16 Week Face of America Training Plan & Guide | Page 4

Glossary of Terms, Definitions, Tips, & Abbreviations
Low Intensity (LI)
or Endurance Ride (ER)
For our training plan purposes, we will associate the
LI Ride as your ER, and although interchangeable,
the training calendars will show LI, MI (for Moderate
Intensity), and HI (for High Intensity). Referring back
to LI, this is an Endurance Ride, and is the
cornerstone of all cyclist’s annual training. However,
for more experienced or elite level riders, the LI Ride
is often used more so for active recovery, and the MI
is often considered their cornerstone ride. The LI
Ride should allow conversation if riding with others,
and breathing is easy and not significantly labored. One
caveat for our purposes, if we perform a 3+ hour ride,
we’ll color code that yellow for a moderate. If you
monitor and know your Heart Rate (HR) Zones (i.e.
resting, low intensity, moderate intensity, and high
intensity levels of exertion…), then the LI average
HR Range should be approximately 50-65% of what
you perceive (Perceived Exertion (PE)) of your
maximum sustainable intensity or max HR. Typically
after an LI Ride of almost any duration, there may be
some residual fatigue in the legs in the following
hours; however, there is often no soreness. This type
of soreness is referred to as DOMS or Delayed Onset
of Muscle Soreness, and typically occurs when we
place the muscles and tendons under a “strain” or
workload and/or Range of Motion (ROM) that they
haven’t been under for a while (or ever). Think back
to how sore we often are after our first day of
moderate to intense gardening in the Spring – that
includes a fair amount of bending, stooping, squatting,
and lifting…etc. This is DOMS, a “good” soreness
that may be relatively “painful” the following day,
sometimes lasting as long as 5-6 days, but usually a
day or two. We will re-visit this common physical
phenomenon under moderate-high intensity / volume
training days.

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Moderate Intensity (MI) Ride
You may have heard a coach or peer mention a
“Tempo” Ride. For our purposes, the MI Ride is at a
“tempo” pace, which means that your breathing is
somewhat labored (but sustainable), and conversation is
more limited to shorter “phrase type” of responses
and not a full conversation level of exchange. The MI
Ride average HR Range is normally 65-80% of your
max HR. An MI Ride for 1-2+ hours should be
challenging, but very sustainable, and you’re certainly
tired at the end, but not totally exhausted. Following
an MI Ride, it is not uncommon to have some
residual DOMS for the remainder of the day, even for
another 24-48 hours if it was on the longer and or
more intense end of the spectrum.

High Intensity (HI) Ride
The High Intensity Ride is exactly that – your level of
exertion i ́