It seems that mi riding style fits perfectly in the Century Rider category - I enjoy long rides, not necessarily competitive, don’t care much for speed and on top of that I have some weight I need to lose, for which the long low-intensity workouts are best.
However, I think that 2h nonstop on the trainer is my psychological and physical (mainly due to rear end pain) limits. Xert consistently starts to recommend to me 3h endurance workouts, which I don’t believe I can do at once. So what would be the best option:
Keep the profile at century rider and limit myself to 2h workout max. Most of the 3h ones have also a shorter option. I can compensate the XSS with more frequent workouts I guess… Is that sound option? I am afraid this will botch the entire training plan.
Change my profile to time trialist. I don’t really consider myself as a time-trialist, but this is the level below century rider (1h power focus) and I assume there won’t be any long workouts there, or at least they will be less than for century rider. It won’t be the best profile for me, but at least I should be able to follow the recommendations strictly.
What phase are you in?
What is IR set to?
How many days per week are you riding?
How does your spider chart look under Ranking in regard to strength versus weakness? (based on current history and signature)
Q: What phase are you in?
A: Base phase. I see that it is typical for this phase to have longer workouts for all athlete types. Still, it would be tough for me to push regularly for 2h+ rides…
Q: What is IR set to?
A: Moderate-1
Q: How many days per week are you riding?
A: Aiming to 4-5 days. 3 days xert workouts, 2 days some random Zwift events, which will be replaced by outdoor rides once the weather cooperates.
Q: How does your spider chart look under Ranking in regard to strength versus weakness? (based on current history and signature)
A:
If you just want to get fitter I’d change athlete type to something with shorter focus duration, to bring in some intensity during build and peak phases. Climber at a minimum, but maybe even Breakaway Specialist. There are loads of threads if you search the forum re why you typically wouldn’t choose century rider or triathlete types, even if you like a nice long ride. There are positive adaptations from working above threshold once or twice a week.
During base that won’t actually change anything so you’ll still be recommended the long workouts. So I would aim to do more sub 2hr rides assuming you have the time during the week. Or reduce improvement rate if ultimately you can’t find the time.
Thanks, I read a bit about it in older topics. I think I’ll switch to GC Specialist for now and see how it goes in the build phase later. If it is too intense for me, I’ll drop down again to Climber or Century Rider.
GC Specialist should be a good place to start. You can always change it later.
It definitely won’t hurt to skip around and see what happens while learning the ropes.
The types are roughly in a quadrant so Century to TT wouldn’t be much of a change. Athlete Type – Xert (baronbiosys.com)
In Base phase the focus is on endurance regardless of type but interval durations are longer when you select TT/Century as your focus type.
Make sure all your activities are loaded into Xert for XATA to work best.
Click on Goals and note estimated weekly training hours then decide how you what to allocate them such as rest, easy, hard, and long days. Or steady as she goes if that’s what you prefer. If you decide to ride long on Sunday then XATA will recommend similar activity for the following Sunday. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t mix things up or do something different. Your main goal is to keep the pacer needle pointing up indicating your TL is on course.
Since weight loss if one of your goals consider manually choosing a shorter but higher intensity workout once a week. Long slow rides burn fat but so does a HIIT-style session in a lot less time. XXS might be similar but for very different workouts.
This is where playing with Filters to right of Recommended Workouts comes into play. For example, select 45 - 60 minutes, a diamond level range you are comfortable with, Apply, then Load More to view your options.
