What is wrong with always training at flat out pace?
Discussion
Hi All
Ok so I have a v unscientific approach to training which is mainly born from riding identical courses and only being able to train every other day. I just cant help always trying to beat my previous time and beast myself so naturally tend to just go for it on very ride and ride at about 80-90% of max. These routes of mine are normally around the 20 mile mark and are reasonably hilly. Is this a counter-productive way to train? Would I get fitter faster by doing things differently?
To my unscientific mind- Im maxing out the time I have available.
I should add Im prepping for the Ride London 100 miler and currently churn out 20 miles in about 56 mins. I will start doing 50 milers once a week soon but that is the extent of my current planned for variety
Thanks for any input
Ok so I have a v unscientific approach to training which is mainly born from riding identical courses and only being able to train every other day. I just cant help always trying to beat my previous time and beast myself so naturally tend to just go for it on very ride and ride at about 80-90% of max. These routes of mine are normally around the 20 mile mark and are reasonably hilly. Is this a counter-productive way to train? Would I get fitter faster by doing things differently?
To my unscientific mind- Im maxing out the time I have available.
I should add Im prepping for the Ride London 100 miler and currently churn out 20 miles in about 56 mins. I will start doing 50 milers once a week soon but that is the extent of my current planned for variety
Thanks for any input
The only thing 'wrong' with that IMHO is you'll have no clue or hope of pacing yourself on a 100 miler 
Generally you become what you do - I'm the opposite, I tend to ride a lot of long steady distance. I've recently started doing shorter harder stuff and I've seen a big uptick in speed. Even so, it's a big jump from 50 miles to 100 - I ride 50-70 miles every sat, did 100 last weekend, and it hurt (I'm also no stranger to century / plus rides, just had a bit of a slow last year).
I've no doubt you'll be able to plod/survive around 100, on hard 20 mile rides, but if you want to do your best time, you'll need to train out around that distance some IMHO.
Generally you become what you do - I'm the opposite, I tend to ride a lot of long steady distance. I've recently started doing shorter harder stuff and I've seen a big uptick in speed. Even so, it's a big jump from 50 miles to 100 - I ride 50-70 miles every sat, did 100 last weekend, and it hurt (I'm also no stranger to century / plus rides, just had a bit of a slow last year).
I've no doubt you'll be able to plod/survive around 100, on hard 20 mile rides, but if you want to do your best time, you'll need to train out around that distance some IMHO.
Good point, "you become what you do"!
That kind of training is great for fitness, but once you start doing longer rides you might struggle with pace and risk suddenly burning out. I used to do just one hour interval training (x3 times a week) years ago and it put me in good shape, but it was "one sided" good shape.
I did my my first 90 miler of the year a couple of weeks back and burnt out on the last 20 as I got the pacing all wrong at the start (too fast too soon)
Guy I used to train with went on about zones and how it was beneficial to train in zone 3 or somthing at 60% efficiency, I cant remember the ins and outs he swore by it.
I would for join a club some longer club runs, thats what helped develop my training so it was more rounded and defo get some longer rides in if you are training for ride 100. Everyone tends to rush off on the start and it is too tempting to keep up/beast them and then burn out @ 70 miles as you concrated too much on short distance training.
That kind of training is great for fitness, but once you start doing longer rides you might struggle with pace and risk suddenly burning out. I used to do just one hour interval training (x3 times a week) years ago and it put me in good shape, but it was "one sided" good shape.
I did my my first 90 miler of the year a couple of weeks back and burnt out on the last 20 as I got the pacing all wrong at the start (too fast too soon)
Guy I used to train with went on about zones and how it was beneficial to train in zone 3 or somthing at 60% efficiency, I cant remember the ins and outs he swore by it.
I would for join a club some longer club runs, thats what helped develop my training so it was more rounded and defo get some longer rides in if you are training for ride 100. Everyone tends to rush off on the start and it is too tempting to keep up/beast them and then burn out @ 70 miles as you concrated too much on short distance training.
Edited by TwistingMyMelon on Monday 17th March 09:33
Edited by TwistingMyMelon on Monday 17th March 09:35
Although what you are doing is increasing your anaerobic threshold, essentially your abiltiy to use a lot of power over a shortish duration, sportives require a constant power output over a longer duration which is the part that you are failing to develop by sticking to this "as fast as you can" training plan. I dont think you will never be able to ride at 20 mph for 100 miles if all you do is add on a mile or so each ride and continue to ride at flat out pace. Anaerobic exercise occurs when there is insufficient oxygen in your body to produce co2 and water and instead your body produce lactic acid which can not be exhaled, lactic acid builds up in your muscles and rapidly increases the onset of fatigue. The next bit is pretty obvious, if you start too fast you start to produce lactic acid too early in a race and will drop off the pace.
