Are intervals really necessary for racing?

daveryanwyoming

That advice is still valid if you define intervals as short anaerobic or even high end VO2 Max efforts. A daily diet of minute long max effort bursts can certainly lead to overtraining. If you use a more general definition of blocked, repeated training at appropriate intensities then no, they will not necessarily lead to burnout.

For non PM users that really means finding the best steady pace you can hold for the target durations, here's a rough guide to durations for different systems:

L7 sprints: 10 - 20 seconds
L6 anaerobic tolerance: 30 seconds - 2 minutes(don't do a lot of these, they'll burn you out quick)
L5 VO2 Max: 3 - 8 minutes (5 minutes being typical, again not too many sessions)
L4 FTP or Threshold pace: 10 - 30 minutes (20 minutes typically)
L3 Tempo: 30 - 90 minutes or just go riding but stay focused
L2 Endurance: As long as you can stay steady(pretty rare in my schedule these days, but I get a lot of this between harder efforts)
L1 Active recovery: on bike rest days, just go out for an hour or so or use between harder efforts to recover.(not really training, just rest and staying loose)

If you're just transitioning from more general miles based riding to focused training I'd strongly recommend targeting L3 and L4 work or more specifically that gray boundary between the two called SST or Sweet Spot Training. It's the best way to get a lot of time and a lot of aerobic training benefit. At some point you'll need to work other systems depending on your events and your own strengths and weaknesses but start working those to build a big aerobic engine. Those two will help you the most in terms of fast pace and long hills and will form a solid aerobic base for further work. Neither of those, especially the L3 work should kill you. They should take focus but feel pretty decent. Read up on SST in other threads here and dial into the RPE that you can sustain for those longer blocks.

Good luck,
Dave

ric_stern/RST

No, they're not *absolutely* necessary. But whether that's a good or bad approach is a different question

ric

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lorrod

But for the most part, when it comes to racing, intervals are probably recommended, yes?

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