Why do shorter rides feel less taxing than longer rides, TSS being equal?

Training
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This weekend I changed things up a bit.

I’m training for a 160 mile one day ride in July and so I needed to make sure I could handle a lot of volume. So I built into it - on 6 consecutive weekends I did 80, 80, 100, 100, 120, 120 miles.

Now I will grant you that the first four of those rides had power meter data and that I was probably spending a lot more load than I wanted to.

But even the last two weekends with accurate power data were really tough, especially the last 20 miles. I’m confident I can finish 160 and also confident it’s going to hurt.

This past weekend I said screw the miles, I want to get the work in and forget about the distance (and actually enjoy some of my weekend for once). So I looked at my training load from the two 120 rides (~350) and split that into 2 rides on Saturday and Sunday - riding as hard as I could until I hit half of the training load mark (40 miles on Sat and 50 miles on Sun).

I feel way better after this weekend than I did after those 2 rides (I did not ride on Sunday on either of those weekends) - what gives?

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Because TSS doesn’t do a good job of accounting for duration. It counts the same stress for the 1st hour as the 7th hour, even though that 7th hour is going to be harder, even at a relatively easy effort.

TSS is a pretty decent measure over time, but it’s not necessarily great for comparing specific efforts to each other, particularly in terms of subjective feel.

Also - your fitness is getting better, and those long rides have a surprising impact on your ability to go harder on your shorter rides.

That being said, be careful that you don’t think that because you “feel” better, they also didn’t take something out of you.

This is where the art of training comes in. TSS is a useful number, but it’s just a number.

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Fabric5000 is right, at the same time there could be a ton of other (more low hanging fruit kinda) reasons as we don’t know your specific situation.

The most obvious one: nutrition. I recently worked with someone who was convinced there was something wrong with him as just like in your case he could no longer push watts after about 2-3 hours. Turns out, he wasn’t consuming any carbs/nutrition during the ride so was bonking out everytime. Maybe you’re already doing 60+gr cho/hour on longer rides, but if you’re not this is probably it.

Also some people are more aerobically efficient whilst others are genetically more anaerobically strong. Do you gain muscle weight fast then you’re probably in the latter category. So longer rides are indeed relatively harder for you vs someone with a more aerobic engine/body.

Also, maybe your training so far has been a lot of intense sessions (except for the few long rides you’ve done recently). Or maybe you’re combing from running and growing into cycling. Also in these cases you still need to ‘learn’ to become aerobically efficient.

Next to this, there could still be a ton of other reasons. Happy to help further if you provide a bit more context!

R

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I’m eating a smallish sandwich, a banana and a 12oz gatorade every 40 miles on long rides

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That sounds like ~400 calories every 2.5 hours or 160 (40g of carbs) per hour. I’d double that if I were you.

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I don’t feel like I can handle that much food in my stomach without gastro distress.

I also don’t have a lot of time to experiment as the event is 6 weeks away and I’m only doing one more real long training ride before it.

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I do all of mine in my bottles and barely any solid food, even for 6+ hours. You may want to experiment with it after your event. It was an absolute game changer for me once I started fueling my rides properly. Good luck!

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I’ve always had a bit of a sensitive stomach so I’ll have to play with that stuff lightly until I get a comfort level for it.

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Duration has a second order effect in that it decreases your thresholds! Its been proven in the latest crop of “durability” papers looking into what happens to the body after prolonged exertions at 90minutes and 120minutes of exercise.

If critical power can decrease with duration, then there you have your answer why longer rides are taxing. Unfortunately, the dum Training Peaks metrics don’t take any of this into account. Because the originators of the theory such as Mr. Coggan doesn’t believe thresholds move downwards.

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Hi Jason,

Here’s my £0.02’s worth [ from over the pond ] some things you mentioned resonate with me from training over longer distances like yourself. Over the years I’ve discovered/learned the following.

  1. We are impatient animals and sometimes don’t appreciate the adaptation phase of the workload we’re doing but cannot adapt to immediately. [ i.e. we write cheques that our bodies cant cash ]

i.e. You know that you can ride x/miles or n/hours [ in your head ], but we don’t realise that it takes time for our bodies to ‘catch up’ and adapt properly to the workload (duration and intensity). As we get older, that becomes more of a challenge.

My favoured plan is to work on 3 weeks on, 1 off, and increase distance by 10% each month to properly get used to the distance. I appreciate your event is next month and you’re kinda seeing-how-it-goes but well done so far!!

