So what’s the go with a bike focus?
There are two important zones that will directly effect how you ride in an IM. You have your IM effort which is generally around the top of zone 1 to lower zone 2. Spending as much time in this zone during your IM specific preps is important for enhancing your economy at that effort. By developing your economy at goal race pace you’re in fact going to ride faster.
At the end of the day the Pro’s and elite age groupers are not racing that much harder then anyone else. There won’t be much variation in the effort but, there will be a big variation in economy and that is what makes these guys faster. They can maintain a higher output at the same effort because they are more economical .
Improving your economy is linked directly to how much training you are able to absorb and not necessarily the intensity. Intensity will improve your economy but it will be at the expense of how much you are able to train. This is where things can become unbalanced. As you enter your IMspecific preps you need to decide how much volume is appropriate in relation to how muchintensity you think you need.
Then there is the other zone which is your Functional Threshold (FT). Your FT is the best effort you can hold for a 40km time trial. Because I don’t train with a powermeter I’ll use HR here. My average heart rate over an all out 40km TT at the moment is 166bpm. Therefore, 166bpm is my FT HR. During the offseason, is a good time to work on improving your FT? Yes because it known that IMeffort is raced at a % of FT. Therefore if you improve your power output at FT you are indirectly improving your power output at IMeffort. Studies have shown that IMeffort is 72-78% of FT power. So by spending some time training in and around FT you'll be improving your ability to ride at a higher output at IMeffort.
Since it is the offseason for me and I have around 8 weeks left before I start my IMspecific preps. Now is the perfect time to do a bike focus and improve my FT. I have purposely placed the bike focus right before my IM specific preps so that I can carry over as much power on the bike with me into my IM training. By improving my FT on the bike I’m also improving my strength and muscular endurance as an added bonus .
I’m about to embark on a bike focus block of training over the next 6-7 weeks. The idea is to improve my FT power on the bike before I start my IM specific preps. There’ll be 5 others joining me with the bike focus and this should help keep everyone motivated, especially with it being so cold here in Tokyo at the moment.
Here is a sample of the 3 key bike sessions that I will be doing this week. I aim to include another 1-2 easy aerobic ride of around 1.5hrs.
Paul (FT HR 166bpm)
MondayRide 1
2hr ride
1hr main set
3x20min @ 150-155bpm
10min RI
Run:(30min), 5.5km, 130bpm.
Easy run around the canal. Knee about 6/10
WednesdaySwim: (50min), 2km
200
2-100
200
2-100
200
300
3-100
6-50
200 easy
Holding around 1:30/100 pace in the 25m pool. Just under 1:30's with the bouy.
Run (40min), 7.2km, av hr 125bpm
this was a 20min to and from the pool. It was very wet and cold.
Thursday
Ride 2
2hr ride
5 x3min @ 160-165bpm
5min RI
This was tough session. I did the 1st 4 repeats into a strong headwind and I only averaged 28kph. The next 2 were into a crosswind and I averaged around 34-36kph.
I found it really difficult to break 160bpm on the 1st effort after that it was okay.
FridaySaturday 
Ride 3
4hr ride
2x20min @ 150-155bpm
10min RI
4 x10min @ 150-155bpm
10min RI
Felt strong on the bars. started to feel fatigued on the last rep. Rode these with Eric. Pace was pretty good going into a slight headnwind (ie around 35kph). At a 150-155bpm I feel like I can hold 38-39kph. Just can't quite crack 40kph yet.
Run: (22min), 4.5km, no hr
Felt like I was flying today and my RPE was really low. This has been my best run this year in terms of pace and RPE off a solid bike effort.
Swim: (50min), 1.5km
Mainly a series of 50's, drills and we worked on our tumble turns.
SundayTotal
swim 1:40
Bike 8:10
Run 1:42
Other 1:45
Total 13:07
Summary
I was really cautious with my training this week. With the start of the bike focus and coming off my knee injury, I decided to knock my hours back and give myself a little more rest. This seems to have work well. I executed the 3 bike sessions as planned and my knee has fully recovered.
next week I aim to bring my hours back up to around 18hr while still maintaining some higher quality bike sessions (x3).
After assessing my training over the last 6months I have found that 16-18rs PW seems to be my sweet spot in terms of volume at the moment. I think around 6months ago that sweet spot was 14-16hrs. I feel like I'm handling the volume better now and my recovery strategies are paying off. Ultimately I still think I need to be at 20-22hrs PW before I can really jump up to the next level.
Incorporating some high intensity work into the bike focus block and then being able to handle 16-18hrs PW will be a test to see if I'm ready or not for another slightly increase in volume.
fluro
At the start of each week I’ll post the bike sessions in advance for anyone else to use.
At the end of the challenge we'll do a 20-40km TT so assess our improvements on the bike and set up our training zones for the IM specific preps to follow.
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