Will I burn out or fade away?

You be the judge. The typical week described herein was spent completely indoors.

Typical Monday recovery ride. I've noticed that taking a day completely off the bike isn't desirable. My body seems to lose more ground than I care to make up and the day after is rarely a good training day. This season I resolved not to take Mondays off unless I really have to.


This is my Tuesday's attempt at 3 x 25 min threshold blocks. I didn't quite have it for the 3rd, so I made up by riding a harder 10 min. It's still a successful threshold training ride.



Wednesdays this time of year (actually starting in November) are Sweet Spot training days. Sometimes they're a very even effort, but sometimes I vary them depending on my mood. Typically I'll spend at least 90 min between 85% and 100% of Functional Threshold Power. I'm told that if I want to be a "stronger" rider I need to put in considerable amount of time in this zone. Seeing the results so far, I'm a believer.

Earlier this winter my Thursday ride would either be a longish Tempo ride (80% FTP) or a few shorter but more intense threshold blocks. Sometimes if I feel a bit tired after warm up (or the power isn't there), I'll do a recovery ride. I rarely do L1 (zone 1) rides for recovery. I can't stand going that slow. I'd rather go a bit faster, but shorter. Either way you get a low stress level ride.

This is a non-typical off-season Friday, mostly due to my taking the previous day easy. I'm planning on some serious efforts this weekend so 60 min of Tempo (L3) is a great way to warm-up to it without exhausting the glycogen stores.


Because of cold temps, I'm forgoing the Saturday team ride. I've got progress to make in my training and braving the elements (in my opinion) is best saved for races. This was 90 min of Tempo interspersed with 5 min efforts just over FTP. To make this a bit more challenging I stayed in the same gear for the entire duration. Riding over threshold at 107 RPM proved to be challenging but possible. Great prep for VO2max (L5) intervals in March. For you power geeks, this ride was 140 TSS.

I thought I'd be more tired after yesterday, but my power didn't suffer much, so I'm back at it. 1 hr 45 min at 80% of FTP excluding warm up/cool down. After 3 months of similar efforts 90 min of even Tempo seems like an easy day albeit a bit boring. Good day to practice getting into "the zone". Total score: 120 TSS.

For comparison here's what a typical team ride file looks like. It includes a coffee break which I'm not a big fan of. Note how long it takes to get up to speed again.

This was the Big Ride (est. 40+ guys) of 1 week ago and as you can see there were plenty of intense L5/L6 efforts as well as a couple of sprints (L7). This early in the season I consider them adequate preparation for those more structured "race-prep" VO2max and anaerobic intervals.

Seeing my typical weekly training plan you may have noticed that I don't subscribe to the Long Slow Distance philosophy. Perhaps it works for professionals who race hard March through October and can afford to spend 6 hrs a day on the bike, though I doubt that's all there's to it. It is my strong opinion that doing a half-hearted version of riding "volume" by riding easy 12 hrs a week in the off-season is very unlikely to make you ride like the pros. Their strength doesn't come from racking up thousands of easy miles, but from talents that most of us simply do not possess. The average Cat. 3/Masters rider like myself needs to put in a lot of dedicated effort (that includes proper rest) just to stay competitive in their field. Those of you who went to the talk with Drs. Testa, Heiden, and others at TOSH last May may recall Dr. Testa describing young Oscar Freire's early season exploits. If I recall correctly, Freire wouldn't touch the bike until it was time for early season races. You still wanna train like the pros?

Back to the original premise of my post: is my attitude going to get me burned out? I hope so! This season better end in a huge fireball or I didn't give it all I could. Simply surviving through the summer is not one of my 2008 cycling goals. Then again, I hope I don't have to eat my words too soon...