What am I doing wrong?

Originally posted by mchadcota2 I know noone really knows without an indepth look into my training but I'm hoping someone can give me some general advice. So I worked hard over the winter and thought I made some major strides on the bike. My bike training per week consisted of: 2 interval type workouts(either 4 x 5 min, or 3 x 10 min intervals), and 1 longer (1 hr ) fairly easy ride. Well lets assume that my measurements were accurate and that I got significantly faster for those 5 and 10 min intervals over the winter. Well for my first two races this season I have been no better on the bike, possibly worse. Is there something I should be doing differently in my training? Could it be that I need more long distance rides? 90% of my biking is on trainer. It's pretty discouraging to work hard all winter and not get any faster. Don't know if its relevant but I'm usually around 21.5-22.5 mph in sprint and olympic distance. Do I just need to put in more miles? Any suggestions appreciated.

Originally posted by 5stones Someone with more knowledge will hopefully chime in & give you a more in depth response but only biking 3x/wk at those effort levels will not result in improvement. I would suggest a minimum of 5x/wk & at least one should be 3+ hours w/ some hard efforts & structure. No meandering, easy rides.

Originally posted by RookieIM

It doesn't sound like your off season plan was all that strenuous. If you were BOP cyclist, riding around 16-17 mph in sprints than the level of cycling you did may have helped, but you're already moving at a good clip, so you have to do more. 20 or 30 minutes of intervals and 1 hour of long riding is almost nothing. You're at less than 2 hours per week. That's less than your long ride should be.
My off season cycling training consisted of two trainer sessions, and that was sufferfest training sessions, so I pretty much wanted to die by the end of them, and a long ride. The long ride being a minimum of 2 hours, and usually closer to 3. As a result I dramatically increased my cycling speed for my first big race and my effort was lower.

You don't need to increase the frequency but you really do need to increase the intensity and volume of your shorter, i assume, mid week rides, and do a much longer long ride.

Originally posted by mchadcota2

Oh and to answer someone's question from earlier, I use a garmin speed/cadence sensor. I know this is not 100% reliable but I thought it would be a decent guage. When I would do my 5 or 10 min intervals(the intervals were all out as fast as I could possibly go), I would record the speed that I held for the intervals. I would take an average of the 4 intervals at the end of the workout and write it all down. I went from averaging in the mid 22's for the 5 min intervals, to avging a little over 24 mph by the end of winter. I would keep the resistance on the trainer and the air pressure in my tire always consistent. I was so anxious to get out on the road because I thought I would be so much faster and that hasn't really been the case.

Originally posted by mchadcota2 Oh and to answer someone's question from earlier, I use a garmin speed/cadence sensor. I know this is not 100% reliable but I thought it would be a decent guage. When I would do my 5 or 10 min intervals(the intervals were all out as fast as I could possibly go), I would record the speed that I held for the intervals. I would take an average of the 4 intervals at the end of the workout and write it all down. I went from averaging in the mid 22's for the 5 min intervals, to avging a little over 24 mph by the end of winter. I would keep the resistance on the trainer and the air pressure in my tire always consistent. I was so anxious to get out on the road because I thought I would be so much faster and that hasn't really been the case.

or the 5 min interval I would bike as hard as I could for 5 min and then recover for 2 min. Do that 4 times

Originally posted by fisherman76

I think we found the smoking gun:


There is a LOT of information in this quote if you ask me (and you didn't, but being a forum, you get free advice like this!). I didn't see *how* you are measuring your efforts, other than by saying "hard" and "easy", but let's use RPE (relative perceived effort) as a scale for starters. 1 is 'asleep' and 10 is 'my eyeball just fell out', and there's an ocean in between. 9 is a sprint, 8 is a VERY strong effort, and 7 is race pace. To equate this to power, you'd map 7 to your FTP, which is commonly measured as your maximum sustainable 20 minute effort.
Here's a translation of RPE to FTP
3 50%
4 63%
5 76%
6 89%
7 100%
8 114%
9 127%
10 140%
Obviously having a power meter helps tremendously, not just for providing a numeric metric to work with, but also to determine day over day effort (your RPE=7 might not be as strong on Monday as it is on Wednesday!). Working backwards with your information, you're obviously not at RPE=10 for 5 minutes, and it's likely not at 9 either. 9 and 10 are flat out, and you can NOT hold those speeds for 5 minutes. Judging by your race results, that 5 minutes is probably your FTP level, or RPE=7. I can tell you if you're only doing 4 sets of 5 minute intervals at 100% FTP with 2 minutes in between, you will *not* make any progress. So at least the results make sense.

