Increasing Lactate Threshold

As a follow up to the turbo session on the 21st December here's a quick summary of what why we are trying to increase our lactate threshold and how we started training to do it:
Lactic acid is produced by our muscles and at low intensity our bodies can process that continuously. When we reach a state called Lactate Threshold our bodies are producing more Lactic Acid than it can process, this then results in the build up of Lactic Acid and ultimately limits our performance. Typically most of reach that point at 80-85% of Max Heart Rate (MHR). This point is sometimes expressed as a % of VO2(max). Most sedentary people reach this at around 60% and good club athletes at around 80%. Elite endurnace athletes may be as high as 90%.
Therefore, for our type of events it is advantagoeus to increase our Lacate Threshold and the session we did at the turbo class was designed to help us do that. If we can time trial at a higher intensity for longer this will directly result in more power and speed. By doing intervals above Lactate Threshold we can train our bodies to deal with Lactic Acid. The method we used was to continuously cross that threshold. If you look at the output from my heart monitor you can see that I crossed that 85% threshold 7 times during the session.

To remind you of the session that we did and to enable you to re-create it / adapt it to your needs here is a summary:
20 mins warm up, drills to increase cadance, some single leg drills.
Pyramid session
1 min in a gear that gets you below Lactate Threshold but isn't too easy
1 min recovery
2 min interval, 1 min in the gear that was used for the first 1 min interval and 1 min in a gear that's two clicks harder
1 min recovery
3 min interval, 2 mins in the first gear used and one min two clicks harder
1 min recovery
4 min interval, 3 plus 1 as per the previous pattern
1 min recovery
5 min interval, either 4 + 1 or 3 + 2 if you can manage it
1 min recovery
5 min interval, either 4 + 1 or 3 + 2 if you can manage it
1 min recovery
4 min interval, 3 plus 1 as per the previous pattern
1 min recovery
3 min interval, 2 plus 1 as per the previous pattern
1 min recovery
2 min interval, 1 plus 1 as per the previous pattern
1 min recovery
1 min in the harder gear
10 mins easy pedalling to cool down

This session has been adapted from one I learned from Richard Stannard's Turbo Torture class that I attended on the 19th December. If ever you're in the Windsor area on a Monday or Thursday I can recommend them as excellent sessions and good opportunities for learning good training techniques.

Feel free to adapt the session by adding / deleting more intervals depending on the time you have and your fitness.