Cycling workouts defined

[Zen Cycle]

Excerpts from
https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/cycling-interval-sessions-hurt-but-youll-find-all-the-people-who-want-to-kill-you-with-their-car-in-the-gym

Long Ride.....“Long” can mean absolutely anything you like, but if it’s
less than around 45 minutes, you’ll want to lie about it to other
riders....can give the impression to the rest of your family that you
might just be having fun with your friends.

The Sweetspot/Easy Tempo....Not too hard, not too long, and with
substantial, if nebulous, fitness benefits promised....But, curiously,
only the first time you do it. Second time, even if it’s exactly the
same ride, it will feel as if it lasts for ever. If you keep doing it,
it will only get worse.

The Threshold Session....A boxer trying to come up with the equivalent
would just punch themselves in the face for 40 minutes....mostly what
they do is make you smell too bad to be allowed in the cafe. Most
coaches only prescribe the session to promote “psychological
resilience”. This just means that they’ve come to really hate you.

The Long Interval Session...A bit like the threshold session in that
you’ll hate it and keep hating it. It has the added bonus that after
you’ve discovered how unhappy the first effort makes you, you’ll know
what you’re going to get in the rest of them.

The Short Interval Session....Only after several minutes will the full
crescendo of horror reveal itself.....the short interval session has an
autoamnesia function. You can never remember how terrible they are
afterwards, probably due to a lack of oxygen to the brain.

Finally, there is The Gym. This is unpleasant because of one thing:
people. It turns out that all the people who want to kill you with their
car are on their way to the gym. In this environment they are, if
anything, even less lovable than they are on the open road.

[cyclintom]

Post by Zen Cycle
Excerpts from
https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/cycling-interval-sessions-hurt-but-youll-find-all-the-people-who-want-to-kill-you-with-their-car-in-the-gym
Long Ride.....?Long? can mean absolutely anything you like, but if it?s
less than around 45 minutes, you?ll want to lie about it to other
riders....can give the impression to the rest of your family that you
might just be having fun with your friends.
The Sweetspot/Easy Tempo....Not too hard, not too long, and with
substantial, if nebulous, fitness benefits promised....But, curiously,
only the first time you do it. Second time, even if it?s exactly the
same ride, it will feel as if it lasts for ever. If you keep doing it,
it will only get worse.
The Threshold Session....A boxer trying to come up with the equivalent
would just punch themselves in the face for 40 minutes....mostly what
they do is make you smell too bad to be allowed in the cafe. Most
coaches only prescribe the session to promote ?psychological
resilience?. This just means that they?ve come to really hate you.
The Long Interval Session...A bit like the threshold session in that
you?ll hate it and keep hating it. It has the added bonus that after
you?ve discovered how unhappy the first effort makes you, you?ll know
what you?re going to get in the rest of them.
The Short Interval Session....Only after several minutes will the full
crescendo of horror reveal itself.....the short interval session has an
autoamnesia function. You can never remember how terrible they are
afterwards, probably due to a lack of oxygen to the brain.
people. It turns out that all the people who want to kill you with their
car are on their way to the gym. In this environment they are, if
anything, even less lovable than they are on the open road.

I am well past lying about my rides. Not that I ever did mmore than round off numbers, but rounding off 11,640 miles to 12,000 is a lot of added miles. The first of the year here I still have one more riding day before it starts raining and I have 460 miles and a little under 15,000 feet of climbing. But Friday and Saturday will rain. And generally it can rain pretty steady for the next two months. Last year I only got in about 500 miles for both Fedruary and March combined. But there's always a small chance that this will be a dry year.

[Roger Merriman]

Post by Zen Cycle
Excerpts from
https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/cycling-interval-sessions-hurt-but-youll-find-all-the-people-who-want-to-kill-you-with-their-car-in-the-gym
Long Ride.....“Long” can mean absolutely anything you like, but if it’s
less than around 45 minutes, you’ll want to lie about it to other
riders....can give the impression to the rest of your family that you
might just be having fun with your friends.
The Sweetspot/Easy Tempo....Not too hard, not too long, and with
substantial, if nebulous, fitness benefits promised....But, curiously,
only the first time you do it. Second time, even if it’s exactly the
same ride, it will feel as if it lasts for ever. If you keep doing it,
it will only get worse.
The Threshold Session....A boxer trying to come up with the equivalent
would just punch themselves in the face for 40 minutes....mostly what
they do is make you smell too bad to be allowed in the cafe. Most
coaches only prescribe the session to promote “psychological
resilience”. This just means that they’ve come to really hate you.
The Long Interval Session...A bit like the threshold session in that
you’ll hate it and keep hating it. It has the added bonus that after
you’ve discovered how unhappy the first effort makes you, you’ll know
what you’re going to get in the rest of them.
The Short Interval Session....Only after several minutes will the full
crescendo of horror reveal itself.....the short interval session has an
autoamnesia function. You can never remember how terrible they are
afterwards, probably due to a lack of oxygen to the brain.
people. It turns out that all the people who want to kill you with their
car are on their way to the gym. In this environment they are, if
anything, even less lovable than they are on the open road.

I don’t do workouts my fitness is a by product of my enjoyment of cycling,
I’m generally not interested in times up for example a road climb, but
enjoy technical climbs which tend to be less about the time more if one can
do it feet up!

Roger Merriman

[Frank Krygowski]

I don’t do workouts my fitness is a by product of my enjoyment of cycling...

Agreed. Actually I never did do planned workouts. The (relatively) big
hill on the way home from work was always painful enough to count as an
interval, at least in my mind. And riding with my wife or daughter on
the back of the tandem probably put me in my best shape ever, back in
the day.

At my age now, my motive is mostly to just keep moving.