Until relatively recently, I’d never failed to complete, or even had to pause, a structured workout to make it all the way through. Back then, I took a small amount of comfort from this artifact. Now, I think that’s backwards, and I couldn’t have been more wrong.
My current thinking is that I wasn’t pushing hard enough in my structured training. So I wasn’t identifying areas of improvement. Finding a limit is valuable feedback, and if you aren’t hitting the limits in your training, there’s probably going to be a rude awakening when you hit one when it matters.
That said, I also think it’s important to approach those limits slowly, and with purpose. There’s little point in creating workouts that are impossible. Fortunately, I’ve had a lot of help from Xert here; their workouts are perfect for introducing new depths of suffering on the bike. But, one word of caution there. While the workouts are killer, in a good way, the Adaptive Training Advisor’s advice isn’t always sound. There’s a massive overemphasis on HIT, often back-to-back, which would be counterproductive if I listened to it all the time.