" I set a pancake flat course. Mentally, I broke up the training into 3 hour segments. For the first 3 hours I completed 35 miles at an 67 avg watts and 90 bpm heart rate; second 3 hours 37 miles at 76 avg watts at 94 bpm heart rate; third 3 hours 40.21 miles at 89 avg watts at 101 avg watts.
My power and effort increased throughout the training event. At the end I felt I had `plenty left.' This tells me that I have achieved the goal of the foundation phase, i.e., endurance at an aerobic pace. "
The above quote is from a 9 hour indoor session last November. Lately my 4 - 5 hour indoor training sessions have been on a steady incline of between .2% to 2.12%. The incline sessions of that duration have left me very, very exhausted afterwords. It has been `bothering' me that I have been so exhausted, wondering "how can I expect to do 49,000 feet of climbing if I am overcome by 4 hours on a steady climb?"
Well, I think I've found out why I'm so beat: my latest training of steady inclines are unprecedented. And, they don't allow any time for resting, coasting or drafting.
Checking other ultraracer's charts I notice that, while they can put up a 160 - 260 wattage figure in spikes they always drop back down to few or no watts produced.
