Winter Cycling Plan Official Thread (Page 16)

5MP mainly targets adaptations to improve your VO2 max (aerobic capacity), the higher the amount of oxygen you can use in your working muscles the better. 20MP mainly targets improving mitochondrial density/activity and oxygen delivery and 60MP targets adaptations to improve your maximum lactate steady state which among other things increases lactate acid clearance, increase glycogen storage.

What all 3 help improve endurance? Well, I am sure you all have heard the argument (or myth) that base training allows you to improve fat oxidation (rely more on fat for fuel). Well, that is true to a point in which you can certainly target this adaptations *if* you do a lot of steady work training (meaning many many hours).

OTOH, if you work at improving your VO2 max, your Threshold and Tempo power, you are making your body more efficient at doing more while been able to rely less on glycogen (hence you rely more on fat as fuel), clear lactate faster (hence you can go faster) and your ability to go faster while using less oxygen (more economical). Put it all together and with less time investment you achieved a greater range of very important training adaptations vital for any endurance athlete.

Of course if you are targeting to race an IM or HIM you still need to do specific work at the intensity you will race (specificity concept) and the biggest adaptation we produce when doing steady state effort (60 75% of FTP) is to improve muscle fiber fatigue resistance, that is to allow your body recruit more muscle fiber to do the work at a greater intensity (speed) while allowing it to adapt and work for longer periods of time.

If you see my program targets all ranges: VO2 max 1^st, then 20MP, then 60MP which it should be a main focus for any triathlete throughout the year and also you do tempo rides (Q3) and for those training for HIM/IM there is the optional weekend long ride at 60-755 of FTP, this last is the one seeking to consolidate your fitness by making your muscle fibers more fatigue resistant.

Any running program has (or should have) at most 2 quality sessions x week (a speed/tempo run and a long run) and the rest are more steady state short/mid distance runs. If your plan follows this pattern I would do the 'easy' runs on the quality days of cycling and do the quality runs on the days off cycling. That should give you 24+ hrs in between quality sessions to recover and be ready. Still you have to be proactive at taking care of the details to place yourself in the best position to succeed.

Do warm up, cool down for your running/biking, stretch/self massage (roller foam, other) at night, fuel properly through the day, always re-fuel post hard training, sleep, etc. If you just push your body without helping it to recover fast enough fatigue will begin creep in and you'll begin having crappy sessions more often which is the sure path towards over reaching or worst. Also you could think of taking days off or just active recovery days (ie. an easy swim) on days you need to get your energy and mind re-charge.

Please keep in mind, there is no 'it will get easier' in this program (or the plans I set for my athletes). Any training program should methodically keep pushing you to keep forcing your body to adapt, I shake my head when I see plans conducive to plateaus, yes you want to do enough to adapt and grow fitter and recover at the same time, but you almost never want to purposely do so little that it leads to plateaus. Hence even though you guys will get fitter if you train consistently, as we get to retest every so often we are constantly pushing our limits hence to quote Lemon: "It doesn't get easier, you just go faster".

It depends, there can be some cross benefits like improvements on your aerobic capacity and others but still you need to do specific session for one sport or the other to produce optimal adaptations. In triathlon a better cycling fitness might allow you to improve your run times just because you can go faster at a lesser energy cost hence even if your run load remains the same you can go faster as you will now have more energy to spend on the run leg.

In general athletes (in particular inconsistent once) will experience some benefits by just training regardless of what they do. if you normally only train 4 hrs for running but now you are training 10hr though 6hrs are for biking and still you only train 4 hr for running you are training more pushing your body to adapt and grow fitter. IOW, while you are not running any more of what you usually do, in total your body is getting a greater dose of strain forcing it to adapt. You might not improve your run as much if you were to run more but you will run somehow faster just because overall you are training more.