A prime function of your heart is to deliver oxygen to your active muscles. Your muscles then use this oxygen combined with glycogen or fat to create energy to run. If your muscles are inefficient at doing this, you will not get as much running energy per unit of oxygen as you could. Think of your heart as a pump that is told what to do by the muscles. "We need more oxygen!" say the muscles and the heart beats faster. "We have enough", they say and the heart rate stays low.
To break one unit of glucose down into energy anaerobically (WITHOUT oxygen) you get two units of energy (let’s say that you get 2 paces/strides up the road before you need more energy). If you break that self-same unit of glucose down into energy aerobically (WITH oxygen) you get 36 paces up the road before you need more energy. Obviously this is much better. So if you can make what used to be an anaerobic pace into an aerobic pace, you are a much superior runner and can keep this pace up for much further.
As a general rule, the best possible HR/pace/effort you can maintain for a full marathon (without crashing, hitting the wall, etc) will not be closer to HRmax than 15-20bpm. Getting within 20bpm of HRmax might be hard enough at first, but with proper training it is possible to get even within 15-20bpm of HRmax. Closer than this (as an average over the whole race) I would not expect you to be capable of.
So, HRmarathon is ~20bpm below HRmax, and easy running HR is another 30bpm (or more) below HRmarathon (therefore 50bpm or more below HRmax).
Try longer distances at a reduced pace, this will increase your aerobic capacity. There is some good info here or google "Hadd's distance training plan" which is where most of this is shamelessly cribbed from!....
A prime function of your heart is to deliver oxygen to your active muscles. Your muscles then use this oxygen combined with glycogen or fat to create energy to run. If your muscles are inefficient at doing this, you will not get as much running energy per unit of oxygen as you could. Think of your heart as a pump that is told what to do by the muscles. "We need more oxygen!" say the muscles and the heart beats faster. "We have enough", they say and the heart rate stays low.
To break one unit of glucose down into energy anaerobically (WITHOUT oxygen) you get two units of energy (let’s say that you get 2 paces/strides up the road before you need more energy). If you break that self-same unit of glucose down into energy aerobically (WITH oxygen) you get 36 paces up the road before you need more energy. Obviously this is much better. So if you can make what used to be an anaerobic pace into an aerobic pace, you are a much superior runner and can keep this pace up for much further.
As a general rule, the best possible HR/pace/effort you can maintain for a full marathon (without crashing, hitting the wall, etc) will not be closer to HRmax than 15-20bpm. Getting within 20bpm of HRmax might be hard enough at first, but with proper training it is possible to get even within 15-20bpm of HRmax. Closer than this (as an average over the whole race) I would not expect you to be capable of.
So, HRmarathon is ~20bpm below HRmax, and easy running HR is another 30bpm (or more) below HRmarathon (therefore 50bpm or more below HRmax).
Try longer distances at a reduced pace, this will increase your aerobic capacity. There is some good info here or google "Hadd's distance training plan" which is where most of this is shamelessly cribbed from!....
k today and I need several days before I start pushing myself again.No Pablo, I don't agree.
Everything over around 25-30 seconds is heavily aerobic, and after say a minute, its likely nearly 100% aerobic.
OP What you are doing is certainly very valuable, however there will come a point where you would benefit greatly for doing some work on your ability to produce power at vo2 max, which in laymans terms is doing a few intervals of around 5 mins in duration as hard as you can, a bit of rest, and repeat, these will likely benefit you, and if you mix these in with your existing routine you may find you generate a bit of headroom to then move your threshold (power you can sustain over an hour, which your loop is a good test of) up further.
Regarding 100 mile rides, I do agree with aspects of the above, at some point you'll want to get in a few 3-4 hour rides, not least to get you used to being in the saddle for that duration. To get good training value from a ride, which mimics a ride far longer than it actually is, is to ride for say 3 hours, and then go as hard as you can for the remaining 30 mins, this a few times will benefit you far more than a few 4 hour steady rides IMO, and I do lots of these sort of rides to prepare for road racing.
Re pacing, you'll find this is actually quite easy on the Ride 100, given most people ride around in packs anyway, so find a pack of people you're happy with and ride at their pace.
Everything over around 25-30 seconds is heavily aerobic, and after say a minute, its likely nearly 100% aerobic.
OP What you are doing is certainly very valuable, however there will come a point where you would benefit greatly for doing some work on your ability to produce power at vo2 max, which in laymans terms is doing a few intervals of around 5 mins in duration as hard as you can, a bit of rest, and repeat, these will likely benefit you, and if you mix these in with your existing routine you may find you generate a bit of headroom to then move your threshold (power you can sustain over an hour, which your loop is a good test of) up further.
