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I ride 2x a week, one ride is a 2 hour week night ride with a group of 20-35 people so not massively fast and not hugeley technical, its a steady pace generally with 1500-2000 ft of elevation over 12-14 miles.
Ride no 2 is at the weekend and I try to make it a bigger tougher ride of 20+ miles and 3000+ ft of elevation gain, again its not fast or super technical bit a steady away pace.
I can pretty much ride for 4hrs + at a steady pace but struggle when I have a technical section on a climb that requires an injection of pace to over come it, well the first time is ok but if another section appears in a short distance I'm buggered from the first squirt and go to go over the first section!
Should I be doing interval training or something to allow me to recover better following my initial energy expenditure?
Thanks
Colin
To be brutally honest, the problem isn't lack of intervals, its lack of riding.
2 days a week isn't enough to improve once beyond the level of a raw beginner.
The only tip I can offer is to find an extra day or two to ride and get your volume up to 6hrs a week (pedalling time, faffing on group mtb rides doesn't count)
My understanding was that if I was plodding along then essentially ‘sprint’ I am engaging my anaerobic system with all it’s lactic acid by products and associated issues then go back to plodding along where I recover and redress the chemical balance during my next aerobic phase.
It seems to me that my anerobic recovery is not up to the job , is it not correct that I need to practice the anerobic element and the associated recovery?
To be brutally honest, the problem isn't lack of intervals, its lack of riding.
2 days a week isn't enough to improve once beyond the level of a raw beginner.
I've had it then.
If you want to ride faster, you need to... err... ride faster.
Glibness aside, 'faster' can either mean ride at the same speed more easily, or riding a higher speed for the same effort.
Either way, if all of your riding is at a 'steady pace', then I doubt you're stressing your body enough to get a decent training response, so I don't think you'll see much more improvement if you've been doing this for a while.
Some things to consider:
- Throwing some interval training into the mix would certainly help, but ideally this should be in addition to your existing riding, perhaps twice a week on a turbo at home. They don't need to take more than 45mins each.
- When on your longer rides on your own, crank it up for the last 20mins, and ride as hard as you can sustain (ie not sprinting).
- Try shorter rides, but do some long intervals, say 20mins focused effort, 20mins off, done three times.