Too much tempo riding?

Hi all, you guys have already know a bit of myself in some posts.
As a beginner im sure ive made my mistakes trying to coach myself. Ive always done sports and have a coaching background in other sports, so i started trying to study about cycling and im still learning a lot, thanks to you guys and other sources.

During January i decided to ride more regularly. Increase the hours on the bike (ive got them to 9 or 10 a week), and from march on i also increased climbing time and time on a single ride, so i could prepare for my event this saturday (117K, 2800+).

Although i learned what it is a base period etc and what structure riding should be, im guilty of not really sticking to a really structured program. Rather i was just riding (most times alone), and when a small climb came i did Z4 or Z5 depending on the length of the climb, so i wasnt really doing until a few weeks ago any structured training like doing 2x20 mins at FTP or things like that, i was just riding and saying ok im going faster on this section, or today i feel good im going at tempo, etc.

So really i ended up most rides trying to go ‘as fast as possible’ depending on the length of the ride of course my avg W or NP would be higher or lower, but i usually end up on 75 to 80 something intensity for the rides. If the ride had more climbs as my last weeks then i would try to not enter too much Z4 if it was a longer ride, but of course if you have a lot of climbing i would end up on high Z3 most of the time.

good thing is ive found i can ride at tempo for long now, ive definitely improved on this, but my ftp has gone a bit up, but not that much, and i suspect it may be cause i have made mistakes on my preparation.

So in this graph you can see my 3 levels training on weeks, i think i may ended up doing too much Z3 (out of 7 levels), but im not sure. What do you guys think?

Perhaps you could share your totals page, that shows the time in zone. Like this one:


This two images, one of them from beginning of year till now. Other from 1 march to 15th may.
You have power and heart zones there @Gerald

I guess most of my z1 riding is downhill or coasting


This one 1st january till 1st march

Heart rate can get quite messy because the heart doesn’t freewheel; it passes through the levels (zones) on the way up, and back down again during the work periods.

Your base work might not have been perfect, but it certainly wasn’t a waste. You’ve admitted it’s too much tempo, but I can promise you that there are world class coaches out there that do a similar amount of tempo work, in their base programs (for the recreational cyclists they coach). The only difference I can guess, is that the long ride on a Saturday/Sunday is all endurance or lower intensities and the amount of rest/recovery.

Thanks @Gerald i dont think its a complete waste but i havent done it properly i think.

I havent done intervals at Z4 other than a few longer climbs (there arent many here). I just think i should have done more structured sessions at ftp intervals instead of doing a lot of z3 and all out (z5+) efforts on short climbs. And probably should have done a lot more of z2.

I somehow ended up in a not so hard efforts and not pure endurance either

Have a listen to this podcast, it talks about CTL, but touches on the base training and then using the power duration curve for the build and race/competition phases. For me it’s a good summary of a topic that can be discussed for hours.

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