Are some of us only meant to go so fast?

[RoadRaven]

Hey there... my two cents

Absolutely agree with velo girl

Heres my experience of the past few weeks... I am the "subject/assignment" for a student training to be a coach and she has written me a training a programme.

I had some fitness tests done (Lactate threshold, VO2max, endurance) and then she wrote me a six week programme.

A few weeks into it and I have broken two PBs in time trials and I feel stronger on hills than ever before. My strength (in these early days - only been riding/training since October 2004) and my weakness' are sprints and climbs.

She has scheduled me for three aerobic rides a week (which are not hard pushing - more like recovery pace - and a bit longer than usual rides) These rides are at 70%, 75% and 80% of max.
Then I do 1-2 specific rides per week - she has written into the schedule Fartlek sprints, hill repetitions (riding in the biggest gear I can while staying seated), and speed endurance sprints.

I am faster in my sprinting, I find hills still tough, but i am up them much more quickly - and this is after less than a month of training!

I have told her that when I have finished being her assignment and she has written her report on how the training programme went, I will pay her to write me another.

I have never had this much variety, or this many "recovery" pace rides - even though I have known going slower is possibly more important than lots of faster rides.

So based on this very limited experience thus far i would say vary what you do, do some hill reps with a specific speed, cadence or heart rate in mind... do some little sprints/intervals... make sure you do plenty of riding at a lower speed/resitance...