"Just get on the bike and ride"

Hey everyone,

I have a few questions regarding cycling training. I've really only started getting serious about tris this year, and am thinking of working part time in order to try and move my way up the ranks to elite. That said, cycling has been the biggest limiter for me, and probably will be for the forseeable future.

Since I come from a swimming background, swimming 2x 4500m workouts a week (with a team) seems to be maintaining my speed, since the coach is super talented. I basically have TONS of extra training time to be spent on the bike/run. Currently, for running (during my current Build period) I'm doing 2 Endurance runs (1 @ about :45, 1 long run (up to 80 mins. right now), 1 muscular endurance run (Tempo, cruise intervals etc.) and 1 force workout (hill reps).

Now, I know which workouts I need to do for this specific period in training (2 endurance, 1 muscular endurance, 1 force), but it only comes out to 4 workouts a week. Last week, I managed a 2h endurance ride, 1:30 Cruise intervals (6x5 min. w/ 2 min. recovery), a short hill rep workout (6x1' w/ 2' recovery) and a 4.25 hour long ride (125km). It only comes out to about 8 hours of riding, and other guys I know are easily putting in 12+ hours.

Would adding in more workouts just add garbage miles to the mix, or would I actually improve in fitness by adding in more workouts? As a side note, I've been getting much stronger on the bike/run lately, and I've been making huge gains, but it leaves me wondering if just more time in the saddle will let me improve even more, even if the workout doesn't have a buzzword attached to it (e.g. "endurance", "force" etc.)

Thanks everyone!

Derek

Edited by DerekWL 2009-08-10 12:41 AM