My hip is feeling pretty good, surprisingly, so I’m stepping it up. In the last week, I have started doing some intervals on the trainer. The benefit of the this option is that it removes other potential obstacles while allowing me to focus on my efforts. It also gives me the option of pulling out if it causes me any pain!
So what am I doing?
I’ve started with shorter intervals: 3x10 minute and 5x3 minute efforts.
Why?
This is based less on research and more on what I feel I can handle mentally and physically. I like to hit a VO2 effort (the 3 minute) and an effort closer to threshold (10 minute - although this is still a bit short). While at different stages of training I might focus on one more than another, at the moment, with things changing quickly in terms of my recovery, I’m trying to push both VO2 and threshold.
Mentally, when I start back riding, I always struggle to do the longer intervals, so I’ve decided to begin with bite sized chunks.
How much/how often?
Currently I’m doing each session once a week. The rest of the week is predominantly filled with endurance riding, as this is the best way to build a training load without injury or going too crazy too
early.
How do I pace these?
As you can imagine, my ‘fitness’ is changing quickly at the moment. As a result, I worry less about power and pace, focusing more on RPE (perceived exertion, or how hard you think you are pushing) and heart rate. It is nice to have power to track the improvement though, as I can see I have had a 20W (or 10 per cent) improvement over the last week. If only gains this size could happen indefinitely…
Where to now?
As I have been doing these efforts for a few weeks, I’m going increase my 3 minute efforts to 4 minutes. Although still in the VO2 zone, the three minute efforts lack duration and I prefer 4 to 5 minute efforts.
I still like the 10 minute efforts, but I will be gradually increasing the number from 3 (where I started) to 5 - again to increase time in the threshold zone. Lastly, I’m going to add in another longer interval session in the next couple of weeks. I’ll start with a 20 minute sub-threshold and then increase the duration or number of efforts.
Now to punish the Team!
Dan
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