"Training the Right Stuff at the
Right Time"
Endurance or aerobic fitness is a big part of winter training and when early spring comes, ride distances increase until they are as long as the longest race or event. There is no physiological reason for any master athlete who has been riding for at least 5 years* and whose longest race is 40 km/25 miles (about 1:0) to be out for 40-50 miles (3-4 hours). More times than not, the limiter is not endurance but rather muscular endurance and anaerobic fitness.
After a 12 week base period, which usually ends at the end of April, a good level of stamina has been established and higher intensity workouts are favored over endurance ie) intensities in zone 3, 4 and 5. It is strongly recommended that masters athletes put less emphasis on endurance and concentrate on power (maximum exertion with full recovery/acceleration efforts), anaerobic endurance (very tough lactate-tolerance intervals that trains the body to dissipate lactate from the blood and to buffer its effects) and muscular endurance (lactate threshold intervals that raise the threshold and increases aerobic capacity/oxygen delivery).
One of my athletes mentioned to me that her "oxygen delivery under intense conditions" is what fails. Indeed...this is the dilemma for any endurance athlete. It has everything to do with raising the lactate threshold. Genetic factors, age and disability do affect your oxygen delivery system or aerobic capacity, VO2max, which is the measurement of the amount of oxygen the body can consume during all-out endurance exercise. There was a time that aerobic capacity was the magic measurement that would help determine an endurance athlete’s performance. However, that is not the case. One of the best predictors of racing capacity is actually the highest percentage of VO2max that can be maintained for an extended period of time ... lactate threshold. The higher this percentage is, the faster the athlete will ride. Compared with aerobic capacity, lactate threshold is highly trainable.
That’s good news isn’t it…it’s not just a matter of having the right genetic stuff for the sport, it’s a matter of using your time wisely and specifically with the time you have.
*Cyclists who have trained less than 5 years, need a greater aerobic base to build the anaerobic work on. When I first started my racing career, the club coach had us get 1,000 miles in before VO2 interval work. The advice was pretty simple but it seemed to work well for us novices both in avoiding knee trouble and the tough interval work that followed.