Turbo Alternative to a Endurance Base Ride

As we had to cancel this week’s long ride due to bad weather / risk I thought it worth posting a copy of the session that I did on the turbo on Saturday as an alternative for those days when you cannot get out in daylight or when it’s unsafe to ride:

Warm up
5 minutes of easy pedalling keeping cadence high but the gear low.
5 minutes of alternate 30 second intervals, standing / seated. More effort on the standing intervals.
6 minutes of single leg drills. 1 minute each side repeated three times.

Main set
4 minute intervals at around 80% of Lactate Threshold. Followed by 30 seconds spinning harder in the same gear and a 30 second sprint in the same gear. Repeat for 12 sets.
After 12 sets change up 1 gear and repeat for another 12 sets. This time aiming to be around 85-90% of LTHR.

Lactate threshold is typically the effort that you can sustain for an hour or a 25 mile TT.
For most of us a rule of thumb is around 85% of Max Heart Rate.
For example my MHR is 171. 85% of MHR is 145.
80% of LTTR is 116, 90% of LTHR is 130.

The spin ups and sprints will take you Above these levels but you should recover to the desired zone in a minute or so.

After the second set do a 5 minute cool down of easy spinning.

Total session time was 2 hours 20. You can shorten the session by reducing the number of intervals if you prefer.