Last week, I showed a short video of one of my Ironman cycling threshold training sessions. I received many comments and questions after that post. The most common being, “How do you do 5 hours on that thing?" Truth is, if you can do 5 or 6 hours outdoors, you can do 5 hours on the trainer. You can; you just have to WANT to do it! Some people prefer to ride courses on the computrainer. They set the course, zone out, and ride way. This is a great way to preview a course if you are unable to put in some training time on it. I prefer to use the ergometer mode and compose my own workouts. My long ride varies in intensity and duration as I progress though each training cycle. Here is my long ride session from last weekend. I can honestly say I was never bored!
Session Breakdown
Wu: 20 min. build to Z2.
10 min. build by 2 min. to upper zone 3.
5 min. easy
1 hour tempo as 4x (5min. just under IMwatts, 10 min at IM watts). Round 1 and 3 are at Cadence70 & 2 and 4 at cadence 95.
15 min easy-1:50
Three rounds of:
30 min.build-start at IM watts and build to slightly over at IM cadence
15 min. easy
10 min hard at cadence slightly above IM
5 min easy.
Cd:10 min. easy=5 hours
Tips
1. Use a fan. You will perform better and recover faster.
2. Have some entertainment. TV is fine, but you likely won’t even be watching it! Music will keep you pumped.
3. Hydrate. You will lose so much more fluid biking indoors than outdoors, and you need to compensate for that.
4. Fuel yourself adequately. This workout is intense.
5. Get a partner. Preferably one that doesn’t talk much after the warm up! You won’t want to talk, trust me!
6. You will likely have to make a bathroom trip at some point. Leave a clean dry pair of shorts in there and change quickly at the half way point. When you do it, you’ll see why!