Regarding 100 mile rides, I do agree with aspects of the above, at some point you'll want to get in a few 3-4 hour rides, not least to get you used to being in the saddle for that duration. To get good training value from a ride, which mimics a ride far longer than it actually is, is to ride for say 3 hours, and then go as hard as you can for the remaining 30 mins, this a few times will benefit you far more than a few 4 hour steady rides IMO, and I do lots of these sort of rides to prepare for road racing.
Re pacing, you'll find this is actually quite easy on the Ride 100, given most people ride around in packs anyway, so find a pack of people you're happy with and ride at their pace.
As has been said in more scientific terms above. If you always train at maximum intensity, you will lose the mental reference point. Then you will start to slow, but you will hardly notice to begin with. Your 'maximum' will slowly degrade over time if you're not careful. I'd have said vary the intensity over the ride. Periodically go hell for leather then back off, then repeat. I find doing this is more beneficial personally.
pablo said:
I'm a bit confused as i didnt refer to a time value?! the numbers were with reference to HRMax? also, it does refer to marathon training, largely because cycling appears to be a bit behind the curve in these respects.
You have said "all you're doing is training your anerobic threshold" which isn't true really, aerobic is mainly what he is training, have a look at this http://home.trainingpeaks.com/blog/article/how-imp...Now I am even more confused! I dont think you can compare someone who is riding 20 miles at a "flat out pace" with 100km+ endurance mtb racers. To me the former is going to be in zones 4-6 for most of that ride compared to the latter who, as per your link, spend the majority of it in zones 1-4?!
I said he was increasing his anaerobic threshold but obviously thats not all he is doing, there is a degree of aerobic training in there as well for sure, the critical factor is turning an anaerobic pace into an aerobic pace and we all assume that interval training is the best method for doing so. Sure its all subjective but to me "flat out pace" doesnt correlate with HR zones 1-4...
I said he was increasing his anaerobic threshold but obviously thats not all he is doing, there is a degree of aerobic training in there as well for sure, the critical factor is turning an anaerobic pace into an aerobic pace and we all assume that interval training is the best method for doing so. Sure its all subjective but to me "flat out pace" doesnt correlate with HR zones 1-4...
Anaerobic efforts by definition last a very short period, he is barely training this system at all by doing a flat out 1 hour ride. That is the point I am making your terminology is wrong, or your understanding of what it means is?
He will be in zone 4 nearly all of the time, that is what 1 hour flat out is, its threshold.
As you can see Anaerobic is 120%+ of your FTP, something you can sustain for a very short period of time. The reason its high in a MTB race is because of the repeated bursts of acceleration. That is NOT what the OP is doing.
You have things the wrong way round, "there is an element of aerobic" lol, its nearly 100% aerobic. Training your anaerobic capacity would be doing things 15 second max sprints or 20 seconds max, 40 recovery and repeat, and even then after the first few they'd be more and more aerobic
It doesn't matter if it correlates to you or not. By definition what this bloke is doing is riding 1 hour at z4 with the odd stray into z5.
He will be in zone 4 nearly all of the time, that is what 1 hour flat out is, its threshold.
As you can see Anaerobic is 120%+ of your FTP, something you can sustain for a very short period of time. The reason its high in a MTB race is because of the repeated bursts of acceleration. That is NOT what the OP is doing.
You have things the wrong way round, "there is an element of aerobic" lol, its nearly 100% aerobic. Training your anaerobic capacity would be doing things 15 second max sprints or 20 seconds max, 40 recovery and repeat, and even then after the first few they'd be more and more aerobic
It doesn't matter if it correlates to you or not. By definition what this bloke is doing is riding 1 hour at z4 with the odd stray into z5.
Edited by okgo on Monday 17th March 11:56
right, we are comparing apples with pears. I am using MaxHR to define "zones" and you are using power output!... typically i am using something like this which most people (those without power meters) can relate to.
Zone % of Max Heart Rate
1 60-65
2 65-75
3 75-82
4 82-89
5 89-94
6 94-100
So when I say I can stay in zone 4 (which is roughly 155 bpm) for a long period of time, I mean something completely different to you....
Zone % of Max Heart Rate
1 60-65
2 65-75
3 75-82
4 82-89
5 89-94
6 94-100
So when I say I can stay in zone 4 (which is roughly 155 bpm) for a long period of time, I mean something completely different to you....
Edited by anonymous-user on Monday 17th March 13:31
Learn to fuel yourself correctly on the go. I've got a hundred miler in about four weeks and one of the things I need to improve is maintaining adequate fuel and liquid intake over the long term. I'm starting to believe that fuelling is probably more important than overall fitness on a century.
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