You might benefit from doing staggered distances between now and july, i.e. split your endurance rides into 3 shorter ones, i.e. 2hrs, 4hrs, 6hrs. (instead of mashing one big distance out every weekend/sat/sun) as this will still build your fitness but more progressively, less is more over a week. If you can do something every day to get your legs used to continuous riding without it being hard, then you’ll see benefits.

Swap one day out for a mixed weights session - like kettle bells/squats…

  1. Correct fuelling is often overlooked/under estimated , underfuelling at breakfast, digestion/absorbtion and on the bike nutrition.

Breakfast: Oats, blueberries, a scoop of protein powder/25gms/ eggs if you can.
~ 400-600kcals before a long ride, wait 3-4 hrs before riding so you’ve digested it properly (if poss)

  • Work out your Metabolic Basal rate. Eat those kcals every day with complex carbs and protien so you get a good recovery. 1.4-2 gms protein per kg of body wieght for recovery. Endurance /distance is hard on the legs/body.

  • Work out how many kcals/carbs per hour you’re hitting an hour , I think @John_Koch said something along these lines.

My rule of thumb, anything below 80% max HR (for me) is ~60gm carbs (230kcals +/- ) per hour - (Styrkr do a Mix 60 powder in sachets that hits this ). If you’re having to negoticate hills on a route repeatedly, take a 30gm gel and it won’t hurt to grab something to eat every 20-30minutes, even if it’s a pack of haribos or confectionary bar/SIS/rice cake ( make some flapjack bars with mixed nuts and berries/dried- and pack a few up and hit one every hour. Always carry slightly more than you think you need , just in case you have a bad patch.

From what i have found, some gels just don’t work for me (SIS ones mostly), The Styrkr products are very good. Im not sure if you can get these where you are.

Caffiene in the last hour or two will help as it reduces your perceived exertion level so as you get fatigued it helps with concentration - a caffine gel works :slight_smile:

Once you go past 2-3 hrs - if you’re mid zone 2 HR/Power, you’re predominantly relying on fat burning + carbs as fuel. The calorific defecit is acellereated over time as you can’t maintain a set workload effort over time the further you get to 80% mhr+ . Over 80% or near threshold power you’re burning carbs mostly.

  1. Recover well.
    Always finish with a recovery drink, You can buy maltodextrin and whey/soya/vegan protien powder from amazon, cheaply, 20gm of carb, 20-25gm protein, in a shaker, 400-500ml of water < 30mins after your finish your ride gets recovery going. OR use a pre-mixed version if u prefer.

Carb rich meal after your’e done and rested… stagger the protein over the following day. Your recovery starts from the moment you finish the ride to when you ride the following /next day after. Keep tabs on your macros.

  1. Regular bed times.
    Track your sleep and learn what works, when you feel fresh and when you dont.

Plan your nutrition and rest - refrain from consuming alcohol [as much as you can ]

  • Get a foam roller and use to ease your muscles - even better get a massage gun/physio if you can afford that.
  • ice baths are great for this
  1. You’re only human. Do what you can. If you’re fatigued so much from Sunday/long ride - rest /have an easier low volume/intensity day.

Psychologically, you’re already there as you’ve been able to smash most that distance. Good luck and hope you find this useful

Dan

11

I didnt mention this but I have been habitually drinking protein shakes after my rides for years now.

If it’s a ride of any kind of intensity (elevated heart rate) I’m going to add a 12oz gatorade to the post ride routine.

I am religious about my sleep I am always in bed before 9 - trouble is I wake up at 2, 3, 4 quite a lot, not usually from physical pain but because my body hates me.

It’s all I can keep up with just to get the load in between work, my personal life and the weather so trying to think about / plan what “kind” of rides I should be doing ahead of time is just a bit more than I have energy for at this point. I am focusing on shorter more intense rides at the moment, then will do one more big endurance ride then start spin down for the event. This whole thing (training) is a LOT of work.

Also my dad “bullied” me into buying "gu"s for my rides - I told him I didn’t want to change my routine this close to the event and he said and I quote “start using gu’s immediately”

Sigh - Yes Dad. :slight_smile:

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:slight_smile: Do what works for you…

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I want to do it the “right way” but the overhead of planning all that out is just a bit more than I have the energy for. Shrug.

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What’s a better set of metrics to use?

And Coggan has made a distinction between your threshold, and your ability express that threshold at a given time.

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These are legit concerns. But 6 weeks does give you a lot of time to experiment with this.

