Cycling Fitness / Training Advice

your grasping there because ive not actually posted a picture of it. it hangs together brilliantly but I could tip it over the edge with the wrong colour bar tape. ill be in touch.

Personally i prefer caffeine and techno 😁

Now you're talking.

This is the pro way to recover.

If you are feeling time poor, I'm going to be controversial and suggest running at some point should feature. I don't know what the mud levels are like on your "cx scene", the ability to run without thinking "fuck this" is a good thing to have in the "skills quiver".
If you've got an hour ish and you need a decent non turbo session then there's always the lovely 30 - 30 - 30 sessions which I think are :

30/30s For The Win: 1 block of 5 minutes of 30 seconds all out/30 seconds rest.
30 bike sprint
30 rest
dismount + shoulder
30 run
remount
30 rest
30 bike sprint
recover for a period of time
cry.
repeat 5 min block
recover
cry
repeat 5 min block

that kind of thing.

Voice over: Damo hasn't done this shit in years. His interval training is mainly food.

This is a lovely sprint power/skill session 👍 a football pitch is good for this spin the length, sprint the width, spin the length, shoulder and run the width repeat as recommended above
Edit: if you have access to one of your local cx venues using a portion of that is even better

love this! thanks. my current cross session is similar:

do a simplified lap of the cross course (i train on a field where they do a regular race each year)
3x8 hill reps: roll down hill, shoulder bike and run up hill, remount and "sprint" round papal monument. 1 minute recovery, but sometimes will do a lap instead of the recovery.
more laps trying to beat my lap time from before (usually only a couple more)
end

and to be honest, it's too easy to not push yourself hard enough

"training" with someone is always better.
If you're racing, you're probably competitive. If you train with someone else well there you go. Instant race times.

Usually features recovery carbohydrate drinks after.

I don't know what the mud levels are like on your "cx scene"

you've... you've been to the north west of england

I don’t see how it’s bad advice. You’re measuring yourself against the only metric that actually matters for time trialling and using it as a way to push yourself.

when i've done sweet spot training in the past, i did it based on average speed over 20 minutes (on a fixed bike on a hilly course :D) speed is all that matters at the end of the day i guess

Yes. But what memories of the North West do not involve mud and bikes. I have changed a lot since then.

Pills, thrills and bellyaches?

manchester is covered with a thin layer of mud at all times

That's about right.

All those geese in Ardwick bothered me last time I was there. Goose shit EVERYWHERE.

Yeah apologies. As I said above I think I completely misread your post.

I thought your were prescribing a killer training session with a guarantee of improvement / adaptation.

You weren’t, you were highlighting using the Garmin feature as better than not using the Garmin feature.

This is a lovely sprint power/skill session 👍 a football pitch is good for this spin the length, sprint the width, spin the length, shoulder and run the width repeat as recommended above

so i did this on Sunday (thanks also @Chalfie) and to be honest i love this kind of thing but is it basically a waste of time this late in the season? am i better off taking it easy on non-racing weeks?

Doing that session once a week is good for keeping fit.

It all depends whether your expecting to be needing that type of fitness anytime soon? If you like doing them they are fine to do every now and then to blow the cobwebs away but they probably shouldn't be a staple this early in the season. Probably strength and endurance building sessions would be more suitable right now. If you like doing that sort of session though 6-8 weeks out from needing that race specific fitness start doing them a couple of times a week. To incorporate them into a plan and actually build fitness rather than just doing that same session over and over try to build on it by either adding a rep or making the loop a little longer or even reducing the recovery by either making it shorter or upping the intensity of easier stretches in your loop every week to form a progression.

Yes exactly thats a great session for keeping you fit but to start getting fitter you need to build on it at some point. But thats probably not necessary right now.

this early in the season

this is the thing though – it's late in the cross season. there's still a couple of races to go (COVID permitting).

ideally i would be fitter than i am right now, but that's EVERY ONE ELSE'S FAULT NOT MINE

One more point, and i appreciate i'm kind of treating you as my personal coach now, @Retro_bastard, one of my constraints is time, so i'm not really able to do weekly 4-hour weekend rides to build the base that most plans use as a foundation.

that's why i started looking at higher intensity work because i thought it would suit the kind of higher intensity riding i do. so in your suggested plan, my weekly january mileage would be... 30 or something? Very low really.

-40W on the first test of the year compared to 2020's last one. Go me!

This makes me feel better about my own 40w drop.
Although you’ve only lost 0.1w/kg? Whereas I’ve dropped 1w/kg (not real maths)

My motto is never test until you’ve suffered through a month of abandoned workouts at your old FTP.