Vern Gambetta:
Functional Path Training: Connections: “You will find if you grasp the idea that you will need to do less %u201Cfitness%u201D oriented training when you realize the cumulative effect of all the components of training.”
This was my first week of what I’m thinking of as my second Base period for the cycling year but is really the start of longer rides on the road. The weather here in Baltimore is finally holding above 40 and rain has been no more than intermittent.
For the last month and a half, I’ve taken a few shorter rides out of doors that were generally no more than 45 mintutes at high intensity. I’ve been doing 20 minute high intensity interval sessions (8 sec hard, 12 sec recovery) on the bike on the trainer. It seemed from testing that my VO2max was possibly higher than in late fall. So I was hopeful that I was starting at a higher level of fitness this year than I ended last year.
So, what’s it like to suddenly transition to a 2 hour ride on rolling terrain followed the next day by a similar 90 minute ride? I felt strong both from the perspective of the power I was able to deliver to keep the pedals turning an hills and I was able to place my heart rate where I wanted it pretty easily.
On the other hand I could see that what I lacked was work capacity. I was tired and the level of effort did create a good bit of leg ache on day 3. Not so much that I wasn’t eager to do another 90 minutes on day 4 after some rest. I’m hoping that the winter preparation will allow me to work somewhat harder during these longer rides through the early spring, bringing the whole effort up a notch from last year. Since I expect to be maintaining the power gains I might have made while extending the efforts, I would expect new effort to add. We’ll see how this plays out over the next few months.
At this point, I’m planning to increase intensity again in May and June, using July and August as a chance to increase volume further as the summer schedule allows.