The most important gauge in your workouts is perceived effort. I often hear comments from people unfamiliar with this as it is subjective. And that is exactly why it is so good. Interpreting a workout through external measures doesn't take into account what you are willing to do. You know intuitively how hard you can work. At any effort level, you have a reasonably good idea how long you can maintain it. A heart rate monitor only tells you how fast your heart is beating. Perceived effort is a very reliable internal gauge of blood lactate levels. The best external measure would be taking blood and analyzing it. The best predictor of fitness changes and race performance is your pace in any particular area at an L2.5 level. This is a comfortably hard or controlled hard effort. It's about as hard as you can go without feeling really grumpy.
When signed up for Email coaching you will get a pace chart which gives you paces and cycling power at the various effort levels along with heart rates. The order of priority when doing a workout is first perceived effort. Then see where that effort takes you. Then check heart rate, if you like. Heart rates have become optional in Email coaching. It's a good piece of information but not essential.
In the sample workouts below use the effort scale to know how hard to go. The "*" indicates a break between sets. ( ) indicates rest . Sometimes it is active, and then time at L1 is indicated as in ( 1 min L1) where you would go easy for a minute. Brackets [ ] are a group to be repeated and separated by the rest in ( ) at the end.
Any and all of these workouts can be shortened. You need to finish a workout with the feeling that you could have done more. You know when you've had enough.
Time in each sport and total weekly time is given at the bottom of each training week. L4 and L2.5 time is added together to make L4 time and percentage at the bottom.
Have fun.
