted with other coaches, spent a ton of time on here, and did 12-15 hours / week).
My life has changed now but I’m still racking up ~8 hours a week. I have other fitness goals that have overtaken priority (calisthenics mainly) and work has bumped up in intensity.
I usually do ~2 75 minute commutes to and from work (backroads so I can go hard if needed), then I do a weekend ride or two that’s 2-3 hours (depending how many times I rode to work)
I have been doing just one interval day (I cycle through Sweet Spot and VO2max…sprints now and then but rarely)…then my commutes are Zone 2. I basically am using Jem Arnold’s plan of Sustainable Training…but doing 1 hard day rather than 2 due to my other non-cycling training goals
really my main goal would be to increase my Zone 2 power. just for fun I’d like to be able to ride a little bit harder to and from work…without fatiguing myself though. currently I ride ~200 watts to work and ~195 home and it’s almost zero fatiguing. My FTP is a little north of 300…prob in the 320 range give or take 10.
how could I creep up my Zone 2 slowly without crushing myself? I just enjoy my time riding at say 225 watts > 200 watts. I like the speed better etc. but if I did all my rides at 225 right now I’d get fatigued.
would it be reasonable to just bump it up every month say 5 watts? or am I going to start running into tempo / fatigue myself if I’m not raising my FTP?
or should I just bump up and deal with being tired a few months and force myself to adapt?
I dunno…any other tips from anyone where cycling isn’t their main thing? I really just do it for fitness / fun. will never race. but while i’m on the bike, I still want to be efficient. crunching the numbers is fun and i’m also sure cycling will become #1 again at some point in life…so wanna maintain / slowly progress.
I’d treat it as doing’ tempo blocks’ of progressive length. Pick sections of your commute, and ride those at 225W. Then make those sections longer, until it’s the whole ride.
Considering you’ll still be quite far below FTP, I think part of the 200W ‘self-selected power’ is habitual, you can probably just get used to riding a bit harder. (The other part is probably physiological, ie, you’re most efficient at that power.)
I think the way to do it is to make cycling your main thing.
My understanding is that the way to raise your LT1 is with lots more sub-LT1 (low zone 1 & 2) training. Like moving to 12 hours a week and doing those 3-4-5 hour rides.
I also just can’t mentally go much slower. I don’t even think I’ll move my bike in Zone 1 lol. anything under 185 watts and it feels like I’m crawling. I’m a bit on the bigger side for a cyclist (195lbs) and my bikes aren’t super lightweight. 210-225 watts gives me a nice comfy pace where I’m not itching to go faster and I’m really enjoying the ride. just wanna make that my “easy” pace if that’s possible.
thank you again for taking the time to reply to my post. followed your advice and I realized I was making another blunder with my endurance rides.
I rode today with 200 watts as my default and 225 on the hills. I realized I was going a bit slower on the hills than normal. I was not exactly hammering before, but def getting into Zone 3 uphill…and therefore lower in my Zone 2 / Zone 1 area for the rest.
was focused too much on the final number and not enough on keeping it smooth throughout the ride.
so last week this was my ride power distribution on the way in to work. top of the distribution curve around 190 watts
both rides had exactly equal average power, normalized power, and variability. I hadn’t really looked this deep into the numbers.
this is gonna suit my goals / style of riding much better. will work on converting all my rides to this format and make sure it doesn’t interfere with my weekly hard day…then as you suggested i’ll creep up the length of time at 225 watts.
