Training for Speed

In a post from last September I noted that my cycling speed had fallen significantly since 2020 and proposed to focus my training on attempting to reverse that. How did that go?

Executive Summary

The training schedule I came up with last September to increase my ride speed was poorly thought out. Even so, I rode my fastest ride since 2022 while learning at the same time that, even if I had executed it better, the approach I was taking to increase my speed was probably the wrong approach for me to have taken at that point in time.

The Long Version

From the beginning of February until my birthday ride at the end of July, I followed two relatively familiar training plans, first a plan to get ready for a Metric Century (a 100 kilometer/62 mile long bike ride) and then a plan to continue riding a Metric Century a Month. Once I completed my Birthday Ride at the end of July, I had no additional long rides to prepare for so needed a new plan. Back in September, I posted that I planned to spend the remainder of 2024 attempting to reverse the decline in my cycling speed that has occurred since 2020. My riding in August was intended to allow me to recover from the riding in February through July with my new training plan beginning in September. What training plan did I propose to use to increase my speed? Actually, what I had was more of an aspiration than a plan. The problem is that although I have a well tested and successful plans for building and maintaining endurance (e.g. getting ready for a Metric Century,) I have never developed a plan for building speed. Further, it is my impression that building speed is much more difficult than building endurance; some even say that it cannot be done. Ignoring that discouraging context, I decided to try three things:

1. Increase the speed with which I rode one of my main go-to routes, the Alpine Ride.
2. Add Zone 6 intervals to my training schedule.
3. To avoid overtraining, eliminate my weekly long rides.

How did I execute that plan and how did it go?

Let me start by explaining what I had in mind when I proposed to increase the speed of my Alpine rides. I divide the speed at which I complete rides like this into two general categories named Zone 2 and Pace. For a Zone 2 ride, I carefully modulate my speed, especially uphill, to keep my heart rate within the Zone 2 range, which for me is between 110 and 135 beats per minute. For a Pace ride, I ride at whatever speed feels right. That can result in a range of heart rates from something indistinguishable from a Zone 2 ride (100% Zone 2) to one almost entirely in Zone 3 (135 to 150 beats per minute) and everything in between. What is the difference between a Pace ride where my heart rate is indistinguishable from a Zone 2 ride and a Zone 2 ride? The main difference is one of intent: if I decide to do a Pace ride and come home, look at my TranyaGo Heart Beat Monitor, and see that the entire ride was in Zone 2, I am surprised. Given that distinction, what I meant when I said that I proposed to increase the speed of my Alpine rides was that I planned to ride these as Pace rides rather than Zone 2 rides. Unfortunately, I had not carefully looked back at what riding I had been doing before and as a result it is unclear that this increase ever happened. I had imaged that between February and July most of my Alpine rides had been Zone 2 and that during my subsequent training to increase my speed, most of my Alpine rides would be Pace. In fact when, at the end of the eight weeks of my speed-increasing training I compared the ratio of Zone 2 and Pace rides during those two time periods, they were essentially the same. This was both because I rode more of my Alpine rides as Pace rides back in the first half of the year than I had remembered and because there were many days in September and October when I was feeling quite tired and on those days, I would ride my Alpine rides as Zone 2 rides. In summary, there is no good reason to think my planned change had any impact. There is one counter-argument. My Pace rides during September and October were faster, on average, than my Pace rides during February through July. Specifically, in October I rode an Alpine Ride at 12.3 miles per hour, faster than any Alpine ride since 2022.

The above describes how I did in executing part 1 of my plan (i.e. not well.) I did better in executing parts 2 and 3. With regards to part 3, I rode no long rides during August, September, or October as per the plan. With regards to part 2, my addition of Zone 6 rides was also successful. Zone 6 rides consist of a 15 minute warmup in Zone 1 followed by one or more Zone 6 intervals one minute in length separated by four minute recovery periods, followed by a 15 minute cool-down in Zone 1. I used the same route to accomplish this as I used in my previous Zone 6 intervals back in 2019.  Back then, I was doing three repeats of the one minute Zone 6 Intervals and found that if I tried to do one of these sets a week, I had a build-up of fatigue, and thus switched to one per month. This time, I decided to work up to the three repeats. I started with one repeat, waited a week, did two repeats, waited two weeks and then did three repeats. My plan was to wait four weeks and then do three repeats again, continuing with monthly sets of three repeats through the end of 2024. What happened is that the week I was scheduled to do my second set is the week I diagnosed myself with overtraining and halted this training plan until I felt more rested.

