# HIT and long rides



## Srode (Aug 19, 2012)

If a person incorporates a 45-60 minute HIT interval session early in a 6 hour ride which is otherwise primarily endurance paced does the long portion of the ride defeat the effect of the interval work, enhance it or have no impact?


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## t-wood (Feb 28, 2005)

I do it the other way around. I ride endurance for 2 or 3 hours and the last hour will be my intervals. My thinking is everyone is fresh at the start of the race but by the end they are getting tired so by doing the intervals at the end it helps me mentally to be ready for harder efforts. I don't know if physically it helps or hurts but it makes sense to me!


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## jmorgan (Apr 13, 2012)

Do HIT on your HIT days. Do endurance on your endurance days.

If you wanted to replicate something like a race effort do what t-wood said, endurance for a few hours not 6 and then HIT. The issue with this is your HIT will not be as high as it could be if you just did HIT. Doing HIT first and then 6 hours endurance makes no sense and if you are doing HIT as hard as you should, the last few hours of the endurance part will suck, if you don't end up bonking or anything else.


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## Srode (Aug 19, 2012)

Thanks for the thoughts guys. I did do some hard 4x10 intervals during a 4 hour ride and a friend suggested that I had defeated the purpose of the intervals by mixing into such a long ride, and I was complete toast at the end. Was trying to figure out if doing this would likely disable the intended adaptations from the intervals. 

It's not really about racing for me, it's just getting into a more structured approach to my training to get faster and maximizing what I get out of my Saturday ride. I don't ride Sundays as that's my family day so Saturday is my long ride for the week.


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## Sumguy1 (Apr 5, 2008)

Are 4x10s considered HIT?


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## Srode (Aug 19, 2012)

Interesting question, perhaps not due to the duration - I might have been more accurate saying intervals instead. 

They are part of a training plan that has 3 interval sessions during a week, riding 5 days a week. The 2 mid week include shorter intervals, like 2 minutes and 5 minutes, but perhaps 5 minute intervals wouldn't be considered HIT either. The weekend intervals are longer duration.


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## NJBiker72 (Jul 9, 2011)

I am no expert but I like the way the OP is doing it. Doing it early should give him the benefit of the HIT. Then the endurance after will be that much harder. In effect it should make your 6 hour ride feel like an 8 hour ride.


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## bikerector (Oct 31, 2012)

I guess it depends on your goal for the ride. If you're trying to get the benefit of the HIIT, then when you're legs are fresh is the better idea. If you're trying to make the workout more race-like (specificity) then it would make more sense to do it towards the end of the ride since many races ramp up towards the end.

My workouts get split, endurance on endurance days, hard intervals on hard interval days. 

I would not consider 4x10 as HIIT, more like threshold/TT intervals. Hard, sure, high intensity, not as much. Maybe my idea of the classification is wrong though. I would think those would be fine for an endurance ride anyway, would be like climbing a longer hill or mountain. You have to still get up the thing after all.


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## brady1 (Aug 18, 2011)

bikerector said:


> I guess it depends on your goal for the ride. If you're trying to get the benefit of the HIIT, then when you're legs are fresh is the better idea. If you're trying to make the workout more race-like (specificity) then it would make more sense to do it towards the end of the ride since many races ramp up towards the end.
> 
> My workouts get split, endurance on endurance days, hard intervals on hard interval days.


I've been wondering how to "properly" split up all the workouts too. 

During my endurance rides, which are generally somewhere between 3 to 6 hours or more, I'll throw in a set of 3 to 5 threshold efforts or longer tempo efforts depending on the time of the year and training phase. Sometimes, sets of hill intervals too.

I do this because I simply have more time on the weekends to go train on hills or whatever the case may be. Plus, I feel it makes my long rides more race-like. Doing mostly long endurance events and gravel grinders, this seems to better simulate my race conditions.

So I wonder how many of you, when going for an endurance ride, stay strictly in Zone 2 for 4+ hours? Am I doing it wrong?


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## bikerector (Oct 31, 2012)

My coach separates these several ways. Easy rides are endurance rides that I only stay in zone 2, they usually are 3 hours or less for the sake of not boring one to death. Endurance rides are mostly zone 2 with some zone 3 but nothing too long or sustained, like doing z3 for a climb or during a section of headwind but not for a whole hour leg or something like that. Then there are "hard endurance" or tempo rides. These are basically hammering a good tempo for a long time, something like one would do for a gravel road race or mtb race as there really aren't as many opportunities to sit in and rest in the pack. 

The tempo rides are not very often as I believe they fall into that no-man's land training where you're better off either going harder for shorter or slower for longer or doing intervals instead. They usually take a lot out of me so it's more for pacing, I believe, than for prime workout material since you'll need to recover as if it was a higher intensity day but won't get the same fitness benefits. I think that's how it was explained in Friel's book, I might be off on the intensity some but I feel like it was either threshold or tempo where you get less benefit for the time. It's been a while since I've read the book, I should probably do a refresher once I finish the book on nutrition in the next few months (I'm a slow reader).


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## brady1 (Aug 18, 2011)

bikerector said:


> The tempo rides are not very often as I believe they fall into that no-man's land training where you're better off either going harder for shorter or slower for longer or doing intervals instead. They usually take a lot out of me so it's more for pacing, I believe, than for prime workout material since you'll need to recover as if it was a higher intensity day but won't get the same fitness benefits. I think that's how it was explained in Friel's book, I might be off on the intensity some but I feel like it was either threshold or tempo where you get less benefit for the time. It's been a while since I've read the book, I should probably do a refresher once I finish the book on nutrition in the next few months (I'm a slow reader).


I think it's the Zone 3 stuff you're thinking of. It seems I've read that quite a bit, that Zone 3 is sort of a no-man's land. However, some of the posts on Friel's blog seem to contradict that. Or at least dispute that Zone 3 is always a waste of time. He basically instructs folks to make their training more and more like your race the closer you get to it. After doing several gravel races, I've found that I've spent the majority of my time in what would be my Zone 3. 

Additionally, there's Sweet Spot Training which has been mentioned a little more recently. Although, it's more of a power based thing. As best as I can tell, it roughly translates to high Zone 3.

Using Friel's methods, which I do for the most part, SST seems to be roughly where you would do Cruise Intervals. For me, Cruise Intervals are done on another day. Usually, my long rides contain Hill Repeats and a long Tempo interval. The rest of the time is in Zone 2.


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