Intenisty, suffering, etc.

[jeffg]

I was thinking of the advice on climbing, and while suffering is certainly part of getting better at climbing, I recalled some advice I got when training for some longer events. I do work in more workouts at/above LT now, but what is also important is one's general approach to training. I hope the individual concerned would not mind me sharing a bit of his advice, and I think it is helpful. I certainly improved that year despite doing much of my riding indoors, and I truly believe this approach was largely responsible.

"The reason why workouts [at or slightly above threshold] are not so relevant for the time being is
that only a small amount of it should be put into your weekly load.
The misconception that 'harder work = faster riding' is very common,
unfortunately: you can train at very high intensities for a lot of your
schedule, yes. Your anaerobic threshold would probably go up very quickly,
but together with it, your organism would accumulate excessive stress from
the high intensity and eventually you would over-train (and that's something
you really would love). Without the proper foundations, the building will
crash sometime soon.

You see, raising one's own threshold is something that has to be done very
carefully. We are not machines, we have to approach the values from 'below',
and gently but steadily work to push it upwards, adjust and adapt, learn
from our feelings and then become better cyclists/athletes.

Your thoughts about raising your threshold are correct from a certain point
of view (specific training to raise it, so you would be ready for the
climbing at a certain speed). BUT, a 200 miles event is a hard task for
everyone, for professionals, let alone amateurs! We cannot approach it as if
it were a normal 140 km race.
It is simply not physiologically possible to approach and race it at 90% of
your threshold level all the time, no matter how high your threshold is,
You'll break down before cutting the finish line, and your performance will
be affected in the big picture."