How did I decide I was suffering from overtraining? Mostly it came from listening to my body. In my training log, I track my subjective feeling of tiredness. Two weeks of that log, from September and October, are shown in the figure at the top of this post. I rate my fatigue on a six level scale; Very Tired, Tired, Somewhat Tired, OK, Good, and Strong. As a subjective scale, it has all the problems associated with subjectivity. Might a level of fatigue I call Somewhat Tired for one ride be the same as what I call OK for another? Absolutely. However, an unremitting list of rides rated as Somewhat Tired, Tired, and Very tired is pretty convincing. What does it look like when I am rested? Less convincing, at least on the surface. The best two week period in 2024 is this:

While it is true that this two week period spans the range from Very Tired to Strong, there is a pattern to that variation that makes sense. During this phase of my training I was working on building endurance with weekly long rides on the Alpine-Cañada route. Thus, these were my hardest rides of the week. The general pattern is that I felt good for these rides but was very tired afterwards and then recovered over the next week. This was exactly as it should have been. The problem with my recent riding (shown at the top of the post) is not the Tired or Very Tired days but the fact that I did not recover from them, that there were no Good or Strong days. That absence of Good or Strong days was the primary reason I felt I was overtraining. A secondary but important reason was that, as I was preparing last month's post, I came across a video by a highly respected coach and exercise scientist that described the symptoms of overtraining, and those symptoms closely matched how I was feeling. 

How did this happen? In retrospect, I think did not rest enough after my long rides before attempting this new training plan. Below is my training log for the last two full weeks of that recovery: 

I could easily make the theme of this post what a poor planner I am, but I don't feel that way. When I write a post like this, I force the messiness of real life into an unrealistic, rigid framework. The reality was that I didn't feel all that bad after my Birthday Ride, and yet I had the wisdom to take a bit of a break anyway. Until I wrote this post, I did not have the idea of looking for a trend in several days of my subjective fatigue rating to evaluate my overall fatigue level. When, on Friday, August 23, I went out for a ride on my Alpine route and ended up with a fairly good time (by 2024 standards) and felt pretty good, I really thought I was ready to start the next phase of my training. Looking back with the clarity of thought given to me by the writing of this post, I think that was too soon and that, going forward, I should look for a sustained pattern of lower subjective fatigue before I resume harder training. How am I doing in that regard? Here is my training log for the last two weeks:

Clearly my fatigue is lower than it had been, but not as good as it was back in April. In addition, there is one additional consideration. I will get to that consideration but would like to begin with a question: "What on earth was I thinking, riding a 'Brisk' ride on November 11th?" Brisk rides are my hardest rides. This brisk ride contained intervals in the highest of the Intensity zones, Zone 7. Why would I do a brisk ride during a period of time when my goal is to reduce fatigue? The reason is that additional consideration: we have now entered the Rainy Season here in California. I hate riding in the rain, and when I thought about it, it seemed unwise for an old man like me with my brittle bones to ride on rain-slick roads. This caused me to once again turn my attention to one of my most frequently-referenced publications, Gillen et al.  That publication argues that 3 x 20 second Zone 7 Intervals provides roughly the same health benefits as 45 minutes of Zone 2 training. By increasing that to 6 intervals, an indoor ride on my trainer would, if Gillen is correct, provide about the same benefits as one of my Go-To rides, the Cañada ride. During a week where rain keeps me indoors, I can substitute what I call 'Gillen Intervals' for an outdoor rides and hopefully maintain fitness. I suspect that rain will be a major determinant of how I ride until sometime around the end of January. If I see a pattern in my Subjective Fatigue over a week or two and if weather allows, I may try a few of my Tamarack Sprints (Zone 6) but I am not going to worry if that doesn't happen. I will do my best to maintain as much fitness as I can given the weather and will refocus come February 2025.