Interval training to prepare for a long hill climb?

[Lewis Moon]

Here's the situation in bulleted form:
a) I'm a 56 year old ex-racer (long ago) who's been back on the bike for ~1.5 years
b) I average ~140 miles per week in 5 days, most of it flat to rolling, some hills, all averaging ~ 18 - 20 mph 99% solo. Because I live in HOT AZ and have a long commute, I crowd most of the big rides in on the weekends
c) I want to ride the AZ hill climb championship on Mount Graham (20 miles, HC) and I'd like to do my best. Not looking to win, I just want to know that I left it all on the hill.
d) I have eight weeks to prepare
e) as of late, I've felt a bit stale, like I can't light the torch

I think I need to do some speed work. Lately I've been concentrating on getting longer, harder workouts in at the expense of my short, fast rides, so it feels like I don't have access to the higher gear. It feels like it's there...I can ride close to redline for a good long time, I am just having trouble getting it to shift up.
I really don't think it's over training, I'm very consious of that, I just think I'm in a rut.
My question is: How would you structure intervals over the next eight weeks? The race is NOT a crit, it'll be at least 1:45 long at a pretty constant pace, so explosive is not what I'm looking for. What I'm looking to do is to raise the red line. I have limited access to long hills. The only one close is about 5 miles long at around 4% grade average. I can drive to an HC (El Capitan) a couple of times too. Bike Ride Profile | 97miles near Superior | Times and Records | Strava
Anyone have any advice?

[Matthew Strongin]

e) as of late, I've felt a bit stale, like I can't light the torch...
<snip>
I really don't think it's over training, I'm very consious of that, I just think I'm in a rut.

I'm not pretending to know your body more than you do, but when was your last break? Like a week without touching your bike? You may not be full on overtrained, but it's pretty easy to get to a point where your body doesn't want to adapt without a break and change in routine. At least in my experience. And since you have 8 weeks, now might be a time to give your body a rest before tackling a structured program.

PS - I suck at taking my own advice and rarely rest enough...but I always feel stronger a couple weeks after I do.

[roseyscot]

I'm not pretending to know your body more than you do, but when was your last break? Like a week without touching your bike? You may not be full on overtrained, but it's pretty easy to get to a point where your body doesn't want to adapt without a break and change in routine. At least in my experience. And since you have 8 weeks, now might be a time to give your body a rest before tackling a structured program.

PS - I suck at taking my own advice and rarely rest enough...but I always feel stronger a couple weeks after I do.

I agree with Matt. I just came from where you are, and after a bad weather, vacation, mild stomach bug induced week off, I'm feeling MUCH better in the last few weeks (now 2.5 weeks removed from the start of that time off the bike). I'm ramping up training for cx and feel like I can actually get the watts up where they need to be to be productive again.

oh, and my riding during the week sounds similar to yours - 150-200 miles while commuting

[Lewis Moon]

I just took a 10 day break in Santa Fe. I fudged a bit and got some solid hikes in at 8000 ft with a lot of climbing, but otherwise it was a lot of watching the humming birds do battle over the feeder. I posted this across the hall too, and after some great questions, I took a look at my training history. I go hard all the time. If you look at a lot of my rides you'll see a pretty flat heart rate curve somewhere around 155-165. I just don't back off...but I don't go much higher, either. Like I said, a rut.

[roseyscot]

I just took a 10 day break in Santa Fe. I fudged a bit and got some solid hikes in at 8000 ft with a lot of climbing, but otherwise it was a lot of watching the humming birds do battle over the feeder. I posted this across the hall too, and after some great questions, I took a look at my training history. I go hard all the time. If you look at a lot of my rides you'll see a pretty flat heart rate curve somewhere around 155-165. I just don't back off...but I don't go much higher, either. Like I said, a rut.

yup, again, i can relate. i can't speak to the best thing to do for climbing, but i would suggest going to the best hills you can in your area and do some mixed pace efforts during the climb. 10-20 second bursts of speed uphill, then back off for 60 seconds, then do it again. think about what the real climbers in the stage races are doing. hard efforts to break the group, then back to tempo, then hard again, repeat.

sounds like you need to do something to train your body on how to go from 120 bpm to 180 bpm, then back down to 120 bpm.*


* I have no idea what i'm doing myself, other than listening to a smarter person than I when it comes to my own training for cx season

[wasfast]

"Intervals" can mean anything in terms of intensity and time. For a 20 mile climb, it's essentially an uphill time trial which means FTP workouts to me. Doing the standard 4 x 10', 3 x 15', 2 x 20' with short recoveries between is often the formula. You can substitute some VO2 max occassionally (105-110% of FTP).

