inspclouseau

So I've been getting a little more structured with my riding, concentrating on endurance miles on weekends in zone 2 for heart rate. During the week, I do steady state intervals one day, and the other day I do either high intensity intervals or hill repeats - no real hills here so just a bridge over the intercoastal a bunch of times.

My work travel schedule has been a bit chaotic, breaking my structure. I know I still need some base building, so I figure I should ditch the high intensity stuff and throw in some tempo rides for a few weeks instead based on reading.

I have a couple of questions on tempo rides. Are they a waste of time, just burning energy and not stressing the system for improvement?

Also, do these require practice? I did my first tempo ride today and was either in zone 4, or if zone 3 would trail off to zone 2. I found it very hard to stay in the right zone.

My goals are this: weight loss, picking up average speed so I can join club rides, a century at the end of July.

I've been riding about 3.5 years, with a good 8 months or so off and been riding regularly since this past October between 60 and 100+ miles a week.

Thanks for any feedback.

FrenchFit 

This is any feedback:

So in running the theory is you push your lactate threshold up a notch, and that gets you faster and further. But I also listened to a coach call tempo "garbage" runs, not fast enough to fully stress the system and too fast to develop a good base mile platform. Perhaps the common agreement is tempo really needs to be at the LT, any less and you are working too far below the threshold and training yourself to work slower and fatigue sooner.

Perhaps a more knowledgeable comment will follow.,,

DrIsotope

I don't follow a training plan, and I don't do intervals. What I do is ride (on average) 240 miles per week. Some days at higher intensity than others. No ride is a waste. What I have noticed is that for a given speed (or more importantly, watts) my heart rate zones have been constantly shifting lower-- MHR is lower, LTHR is down a few beats-- but my speed/watts at a given HR is higher. I did 77 miles yesterday with an almost even split between Z2 and Z3, and my overall average HR for the duration just two beats above the zone cutoff for Z3 (140bpm avg, Z3 starts at 138bpm.) So by the standards of the "tempo rides are a waste," I must have wasted the whole day. I don't feel like I "wasted" anything. I don't race, so what are day after day of Z2 rides for? I'm never going to be one of those +20mph guys. I'm big, and heavy, and ride a bike that's big, and heavy. But I can ride all day. Every day.

So correct or not, I look at a ride in terms of the average HR/power output at the end of it. Today I stayed well below threshold-- avg. HR of 121bpm for 90 minutes of effort. And (I assume) because I'm too dumb to know better, the "ride by feel" method has worked. Because not so long ago, Z2 effort was 14-15mph. Now it's 17-18mph. If I've learned any one thing, it's that you can get faster by accident. I sure did.

birru

This is all coming from a running background, but I bet a lot of it can apply. I'm operating on the assumption zone 2 is recovery pace, zone 3 is aerobic pace, zone 4 is lactate threshold, and zone 5 is anaerobic/sprinting effort. My workouts generally include intervals (zone 4), hill work (zone 4), and threshold runs (zone 4—basically tempo runs that HURT). Depending on the length and quantity of intervals and hills, those are usually right at the top of my LT zone. My threshold runs will usually start at the lower end of my LT and then get right near the top by the time I'm done. Every 2-3 weeks I might spice up workouts with brief (10-30s) zone 5 sprints on flats or hills with a couple of minutes of rest in between. Don't overdo sprints. All my higher intensity workouts include AT LEAST 10 minutes of warmup plus another 5-10 minutes of cooldown at the end. The days I'm not doing harder training I'm doing disciplined recovery runs that are properly slow enough. Plus there will be a break day or two per week where I still get out and go for a long walk or an easy bike ride to get the blood flowing and stay loose. Depending on fatigue/burnout levels I may allow a true sit-on-my butt rest day once in a while and after race days.

Anyway, I actually think early on interval training and hill training pretty effective at getting your fitness level up quickly and should be a focus. Once you're feeling comfortable (probably after a few weeks of intervals, hills, recovery), swap in some threshold training where you're really sustaining that level of work for a longer period. Not only are you building your fitness, you're learning how to suffer, and how to find your rhythm to work through it. And if something doesn't feel right and you think you're going to hurt yourself, back off. The only good training is injury-free training.

Carbonfiberboy 

Tempo rides are good. They're a bit hard to do because you need a lot of open road. The idea is to hold a fairly precise level of effort with no breaks. These should be long intervals of 30 minutes to 1 hour. One also is supposed to do these at a lower cadence than the usual road cadence. I try to hold as close to 80 as possible, so 10 rpm lower than usual. Your legs should see a gradual buildup of pain. I also do another version of these: two 30 minute intervals, 5 minutes rest between, holding 10 rpm higher than my normal road cadence, so 100 for me. Holding the right cadence for these rides is very important and may involve a lot of shifting. Best not to do them where there are more than very slight descents since it's critical not to let off on the pressure on the legs. Tempo rides can produce a lot of training stress, so don't overuse them, i.e. don't tire yourself so much that you can't do high intensity intervals on other days.

inspclouseau

All really interesting advice. Thanks, and helpful.

Drew Eckhardt 

Opinions vary.

They don't make you faster.

They may make you slower than if you spent your time riding with less intensity - there's a study showing slower Ironman bike legs among people who rode more tempo and faster among those with more polarized Z1 of 3 which stops somewhere in Z2 of 5 even though the race was ridden at a tempo pace.

They run up more fatigue. That can be good - you build more endurance when you have little riding time to use. That can be bad - you won't be fresh enough for hard rides that will make you faster.

They shift your energy balance away from fat and towards carbs, where using carbs makes you hungrier than the same energy output at a slower pace which can lead to a lower net negative energy balance for weight loss.

If I was going to ride "hard" for 30 minutes to an hour, I'd make it a friel Z4 ride. You already have your glycolytic energy system involved, and might as well stress things like lactate clearance more to encourage adaptation.

rubiksoval

I do tempo/sweetspot almost the entire winter. I can't/won't get in big miles during winter, so getting the most out of my limited training is key. I'll do 3-5 "workouts" a week. Typically these are 20-60 min efforts in Z3/4 power. I think they're absolutely a boon to fitness and can make you very, very strong.

I've had my best three racing seasons ever after doing a big bulk of those before transitioning the the higher level stuff around March. Around May/June I'll start sprinkling some longer tempo/sweetsport/threshold rides back in just to keep that strength base going.

I typically start out shooting for 20 minutes at about 88-90% threshold in November. I'll add time and switch up intensities a bit depending on fatigue. I might do 30 minutes at 95% one day, then 45 mins at 85% the next, then an easier day. This winter I cranked out my longest one, a 90 min effort at 93%. I was feeling pretty pleased with that. It's all building from one week/one month/one year to the next.

So no, definitely not a waste of time. Definitely not something I would focus on exclusively, but certainly a big piece of the puzzle (especially with low winter hours).

sprince

That is similar to what I do most of the time, because it is fun, and it's the best use of very limited hours. Around 20-30 minutes at z4-5, 4-5 times a week. It definitely makes you fast and strong, but I can't honestly say that it does all that much for endurance.

rubiksoval

Well, sure. Specificity is still a dominating factor. You're not going to be strong at the end of a four hour ride if you're only ever riding 2-3 hours.

It's part of the puzzle, but there are other pieces that have to be worked in, too.

I'm still trying to get in another 5+ hours if at all possible on Sat. and Sun. This gets me to spring time where I can usually start getting in a little bit longer rides.