Absolutely, had a great season following a block of 40 miles a day commuting for over a month during October Did easy rides at weekend to top up. None of it done at any intensity but come Spring I found it so easy to switch on the intensity with a few interval sessions.
Also when I started out as a youngster the frequent long rides made a huge difference.
Yep. Loads of commuters I know stay in shape almost exclusively through riding to and from work. Pre-Covid I had a ~56 mile round trip which I would do twice a week. Thereās nothing like tapping out 2 hours after a long day at work with tired legs. You learn a lot about yourself!
Hi ,
I hit around 28hours/week training with a few weeks over 25hrs
Big weeks included things like multi day rides of 6-8hrs/day 2-4days in a row where i ran after reaching my destination. I was doing a lot of running and my long swims were 10k which i sometimes did twice per week.
In the last two weeks I have upped from 10hrs of structure with 3 interval sessions per week and a Sunday endurance ride to 15hrs and dropped down to two interval sessions per week and the rest as z2 hours.
I will post some results after six weeks of the increased volume for those that are interested.
Wow, thatās a very impressive volume! Even more than some of the pros do!
If you can handle that volume, your IMs should be a lot faster than with the 7-20h/week TR plans, targeted to a more amateur group.
Iām not entirely sure how relevant this is but itās the internet so Iāll say it anyway 
One thing Iāve noticed, doing LV plans for the last 2 years, is that I can handle the workouts way better when Iām also doing my Z2 commuting. If I have a few weeks off the commute and only do 3 high intensity workouts per week, I sometimes struggle with them. Whereas commuting 5 days a week and always having a little bit of fatigue in my legs enables me to complete the workouts much easier and more consistently.
At the moment I am in Base 1 of this yearās plan, and for me that is 13-14hrs/wk. But Iām a lot older this time. So will interesting to see how it goesā¦
The plan has a range of 11:30 - 19:45 for base 1. So I am in the lower range
What program/website did you use to generate this?
intervals.icu
This was my training method for several years. I wonāt get into why, but I was forced into riding a lot, and just kept doing it. Started adding in more and more Strava segments or challenging rides with friends, and got stronger still. FInal straw was hiring a coach who helped plan out intervals for me ON TOP of my long hours (20-30 hours a week). My coach was actually on board with it. I never intentionally took time off, but sometimes I wouldnāt be able to ride for a day and just called it a rest day. If I was tired, I just didnāt push myself, but I had a pretty good schedule that allowed me to do long hard rides, recovery rides, rest time, etc and I never felt bad.
I didnāt take an FTP test at my peak. But some time before that I was around 5 w/Kg and I was certainly stronger when I had the coach (according to my race results).
Obviously not for everyone, or most, but worked for me. My FTP dropped from not doing any hard work, just miles, over the past year+ (another story), so I am slowly building back my speed and endurance right now. I am using LV on TR to build up my interval work, and will be adding more and more base hours as my body allows until I am hopefully (hopefully) back to where I was two years ago.
Volume works for me, albeit i still do structured training. After being in a similar place for a long time, extra volume was the difference:
2018 - 400hrs - 310W FTP @ 65kg
2019 - 500hrs - 323W FTP @64kg
2020 - 700hrs - 360W FTP @ 68kg
Lets remember, cycling is an endurance sport. Consistency and recovery are what matter.
Iāve seen it from both sidesā¦
Last winter (2019) I had a little extra time ad decided on doing a āRapha 1000ā over Xmas and the new year. Road outside solo and lots of group rides and piled up loads of volume at all sorts of intensities. After a little recovery I ramp tested and got a 17w FTP bump (about 7-8%). Admittedly I was only 6 months back from a long break so recovering fitness rather than breaking any new records.
However, back in 2016 I was training to ride La Marmotte in the Alps - 175km and >4000m climbing - and most of this training I rode volume outdoors with friends. Banged out loads of group rides day after day for most of the spring and early summer. Even went to Majorca and did a big week of volume in late spring - felt about as fit, or better, than Iād ever been. Got to the Marmotte and simply found I wasnāt fit enough - the long climbs, huge total climbing and big distance simply needed me to be a higher fitness level that needed much more structure over just big volume. Lesson learnedā¦
So I think it depends on loads of things - your goals, your background, what you enjoy etc etc, but Iām committed to a big volume polarised approach this year and will add in the structure around my intensity days that was missing back in 2016. Fingers crossed!
Thatās the sort of experience I was hoping to hear about when I made the thread to be honest. Guys whoād simply just went out and done mega mileage. I was gearing up to it there (worked up to 970TSS) but have now jumped back into TR for the structure. I just worry that the lack of baked in progression will mean you wonāt get as much benefit from time spent.
Iām dropped the sweet spot Sunday rides though and then doing Z1, tons of it hopefully around the other 3 intensity days.
My takaway is that you need to define your fitness goals carefullyā¦do you want to be group ride fit and smash it with the gang and impress everyone with your ability to fly up the local hills, or do you want to be able to hit 4 or 5 1000m+ climbs in a 8-9 hr ride?
Unstructured volume will contribute to those different goals to a different level. Right now Iām targeting 2 long hilly sportives with fairly short but steep climbs (up to 20%) followed by a week in the Dolomites with lots of long 8-10% 10-15km climbs day after day, so the current plan is loads of volume but more polarised with an emphasis on easier and longer rides and vo2 and longer threshold work interval days during each week to prepare me for the specifics. Nearer the summer Iāll start to do these intervals during long rides. So, more structure to my unstructured volume!
Volume without structure is a no go for me. I did unstructured training in December doing long rides to about 20+hours per week. Mid January I did a Ramp test and my FTP was down by 8%. I had to get back on trainer road plan to get it back up again. The past 3 months it has gone up by 11% with hald the volume I did in December.
Is that because you done a ton of extra Z2 and set some foundations for improvements when adding more intensity into the plana d then seen a bump in FTP as a result? Just playing devils advocate.
Wondering this too, did you notice any improvements from that December block?
Thinking that surely any volume beyond the norm would push adaptationā¦
Well, I saw a decline immediately after the 20h+ 3weeks block, I then followed with SSBHV. I honestly cant say I saw an increase or gains from that high volume because I started getting dropped by those who were slower than me before. But after SSBHV I am much stronger than before high volume unstructured rides.
Maybe you were just a bit fatigued after that much volume?
How long a break did you take for recovery after that mega block?
20 hours is massive when I think about it. Will have to try that after this current plan is done for kicks, see how I feel after it.