You don't state if you have a power meter, heart rate monitor or just use perceived exertion. A power meter would be nicely applied for a climb like this.

[Too Tall]

What are your thoughts after reading the replies?

[suhacycles]

FWIW, doing intervals at the same cadence as what you'll be climbing at may be almost as important as the intensity of those intervals. Do you enjoy hammering on the flats into a headwind? =)

[Lewis Moon]

What are your thoughts after reading the replies?

A lot of great replies, here and across the hall. Several of them prompted me to go back and look at my past training logs as well as examine the motivations behind picking this race as my first one back, and one of the few I do this year.
My training logs pointed out that I was in a rut. I go hard all the time and can spend 1 - 2 hours right at "red line" (~165bpm) but I have a lot of trouble pushing it past that mark and and when I do, I blow up really quickly. Boom. To try to push the redline up the meter a bit I'm going to do long and short intervals on the flats and medium intervals in the hills. The longer ones will consist of 5 - 10 mile TTs where I'll ride outside the afore mentioned envelope, the short intervals will consist of sets of 30 second punches where I'll ride up to somewhere well above threshold then push it to my max for the last 10 seconds. Recovery will be back to a reasonable state so that subsequent intervals don't degrade (much). The hill intervalls will consist of ~10 minute charges up something like the back side of Usery Pass here in AZ, turn around and repeat. I'll concentrate on maintaining form and tempo on these.
As for my motivation: I'll have to admit I picked a hard hill climb because I'm decidedly not a climber. At 6'5" and ~180lbs, I can't compete against the anorexic midgets, but I can do the best that I can do. I just like the aesthetics of hill climbing.

Basically:
Mon: Rest
Tue: Spin w/ short set(s) depending on recovery
Wed: Short Intervals hard
Thu: Rest
Fri: Long intervals
Sat: Spin fun ride
Sun: Hill intervals

I'm going to do this for four weeks, rest and spin for 5 or 6 days, then significantly shorten and intensify the intervals for a week and a half or so then taper for the race. I don't expect huge gains but it'll be a good set up for riding Durango-Silverton this spring.

[Too Tall]

Got it. Thanks for the reply. Full disclosure I am a pro coach for whatever value that holds.
Without alot of explaination I'd like to offer two things. First, please consider having alot more rest in the form of sleeping, not riding OR riding small ring super easy and no misbehavior. It sounds like you need to freshen up and without the physical recovery you lack capacity to train to higher levels and often the case is you lack ability to train effectively at all. Second is to do some focused work on your 5 min. ability. This is your ability to hold the highest possible power for 5 mins. recover and repeat. At whatever point you are fresh enough to knock out a few of these take note of your gear/and speed during the intervals and that is enough data for your purposes. Once a week for now is enough. Work up to 4 or 5 repeats and take a rest than go climb a well know 10 min.s long climb and report back. Use this as your baseline / test for improvement.

[Lewis Moon]

Thanks a lot!

[Lewis Moon]

I thought I'd give an update:
It's still summer in AZ. Duh. It was like 113 degrees last week and the mornings are down right humid for Arizona (~40%). Nevertheless, I've been training. This has (basically) been my schedule:
Mon: Rest
Tue PM: Spin 1/2 hour on trainer @ HR=150 (75+% max)
Wed AM: 6 x 3/4 mile, 2% grade intervals at 130% FTP(ish) ride back rest
Thurs PM: Spin 1/2 hour on trainer @ HR= 140 or rest
Fri AM: 30 miles basically TTish
Sat AM: 20 miles at HR = 150 + - depending on recovery
Sun AM: Hill repeats: 5 x 3.6 miles, 5% @ HR = 170 - 180 (40 miles)

Not a lot of milage at this point but definately some intensity. I figure between scheduling and recovery, I can't do much more than ~ 110 a week right now. I'm tolerating it well, although the rest day(s) have really shown me how much the intervals take out of me. I'll realize that it isn't until the evening of the rest day (36 hours post workout) that I start feeling recovered.
So far, so good.