Scott Andrews wrote:My wife Susan is working with a coach, and so we have been paying a lot of attention to training plans. In one recent discussion we came up with the following training ride/concept. We are planning to set up a ride for this, but I thought I'd post it here and get folks' feedback. It is pretty well established that a cadence that places your heart rate around 65% of your AT (aerobic threshold) is optimal for building endurance. In addition it is clear that to go faster you need to spin faster, hopefully at the same heart rate (at least after some training). So aerobic fitness and comfort at higher cadences are key to riding faster longer. So, to build endurance AND develop cadence we created the following plan. Ride on a flattish road (like Chileno Valley from the school). Ride for 5 mins at whatever speed produces 65% HR at 80 RPM. For example if your 65% HR is 130, then you would pick a gear that gets you 65% at 80 RPM. For Susan this seems to be about HR 130 and 13 mph (can't recall the gear). After 5 mins of this (assuming a long warm up..say, from the AB to the school), one rider (that would be me...) speeds up to a set speed (20 mph) and then goes back to the pace (13 mph) over a set time (5 seconds to 20, and then 5 seconds back to 13). This puts the rider behind at some distance (about 100 meters) Once the pace for the lead rider is back at the set pace, the rider raises his/her hand and the back rider speeds up to 100 RPM. At the speeds we have listed here, the back rider should catch up in 2 minutes. At that stage you spend 5 mins in recovery and do it again. What this is is a series of 80 to 100 RPM intervals, but with a well defined duration and the psychological benefit of having a "mouse" to chase. We plan to start doing these rides regularly and would welcome anyone who wants to come along. S