Hill intervals

[Dogtrousers]

I've never done any "training" before. I've always been happy just to go for rides. Pretty much all of my riding is recreational longish rides (100-200km with occasional longer ones). I've always seen training as just "cycling that you don't enjoy" and hence a bit pointless. Real life being what it is I'm restricted to two or three rides per month. Commuting isn't convenient at the moment (and anyway I really don't like it, so tend not to do it even if I can).

However, with London-Wales-London 400k next year I've decided to do a bit of training with the specific target of ... er ... well I'm not sure. I'll come back to that.

What I've been doing is once a week setting out to a local hill and riding up and down it (actually a circular route, with all left turns). It takes me about 2.5-3 minutes to ride up and I've been riding so I'm gasping for breath at the top, then I roll down slowly to recover (about 2 min), and repeat. I've been trying to do about 10 reps which takes about an hour, then a gentle 2-3km ride back home. Once a week.

So, I guess this is "interval training". My hope is that it will insulate me a bit from the rigours of hills. My problem with long distance riding is that while I can churn out a regular, if modest, pace on the flat for hours and hours, when I get tired I find myself going into bottom-gear slow-grind mode on even the most un-challenging of inclines. I have quite good reserves of endurance in terms of time (if that makes any kind of sense), but I'd like to be able to retain my ability to go uphill for a bit longer.

Questions: While I doubt it will do me any actual harm, is a once a week interval session frequent enough to be useful? Is the idea of a short interval session as a component of* prep for a 400k ride idiotic?

* Edit, text added.

 

[Yellow Saddle]

Last question answered first. Yes.
First question: No.

You will have to put in plenty of endurance rides as well as those intervals of yours. Intervals, speed or hill, broadly speaking, conditions your body to recover quicker, from high exertion i.e. when going anearobic. For a 400km ride, your body needs training to condition the muscles and cells to work for long periods aerobically.

 

[Crackle]

I can't speak for the efficacy of the training but as part of the battle for riding hills better, riding hills prepares you mentally for riding hills i.e. you know you've done it, so you know you can do it. It also helps you work out a strategy about which suits you better, a higher cadence or a lower cadence and I mean suits in terms of comfort and feel. It's the reason I go out and do hill reps or ride a hill at the end of a longer ride. It simply gives me confidence that I can.

 

[Yellow Saddle]

So ... disentangling your rather odd phrasing:
is a once a week interval session frequent enough to be useful? No
Is the idea of a short interval session as [a component of] prep for a 400k ride idiotic? Yes

So, in short, I'm wasting my time.

I can take care of the long rides myself, that's not what this thread is about. I managed 400k earlier this year and didn't die, far from it, but it was in Essex, which is flat and therefore cheating. I'm happy enough to ride 200-300 over rougher non-cheating terrain (harder than LWL will be). I have little doubt that I can complete LWL.

But that's a little beside the point, which is whether there is any incremental benefit from a once-a-week interval session. And your answer is "no, there isn't."

Oh well, as noted, I doubt it will do me any actual harm.

The addition of "Component of" changes the picture. Yes, it will be useful.
And, yes, a frequency of once per week is useful AS A COMPONENT OF PREP.

 

[Dogtrousers]

The addition of "Component of" changes the picture. Yes, it will be useful.
And, yes, a frequency of once per week is useful AS A COMPONENT OF PREP.

I realised when I re-read my post that I'd written it rather badly, hence the edit.

I'm not planning on doing a 400 purely on the back of riding round a local hill once a week. Even I know that would be idiotic. The bulk of it will be lazily relying on the fact that I already have a certain level of endurance ability, which I top up with long rides as and when I can.

What I want to do is use my limited free time get a bit "better". But I'm not really sure what "better" means.

 

[Bazzer]

My personal experience is similar to that @Crackle said. It's having the confidence to know you can get up a hill and what strategy you need to employ to achieve that.
There is something in the back of my mind that GCN did a video a while back about training for hills if you don't live in a hilly area. Might be worth having a look.

 

[si_c]

I think it would be worthwhile considering the route profile. If the hills you are likely to encounter are short and sharp then hill reps is perfect, if there are longer ones involved then finding a different hill which is a bit longer in length locally and doing reps of that is not a bad idea either.

I think you are doing yourself a disservice to say in your OP that you don't really know why you are doing the training you are doing, I think you've got a fairly clear idea overall and are probably on the right track.

 

[si_c]

I rode a 200 Audax recently with someone I met on the event. I warned her that my ability to go uphill would probably desert me later in the ride. And it did. Completely. (She stuck with me as I was confident of the route)
That's what I'm hoping to address. I'm a bit doubtful about the relationship between an hour of hills with fresh legs, and the one-paced deadness I get with 150k or more in my legs.
Here's hoping.

What I found useful with doing interval sessions was that I noticed whilst I didn't go up hills any faster really than I had before, I was recovering faster and feeling better after each effort. I would expect that if you keep doing the short sharp intervals that you should find that your cumulative fatigue diminishes on longer rides, hopefully allowing you to ride further.

 

[Aravis]

Good luck with LEL

 

[midlife]

Are micro intervals still in fashion? Or are they like fartlek.....a bit old hat.

 

[CXRAndy]

Intervals done at the right level of intensity, duration and recovery period are invaluable. Ideally they should be done at levels worked out from your FTP or threshold level, more turbo based.