This is a lot of solid food. It is going to cause you more problems than liquid carbs. Fat, fiber, and protein specifically are going to be the biggest offenders. Even swapping out more bananas or other fruits for the sandwiches, if you prefer solid food, will make a difference here.

Also, if this is just an off-the-shelf bottle of Gatorade, it’s not a very “strong” mix so you are also drinking a lot of water to get those carbs. Which is a good mix for you here with it accompanying solid food. But something that has a higher carb/water ratio is going to allow you get in more carbs without adding more volume. This can cause gut issues, but this is an easy place to experiment and try gradually adding more sugar. I actually just use powder Gatorade for this reason. It’s reasonably cheap, I like the flavor, and I can fine tune the ratio. I also have some fructose powder so I can add that to bring the mix closer to at 1:1 glucose/fructose mix. Although I seem to have an iron stomach and don’t get GI distress seemingly no matter what I put in!

The only reason you need solid food is if you actually feel hungry and that is detracting from your ride, which can happen on a long ride even if you are ingesting 120+ g of liquid carbs. But there’s no fueling reason why you can’t rely entirely on liquid carbs.

You have plenty of time to make some small changes and evaluate. If what above is working for you, a simple change could be to eliminate the sandwich but make up for those calories with liquid calories. Then you can slowly add a bit more liquid calories each ride or couple rides, and see how you do.

Your gut is trainable, and you have time. Even a small change of adding 10-20g of carbs per hour will make a difference in these longer rides.

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What’s worth noting is that if you add fructose powder to something which is glucose only, you can increase your gut’s absorbtion to get more carbs in, as i believe there is a ceiling of around 80-90g of glucose that can be absorbed - and beside no-one really likes drinking something that’s so strong to taste, i’ve added fructose to oats in the morning and other ingredients just to help -but in smaller quantities ~20gm

On a four hour ride off /on road, im consuming.

  • 40gms carbs per hour (actually x 2 750ml/25oz bottles w 2/60gm glucose/fructose mix )
  • 4 x 30gms gel each hour +1 spare in case i go mad up a climb.
  • two clif bars over that ride (43 gms ea.) - because i want to eat something and make sure i keep topped up - I also had a carrott cake at the cafe stop with a white coffee but i didn’t /couldn’t count that :smiley:

Looking back on the last one i did, the data says I burned nearly 1700kcals/ 1615kj which eqated to 431 gm of carbs, of which I consumed 196gms. but its fair to say i felt okay near the end but probably could have done with another hit of carbs but made it home ok :slight_smile:

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according to intervals, my 2 120’s were 3695 cal 658g CHO and 3658 cal 669g CHO

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:rofl: can’t say I “like” it, but I do up to 300 grams of table sugar plus salt and lemon in a 21oz bottle. Two of those will get me through 6 hours, plus plain water in my hydration pack.

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re this is a lot of solid food.

I’m experimenting with swapping out more liquids but I have a very sensitive stomach

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assuming your power meter is reading correctly, I believe the 3695 is kJ of work. Your kcal is in a range above and below that.

I started riding 9 years ago and in the first 7 months did a handful of centuries and some were bigger climbing rides in the mountains. The first one was in Napa Valley, and I bonked at mile 80. Asked the long time cyclists for advice and someone handed me a nearly empty jar of Hammer Perpeteum. While that worked on subsequent rides, it wasn’t gut friendly. I switched to Gu Roctane and that was a winner. Nowadays I mix my own and put into zip lock baggies.

What worked for me back then, including on a 200 mile double century my second season:

  • water bottles filled with 60-90g of carb mix, goal of consuming 75g/hour
  • eat something solid after 2-4 hours

I have a handful of mid tempo century rides fueled on that, my ftp was around 270W so mid tempo is burning a fair bit of carbs and fat.

I’ve been refining that over the intervening years, these days I do the following on long rides where I’m pushing 150-200W/hour = 540-720kJ of work per hour

  • start with 120g/hour for the first hour, its a mix of 60g maltodextrin (immediately goes to muscles) and 60g fructose (requires 1-2 hours processing by liver) plus 1/2 teaspoon citric acid for taste and 1/4 teaspoon sodium citrate plus a dash of Himalayan sea salt
  • drop down to 90g/hour carb mix for the remaining ride
  • start eating a Cliff bar/hour around 2-3 hours

Again thats what has worked for me,

For 2 hour training rides, I’ll eat 2 bananas before walking out the door and then 45-60g/hour, and eat within 30 minutes of coming home.

Hope you find something useful in that story.

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