First week on the Base to Race XC MTB Intervals (low volume). I’m curious about the rationale of the Zone 5/VO2 Max: 3 minuters workout. It’s an hour and half long workout, and after a 5 minute warm-up, it called for a 37-minute high Zone 2 ride before going straight into the first of two sets of 2x3s Vo2Max intervals.
I completed the workout on the turbo and had to really empy the tank on the fourth interval. I don’t understand why there was a really long Zone 2 ride before the intervals, and I wondered if I couldv’e performed them even better with about half the Zone 2 duration.
Is this simply to challenge you more? Does this make up for not having many Zone 2 only rides in the XC-MTB plan?
When I was about half way through the Zone 2 effort, I kept thinking I’d really like to start the intervals and it seemed a little like I was wasting time. Anyway, I’d love to hear what the idea is behind this. Thanks in advance.