Working in your Tempo zone, today we are varying the cadence and power.

Observe your HR during the 15min intervals and look for changes in heart rate when your cadence changes.

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Time to pound more pebbles! We're going aim for 15min of SST today!

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Nothin' like a little dirt in your teeth, right!? Guess what? If you are riding gravel, and especially the dirt roads of Kansas for UNBOUND, there will be plenty of dirt to go around! This session is designed to improve your FTP. However, to make this session as specific to a long-distance event as possible, there are some specific 30-second bursts to induce extra fatigue before settling back tempo. Moreover, this variable intensity has been proven to be effective at pushing thresholds up. This session also allows you to become more proficient at removing lactate and using it as a fuel during the lower intensity efforts - key to recovering after surging over the Flint Hills! UNBOUND Gravel is a grassroots event, organized and managed by folks who are passionate about cycling, and have done so for the primary purpose of providing life-enriching cycling experiences for event participants.

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Warm up then complete 3 x 15min SST efforts @ 90%. Start each interval with 3 x 15sec max sprints with 30sec recovery. Following the 3rd surge do not rest. Go straight into the SST effort. 10min recovery between intervals. Cool down.

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In today's workout, you will complete 3 x 10 minute blocks of effort. The first and third block are at 88% of FTP (top-end of Zone 3), with the middle block a Free Ride, so you can ride as hard or easy as you like (target being to complete another Zone 3 block).

This is another purist way to develop your endurance - no free wheeling and consistent muscle tension.

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We have more tempo training on tap for today - perfect for preparing you to hit the sandy sections of UNBOUND. Tempo work is the basis of many training programs and is an area of great necessity. The key benefit to completing Tempo work indoors is the lack of interruptions to the effort, and ERG mode makes things much simpler. Tempo intervals also build a foundation of endurance and fatigue resistance - keys for a long and challenging event like UNBOUND. UNBOUND Gravel is a grassroots event, organized and managed by folks who are passionate about cycling, and have done so for the primary purpose of providing life-enriching cycling experiences for event participants.

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Having grit, or being able to persevere from a challenge, is a key trait when undertaking a challenge like UNBOUND. Riding at tempo for extended periods of time is a good way to test yourself in training. Tempo riding is also a great way to improve your aerobic efficiency. Today's session consists of a pair of long tempo efforts. However, to make this more specific to UNBOUND and focus more on muscular endurance, the target cadence starts at 75RPM and increases by 5RPM every 5min. UNBOUND Gravel is a grassroots event, organized and managed by folks who are passionate about cycling, and have done so for the primary purpose of providing life-enriching cycling experiences for event participants.

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In today's workout, you will complete 3 x 15 minute blocks of Tempo, made up of short ramps (lower through to upper Zone 3) to offer some variety to the effort! Remember, Fun is Fast!

At the end of each block, you will complete a 10 second sprint, just to keep in touch with your top end - you don't want to become too one dimensional.

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Team Jumbo-Visma has been an absolute force the last few seasons, no doubt it's because they have some amazing athletes. But it's also because they train pretty darn hard, and smart. So, today you get to try one of their workouts! For this workout we are going to do some cadence work. Most of the time riders think of cadence work as an easier workout. But I will say, today's workout is not overly easy with the focus on higher and lower cadences.

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Today, we'll stick with our focus of high torque during the burst efforts to keep it specific to gravel grinding.

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Today's workout is about gaining strength, you will spend much of your time in Zone 3, TEMPO, 85% of your FTP - however you want to look at it. During today's workout it is important to be aware of your RPM's - focus on being between 60-65. If you have knee or back issues increase this to 60-70 RPM's. Keep smooth pedal strokes, no rocking of the hips or mashing from left to right pedal :) At the end of the 5 minutes we will be increasing our cadence and power as much as we can for :15 seconds. You will want to shift up one or two cogs - feeling the torque but able to ramp it up within the :30 seconds.

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Time spent in the sub-threshold zone offers a big boost to fitness without being as taxing as dipping into the red zone. Spend long periods under your FTP to help push it up from underneath.

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Cycling is about becoming comfortable at being uncomfortable. This type of effort is exactly that! The initial power will not hurt the legs but as the effort goes on and you start using up the substrate (fuel) in your body, it's amazing how quickly a relatively easy effort can turn quite nasty on you. A 20min effort is the main set, then once the legs are carrying some fatigue, we'll move onto 5 x 1min bang on FTP.

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Time to challenge your ability to complete High Intensity efforts after first accumulating some time at sweet spot.

In this session you will complete 2 x 12min sweet spot efforts before finishing with 4 x 1min VO2max efforts.

The more efficient you are in the 12min efforts...

The better your VO2 max efforts will be!

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We're in a recovery week here, but still have some "work" to do. The sweet spot is a great zone to work during a recovery week as we won't be heading above the threshold zone at all, so no stress, right? Seriously though, these should be somewhat comfortable builds and if at any point they feel overtly "hard" you should come down on the watts just a bit to allow recovery.

As with any workout we want to focus on smooth riding, efficient pedal strokes, and a quiet upper body as we work. The Sweet Spot zone is one we need to be comfortable in for gravel, so get ya some!

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A sweet spot focused workout where you'll accumulate 50min in total at that intensity.

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A sweet spot focused workout where you'll accumulate 30min in total at that intensity.

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Tempo training: the goal of this training is to spend time in Zone 3 at an intensity where the use of sugar and fats as fuel is equal. Time spent in this zone increases muscle glycogen storages.

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Tempo work is the basis of many training programs and is an area of great necessity. The key benefit to completing tempo work indoors is the lack of interruptions to the effort and ERG mode makes things much simpler.

Tempo intervals build a foundation of endurance and fatigue resistance.

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Tempo riding is a great way to improve your aerobic efficiency. Today's session consists of 3 x 15 minute tempo efforts. However, to focus more on muscular endurance, the target cadence starts at 75rpm and increases by 5rpm every 5min.

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Simulating long climbs that require an increase in power as the effort goes on.

But each tempo interval finishes with an above threshold effort.

The target cadence throughout the tempo portion decreases. Position yourself on the bike as if climbing, sitting on the back of the seat.

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After a long tempo effort to deplete your energy reserves, take on a series of sustained VO2max intervals. VO2max is a hard zone to work in any time, but it is that much harder for the tempo work that preceded it.

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Steady endurance work trains your body to utilize oxygen to metabolise fat as its fuel source.

By incorporating sprint efforts into a steady state effort, you will recruit additional muscle fibres and extend their ability to work aerobically.

The sprint efforts increase in duration from 15sec, to 20sec and 30sec.

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Texaco Hill is an infamous feature in UNBOUND and is a challenge to summit, even for the fittest of athletes. It's placement en route also means most will have some fatigue built up in the legs. Today's workout, focused on longer tempo intervals, helps to improve your fatigue resistance and bumps up the overall work rate compared to week 1. Tempo intervals build a foundation of endurance and fatigue resistance. UNBOUND Gravel is a grassroots event, organized and managed by folks who are passionate about cycling, and have done so for the primary purpose of providing life-enriching cycling experiences for event participants.

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Warm up then complete 2 x 20min SST efforts @ 90%. Every 90sec increase power to 110% for 30sec. 10min recovery between intervals. Cool down.

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