Lactate Clearance
180 min
High intensity
Simulate a hard road race: priming surges, a climb block that moves above and below threshold, tempo, then a breakaway effort with an attack, four and a half minutes at threshold and a sprint for the win, on tired legs.
Killian O'Brien
Athlete
Lactate Clearance
180 min
High
7 / 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.
Killian O'Brien
Why this workout
The breakdown
Inside the workout
The demands of a tough road race, in order: surges, a climb where the power moves above and below threshold, a tempo stretch, and a breakaway-style finish that asks for race-winning power on tired legs. The purpose is to absorb the whole shape of a race and still make a difference at the end.
After an hour of endurance, four one-minute surges at 130–150% of CP prime the legs. The climb simulation is two rounds of three minutes at CP, one at VO2 and two just under threshold. Twenty minutes of tempo follow, and then the move: a fifteen-second attack, four and a half minutes at threshold, and a fifteen-second sprint as if racing for the win.
Vekta classifies the session by its parts afterwards and shows the breakaway effort against the rider's fresh threshold power; the W′ trace across the final move is the honest measure of whether the sprint had anything left.
The long ride of a race block, once a week, outdoors. Fuel it as a race.
Lactate Clearance
Stimulus
Advanced
Workout level
Outdoors
Best ridden
Road,
DISCIPLINE
WHAT YOU NEED
The stimulus
Lactate Clearance, explained
Surge above threshold, settle just under it, and teach the body to clear the cost.
What it is
Over-under and variable-pace intervals that alternate short surges above critical power with longer segments just below it. The "under" is not recovery; it is the working part, where lactate produced in the surge is used as fuel while still riding hard.
Why it matters
Races are not steady. The ability to absorb an attack, a short climb or a crosswind surge and return to a hard pace without blowing is what separates finishing in the group from being dropped. This is the trainable version of that ability.
The surges should feel manageable and the "unders" should feel like the real work. If you are recovering during the under, it is too easy; if you cannot finish the set, the surge is too hard or too long.
These sessions map directly onto race demands and are the best way to expose whether an athlete's W′ recovers under load. The W′ balance trace after the session shows the pattern clearly: it should dip on each surge and partially recover through the under.
The session's surges and unders are written in % of CP and personalised in Vekta. The W′ preview shows whether the athlete can complete the set as written; the post-ride analysis names each surge and the recovery between them.
Common questions
What is an over-under interval?
How far over and under should I go?
Is this a threshold or a VO2 max session?
Go deeper
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