Very good point. I agree. Or the even better to becoming fatigue resistant at 3/4 hour rides is to do 5/6 hour rides 
1 Like
I haven’t stopped yet either, but I’m in northern Illinois USA really close to the Wisconsin border. Is it not uncommon from start of December to end of February to consistently have highs less than 5°C and have streaks lasting a few weeks where the high doesn’t reach freezing.
Dave
1 Like
Alex,
I would suggest compliance means doing the work. If my metrics are 20-40% of medio and 5 hours a week then hit both targets.
This is a super dorky thing to say, but measurement of success is how much fun I have riding my bike in the spring…
The ride below is the gold standard ride for me. I want to be able to do this and keep RPE of ~ 6 even when it is hot out. I would say that’s the secondary measurement of success.
Dave
Hi dthrog00,
Your plan looks ok/challening. In my training I always consider absences (e.g. planned holidays). The longer the absences are the more time you need for ramping up the training. In 21 weeks the chance of interruption may happen.
Regards Rolf
1 Like
Yes “doing the work” can have very wide range of acceptance criteria. My guess is if you do 80% compliance that is doing the work. Some days might just feel off… should you push it at all costs to do exactly the prescribed intensities? I know some of us (me, struggle with compliance/consistency). So if I did 3 days a week inclucluding one tempo day for 18 weeks over this time, for me that would qualify as doing the work
1 Like
For me, a quite brutal treatment of compliance works best.
When following a plan, I give myself a weekly compliance score and a cumulative compliance score.
Weekly
I weight each workout in the week equally.
If I complete all planned workouts properly, that week gets 100%. Each workout that I missed, or did not complete fully and properly (for any reason), costs me 1/(# planned workouts)%
i.e. if there are four workouts on the plan and I fail the last interval of one of them, the score for the week is 75%
Harsh, but to me, fair.
Overall
The target I set myself for overall compliance to a plan is 95% - I appreciate that this is also quite harsh.
I keep a tally of total workouts completed properly and divide that by the number of workouts planned to give me my cumulative compliance score.
1 Like
When I grow up. I am going to be just like you!!!
1 Like
Funny you say that, but I am waiting to grow out of this stage of my life!
Here is a friend I was coaching for a while. He is 75 in this picture. You have time to grow up
Here is is strava bike hours at almost 85 now
3 Likes
I hope to still be able to pedal if I make it that far.
Here is George Steers, he is a real legend in my local cycling scene:
Aged 76, he clocked these TT times
10 mile 23’25s (and then, 10 years later 25’15s)
25 mile 58’33s
30 mile 1h11’39s
50 mile 2h3m12s
100 mile 4h31m55s
1 Like
Hi all , Im new to trainer day and even newer to the forums. but im loving this thread. love him or loathe him i do believe Dr. Ferrari is a bit of a genius. And without wanting to sound like a steroid advocate, the use of EPO is very beneficial to endurance athletes like he said but its the abuse and mis use that is the problem. either way i just wanted to say im liking the information and discussion.
3 Likes
LOL, thanks Brian!
Best of luck w/your training.
Dave
I looked more closely now and there is lot of similarity in what Andrea suggests and Dr Ferrari “The Italian training style…” I have not asked Andrea but they were very anti-doping so I am sure Dr Ferrari is the enemy
Andrea suggests the weekly long ride z2/z3 with climbs as the most important aspect of his plans but has a bit wider and slightly lower range than strict medio but he also uses this terminology. He also would have the same general progression and ratios.
So again, I repeat I believe this is solid plan. It’s making a base period a bit more engaging with little risk of any seasonal downsides.
How did Week 1 go?
I met 1 of the 2 targets. I did the 2x Medio, but did not meet the volume target 3.5 hrs vs 5. We were planning on outside riding that I was saving myself for, but it ended up not happening.
I’m doing Tempo 01 again tonight as planned. I modified the workout plan per earlier comments in the thread and I think I have it dialed now.
Dave
1 Like
I thought I’d expand a bit on the work to date.
I’ve done the Medio workout 4 times now with intervals.icu compare activity data:
10/27 - Higher % of FTP for the Medio part (83-85-87), subjectively felt harder than I thought was appropriate so I reduced the % in the future workouts.
11/2, 11/4, 11/5 - All have the same workout design (82-83-84).
Normally my goal is to do these on Tuesday/Thursday, but outdoor riding is throwing a wrench into that.
The ride tonight was the 2nd of back-to-back days. I did this because I’m taking a 1/2 day on Friday and plan to go for an outside ride in the afternoon and I wanted to be doing that after a recovery day not after a trainer workout so I changed the workout order.
I’m somewhat proud of myself because today wasn’t a great day at work and I was tempted to blow it off, but I sucked it up and did the workout anyway following the plan/aiming for consistency. I was in a better mood after getting off the bike than I was getting on it.
My recovery between rides is just ok and my legs were a bit off tonight. I was feeling strong on Tuesday and you can see it in the HR response difference versus tonight.
These workouts apply constant aerobic pressure. The “easy” parts are short and at 60% so the pressure never really comes off and I can feel it by the end of the workout.
Dave
1 Like
Good work.
You deserve, at least, fine weather for your ride on Friday!
1 Like
Yep, great job. I am trying to get motivated to go hop on the bike now
2 Likes
I’m through the medio workouts in the first 4 week block now.
The data shows on average I’m getting fitter as the power-HR relationship is getting better.
I am going to increase FTP a little bit before the next one to bring max HR and RPE up.
Dave
2 Likes
Very nice block of work under your belt there. Well done.
1 Like