Durability
240 min
High intensity
Three hours of steady endurance, then five six-minute threshold efforts at 95-100% of CP, to prepare for the closing stages of long events.
Ulisses Nunes Abbud
Coach
Durability
240 min
High
8 / 10
Advanced
Outdoors
The session
The workout
Written as a share of critical power, so it fits every rider. In Vekta it becomes your watts, with the W′ cost shown before you ride.
Ulisses Nunes Abbud
Why this workout
The breakdown
Inside the workout
A long endurance base with challenging threshold work at the end, to prepare for the closing stages of long events. The purpose is durability: the ability to produce near-threshold power after real energy depletion.
Three hours steady at 65–75% of CP, then five six-minute efforts at 95–100% of CP with three-minute recoveries. The efforts are short enough to be completed with quality after three hours and long enough to count; the steady block before them is the actual stimulus.
Fuelling and pacing decide the final hour, and Vekta's carbohydrate recommendations and the live kJ/kg count help with both. Afterwards the durability tab shows the five efforts on the fatigue-sliced curve against the same effort fresh.
The long ride of a fondo or long-race block, once a week. If the fifth effort is far off the first, shorten the endurance block before shortening the efforts.
Durability
Stimulus
Advanced
Workout level
Outdoors
Best ridden
Road,
DISCIPLINE
The stimulus
Durability, explained
Hard efforts after hours of work, because races are decided when you are tired.
What it is
Long rides with quality placed late: threshold, VO2 or sprint efforts after two to four hours and a set amount of accumulated work. The stimulus is not the interval itself but the state the body is in when it arrives.
Why it matters
Vekta measures durability as your power curve at 0, 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 kJ/kg of accumulated work: who you are fresh and who you are deep into a race. The gap between the two is where most amateur races and most WorldTour stages are won or lost. It responds to training, and this is the training.
Fuel these sessions properly; the point is to perform late, not to bonk. Expect the late efforts to feel harder than the same effort fresh, and expect that gap to shrink over a block. These are the longest sessions in the library.
Prescribe the late efforts by % of CP and compare the achieved power to the same effort fresh; the durability tab does the comparison across the athlete's history. A widening gap under fatigue is a fuelling or base problem before it is a fitness problem.
The session's late intervals are personalised in Vekta and the ride's kJ/kg is tracked live. Afterwards the durability view places the efforts on the athlete's fatigue-sliced power curve.
Free for coaches. Test with your whole roster during the trial.