Durability
240 min
High intensity
Perform near-threshold efforts late in a ride after real energy depletion: three hours steady, then three ten-minute efforts at 90-95% of CP, for long races and fondos.
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
Near-threshold efforts late in a ride, after significant energy depletion, mirroring long races and fondos where staying strong after three hours decides the result. The purpose is durability at the sustainable end of the range rather than at VO2.
Three hours at 65–75% of CP, then three ten-minute efforts at 90–95% with five minutes between. The efforts are long enough to demand real pacing and short enough to be completed with quality at hour three; the three hours before them are the stimulus.
Fuel it properly; Vekta's carbohydrate recommendations scale to a four-hour ride. Afterwards the durability tab shows the three efforts on the fatigue-sliced curve against the rider's fresh ten-minute power.
The long ride of a fondo or long-race block, weekly, outdoors. If the third effort falls apart, the endurance block was ridden too hard, not 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.