Or: How to Actually Do the Damn Workouts
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You've got a plan. You understand the fundamentals from Chapter 3. You know what the zones mean.
None of that matters if you can't execute the workouts correctly.
Most people fail training plans not because the programming is bad but because they don't know how to translate "3×15 min @ 95% FTPFunctional Threshold Power — the max watts you can sustain for ~1 hour" into an actual ride that builds fitness instead of just accumulating fatigue.
This chapter covers execution: how to do different workout types, what to do when things go wrong, how to adjust on the fly, and the recovery protocols that make tomorrow's workout possible.
There's a massive gap between what's written on the plan and what actually happens.
The plan says: "Tuesday: 3×15 min threshold @ 95-100% FTPFunctional Threshold Power — the max watts you can sustain for ~1 hour, 8 min recovery between intervals"
What actually happens:
Result: Incomplete workout, accumulated fatigue, no meaningful adaptation, compromised recovery for Wednesday's ride.
This chapter teaches you how to close that gap.
The gap between plan and execution is where most training fails. Not because the plan was bad — because the execution was undisciplined. The rider who completes four average workouts per week will outperform the rider who crushes two sessions and misses three. Consistency is the multiplier.
For endurance: 10-15 min Z1→Z2. For intensity: 15-20 min Z1→Z2→Z3 with 3×1 min openers. Cold muscles don't produce power efficiently.
Execute what's prescribed. Not more. Not less. Trust the plan. Adding volume or intensity might feel productive, but it accumulates fatigue, compromises recovery, and ruins tomorrow's workout.
Goal: highest average power across the entire set. Start conservatively. Finish strong. Complete the set. Bad: 320W/290W/270W/Failed. Good: 300W/300W/295W/295W.
Quality beats quantity. Four quality intervals at 300W beats six degraded intervals averaging 270W.
Target: 56-75% FTPFunctional Threshold Power — the max watts you can sustain for ~1 hour, RPERate of Perceived Exertion — subjective effort on a 1-10 scale 3-4, conversational
Ride steady, no surges. Should feel easy enough to go for hours. Full sentences possible. Nose breathing (if you can't, you're too hard).
Common mistakes: Drifting into Z3 because you're bored. Turning every endurance ride into a tempo ride. Riding with faster friends and getting pulled up.
The fix: Discipline. Easy means easy. This is 70-80% of your training volume. Protect it.
Mid South rewards relentless Zone 2 power on rolling terrain. Crusher demands repeated threshold efforts up 10,000-foot climbs. Train the zone your race requires.
Your key workout: 3x10 minutes at a pace where you can still talk in short sentences. Recovery between intervals should be easy spinning for 5 minutes. That's it. Simple works.
Your key workouts: 4x8 minutes at tempo (breathing hard but controlled), and one threshold session of 2x20 minutes per week. These two sessions drive most of your fitness gains.
Include VO2max work (5x4 minutes at max sustainable effort) alongside threshold sessions. Add gravel-specific over/under intervals: 3 minutes hard, 2 minutes moderate, repeat 6 times.
Race-specific intervals are your priority: 40/20s for surges, 8-minute threshold repeats for climbs, and 2-hour steady-state sessions for pacing. Match interval terrain to your target race surface.
Symptoms: Sleep was bad, work was stressful, legs feel dead before you start
What to do: Reduce intensity by 5-10%. Shorten intervals if needed. Prioritize completion over heroics. Swap intensity for endurance if you're really cooked.
What not to do: Push through and accumulate junk volume that compromises recovery.
Symptoms: Interval 1 feels way harder than it should, power is 10W+ below target
Possible causes: Stale FTPFunctional Threshold Power — the max watts you can sustain for ~1 hour, inadequate recovery, illness brewing, equipment issues
What to do: Check equipment first. Drop power 5% and see if effort matches RPE. If still struggling, abort and take a rest day. Retest FTP if this happens multiple sessions in a row.
What to do: Don't double up to "make up" missed sessions. Don't panic and add volume. Execute the next workout as scheduled. One missed workout doesn't ruin your plan.
What not to do: Try to cram two days into one. That just digs a deeper hole.
Green light (execute as written): Good sleep, resting HR normal, feeling motivated, body feels fresh.
Yellow light (reduce intensity 5-10%): Sleep was okay but not great, slight fatigue, moderate motivation.
Red light (swap intensity for easy ride or rest): Multiple nights of poor sleep, elevated resting HR, body feels broken, high life stress.
The rule: Recovery is not weakness. Training when you're buried just makes you more buried.
This framework works because it removes ego from the decision. You are not deciding whether you are tough enough — you are checking objective signals. Resting HR elevated? Sleep wrecked? Those are red signals, not character tests. The athletes who last decades in this sport respect red lights.
It's Tuesday. Your plan calls for 3×15 min threshold intervals. You slept 5 hours last night, work was brutal, and your legs feel like concrete. Your resting HR is 8 bpm above normal. What do you do?
During a threshold interval set, your power on interval 3 drops to 88% of target despite maximum effort. What should you do?
If you're not feeling it, skip the intervals and just ride easy. A missed hard session is nothing compared to the weeks you'll lose if you push into illness or injury. Listen to your body first.
Use a simple traffic light: Green = hit the workout as planned. Yellow = reduce intensity by 10% and cut one interval. Red = convert to easy spin or rest. Track your resting heart rate to spot trends.
Monitor HRV trends and morning resting heart rate. If HRV drops 10%+ for two consecutive days, swap intensity for endurance. Extend recovery intervals if power is more than 5% below target.
Use power-duration testing every 4 weeks to adjust training zones. Apply RPE-to-power cross-checks during intervals. If your decoupling exceeds 5% in steady-state rides, your fatigue is accumulating — schedule an unload week.
The workout ends when you get off the bike. Recovery starts immediately.
Immediately After (0-30 minutes): Refuel if session was long (>2.5 hours) AND hard. 20-30g protein, 60-120g carbs, liquid is fine.
That Evening: Real dinner with adequate carbs + protein. Screen curfew 60-90 min before bed. Same bedtime every night. Dark room, cool temperature, no alcohol.
Recovery is not one thing—it is a dashboard of signals. Sleep quality, heart rate variability, and muscle soreness each tell you something different.
These are not optional metrics. The quality of recovery determines the quality of your next training session. Ignore the signals and you accumulate debt.
Sleep debt compounds faster than most athletes realize. One bad night recovers quickly. Five consecutive short nights create a deficit that takes a week to repay.
Bank sleep earlier in the week. You cannot recover seven days of poor sleep in one good night before the race.
Training gives you permission to recover well, not permission to trash recovery.
For the fuel side of recovery and performance, see Chapter 5: Nutrition & Fueling.
Training for something? Leave your email and tell me the race — I'll help.