Originally Posted by
fstrnu
Regarding various questions, it's an indoor plan. Intensity is substituted for time. This is a common approach to indoor training. If you have time for or ability to tolerate more volume on a trainer, go for it.
Are you saying that in any indoor training program, the trainee always substitutes brief HIT for lower zone rides, and there is some sort of fully valid consistency rule for this? I haven't done a lot training though I've started most seasons with high hopes, but I don't think i've read that. As far as training on indoor training, I've read Dirk Friel's book on indoor training. To me, and what I'm reading in Chapple, is that beginnign base for me needs to be gentle for a week or so to get my legs to remember how to work. For example, right now if my cadence goes above 60 my feet don't follow the pedals well - after 50 ish years of good pedaling i'm kinda surprised. I'm going to revisit my saddle positioning, but ... This is nowhere near the point where I can go into HIT.
For my timing horizon, as Machka noted the need for, my target is a Wisconsin metric on rolling hills, 4000 feet of climbing (1220 meters), says my calculator, in mid-September. So I have some time to work on these issues. Depending how I do, I could target a 60-miler in Michigan rollers, less total climbing than the Wisconsin ride, and that would be mid-July. My biggest quantified climb is 500 feet, from Niagara on the Lake to the level of Niagara Falls, riding along the Niagara River on the Ontario side.
So there are some goals, on my side.