Tempo Workouts Examples

When preparing for events like the Marmotte, Etape or similar which feature long mountain climbs I always do lots of  "Tempo" workouts in my schedule.

Tempo is a zone (source)

• 76-90% of FTP
• 84-94% of HR at lactate threshold (LTHR)

Such workouts may not feature in standard plans aimed at road racing or century rides. These will be more likely to concentrate of <=20mins threshold+ intervals and long duration "endurance" rides.

Still I would encourage anyone intending to do the sort of events above to be doing these regularly, once or twice a week, from now on.

This is for the following reasons:

• Just by themselves they are a good way to build general fitness. The effort zone is above endurance and below threshold and is sometime referred to as the "sweetspot" zone. It gets this name because it a nice compromise in terms of a workout that generates a good amount of training stress which will promote fitness while not being too fatiguing, so needs little recovery.
• The climbs in the Etape/Marmotte and the like  will be done in this zone. So practising in it allows you to really nail these  efforts in terms of pacing, how you feel, eating/drinking and the likes.    
• These events are a test of mental as well as physical capacity, requiring a solid focus from anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour or more. Threshold+ efforts, while harder in terms of load, are too short to really build this and endurance efforts are too easy, especially if they include sections where you coast.. 

With a bit of imagination, you can pretty much replicate a climb or even a whole event despite not having access to mountains. If you are used to doing such a  tempo "climb" once or twice a week the event will be less taxing. Indeed, given the adrenaline of competition plus the motivation of climbing the real thing compared to riding a turbo the climbs may well feel, if not exactly easy also not especially hard. allowing you to really enjoy your time and hopefully hit whatever targets you have set yourself.. 

As an example of the sort of thing I am talking about here are a couple of tempo workouts I did over the last couple of days. (Both were done on a VR turbo using some real ride terrain data).

I have divided each into various sectors and would advise doing similar. It can help provide some training information and long climbs are easier if divided into chunks. 

Two "climbs" are shown: 

Climb1: 40 minute Cat 1 equivalent: Warmed up before start, flat pace start to finish except a final push final km.Just did that + a warmup for an hours worth of training. 

Climb2 1 hour HC equivalent (pace is pretty much exactly what's needed for sub 60 minute ADH). Started from cold, once at the top did some variable paced work.

Climb 1.

Sector	Time	Watts	%FTP	HR	%LTHR	Drift
Warmup	3:10	285	84%	144	84%	n/a
Climb	38:28	294/295	86%	157/162	93%	2.5%
Push	2:18	318	94%	165	96%	n/a
Climb 2
Warmup	13:23	295	87%	152	88%	7.1%
Climb	46:13	285/285	84%	160/160	93%	0.4%
To end	49:57	252	74%	152	88%	-1.6%

Notes:

• Watts are shown since I have a powermeter. For steady efforts such as this speed is also a good indicator for the purposes of setting target times and measuring improvement.  
• The two numbers in the climb row are the values for the first and second half of the climb. They are nicely consistent which a good sign. 
• Both climbs were done nicely towards the top of tempo zone both in terms of power and HR. If not used to such efforts a useful progression is to pace the first attempt at the bottom of the zone, then make each subsequent attempt a bit harder.
• When under load HR will naturally go up with time, even for the same power. "Drift" is a measure of this and it is automatically calculated by tools such as WKO. It can be a useful indicator, especially for steady state sub threshold efforts like tempo climbs. (If using speed as a pacing indicator you can calculate it by splitting the work zone in half. calculating the average HR per kmh for each then dividing the second half by the first.)  . While it varies with time in zone and ambient conditions as a general rule the lower the number the more comfortable the zone is. One sign of getting fitter is this number coming down for the same power output and any number under 5% is a good sign. (Note drift is useless for intervals with very variable power or while still warming up as the table shows)
• The second climb happened to have an extended period of variable terrain afterwards including some downhill sections which is why the power is less. This would be the same in a real event. Sustaining the same average power in such conditions would require a number threshold+ efforts which will be unduly fatiguing. 
• I find breathing is a good way to pace the efforts for these climbs. Good rhythm of deep but unforced breaths through the mouth, with a short pause between each. 
• Though not shown the cadence on the climbs was a steady 74-76rpm. I kept it deliberately low as I wanted to focus on using big slow muscles. I also made a specific effort to keep quad effort to a minimum. The only time they were pushed hard was on any short sections of threshold+.  
• Warmup was done at steady tempo pace. This simulates what should happen during a climb. It is much better to start at plan or below and push on in the second half than try to push hard from the start. This applies even more on climbs like the Alpe d'Huez where the hardest section is at the start. This is one time not to copy the pros who are racing head to head with those around them. They will attack here to try to break the others. There is no point doing this in a sportive where you are racing the clock rather than those in your group.