The good news is there is lots of progress available to you if you train differently, and smarter. If at ALL possible, set yourself up with TrainerRoad, that makes things a LOT easier to figure out, simply because it takes RPE out and replaces it with real numbers and lots of professionally structured workouts that are designed to specifically improve your cycling ability and power. I say ability and power, because they are two facets that don't develop in lockstep - a tremendously strong set of legs might be able to generate a huge amount of power by mashing the biggest gear, but can't sustain it very long. Over time you'll develop as a spinner as well as in strength, and find power comes differently from each. My body works much differently climbing a steep grade out of the saddle than it does in aero cruising on a flat. I'm hesitant to suggest any specific workouts, because there are many different types that address different things (FTP, cadence, climbing, power, endurance, etc), but at least for starters I can say if you want to raise your power, you'll need to push OVER that marker a lot more often. Instead of what you're doing now, maybe try some more intense sets, like :40 at RPE=9 (minimum cadence 95! nothing lower!!),:20 at RPE3 (rest), and do 8 of those. Then rest 2:00 of light spinning. Repeat 5 times with 5 minutes warm up and cool down for a solid hour of suffering. You need to redefine suffering -when you're done with that workout, you shouldn't have the energy to shake your fists at the gods and ask why they created you, you should be TOAST.

By the way, I don't know where your races are geographically, but where I live in the rolling hills of CT, 23 mph average is pretty beastly, and the difference between riding 22 and 23 mph is no chump change. Getting there takes SUFFERING, and lots of it. You keep pushing that threshold of pain higher and higher, as you get stronger and more efficient. You also won't really measure by mph, you'll measure by power output.

Originally posted by mchadcota2

Man that's some great info. I feel like I should send you a check. Thanks alot. It is now clear to me what my problem is. I am training the same amount of hours now as I was the last two years. That amount of hours was good enough to get to where I am, but not enough to get to the next level. 3 hours/week on the bike is enough to get you to a 21.5 mph biker. But if you wanna be 23 mph biker its gonna take 5-6 hours of biking.

And on and on. My 5 min intervals aren't gonna cut it. Unless I want to be a 5 min racer. Am I right here?

Originally posted by gsmacleod

Nope - duration is not the key factor - training load is and that is the product of intensity and volume. You don't need 5-6 hours of biking to go from 21.5mph to 23mph; you need to adjust your training load so that you have a higher training load this week than last - this is a progressive overload and will result in improved fitness.

Originally posted by mchadcota2

So...during the offseason I would repeat these 5 min interval workouts and 10 min interval workouts about every 2 weeks. I would try to beat my avg speed from the previous workout. Each workout I improved and by the end of offseason my speeds had improved a lot. I'm just trying to understand, would this be considered increasing the load each week? Increasing the volume week to week is easy to understand. But when it comes to intensity, I would say I was pushing as hard as I could each time I did these interval workouts. Would you say I need to increase the length of the intense intervals each week? Or do I need to include some shorter intervals at more of an anerobic pace? A previous poster pretty much said volume doesn't even matter and that he did just 1 hr to 1 hr 15 min workouts 3 times a week and made big improvements. Or do I just need to shut up and get TrainerRoad and get busy? Does TrainerRoad require a power meter?

Originally posted by mchadcota2

So let me pose my question a little differently to help me understand. If at the end of the season I am able to avg 22 mph for a particular 20 mile course, then during the off season I start these interval workouts. If I were to be using a power meter instead of my other method of measurement, and I am able to increase my power output for those 10 min intervals by 10 % during the offseason. Would you not expect an increase in speed for that same 20 mile ride? I'm wondering if its just a problem with my method of measurement.