The Workout Of The Day for Sunday, 9.5 – “Half Measures.”
Howdy folks,
Hopefully you’re enjoying the long weekend, and getting some quality riding in.
It’s awfully nice to have these three day weekends pop up right when you need ’em to get ready for ‘Cross season, isn’t it?
If you can’t get out and ride today, don’t sweat it, though.
Some times other things are just more important than training (or so they tell me…)
One of the great things about a holiday weekend is that it might mean the chance to get in a couple of days training, plus some quality time with the family. It doesn’t get much better than that…
I rambled on and on yesterday about how you should approach this weekend as a whole, so I won’t regurgitate it all over you here… check one spot down if you aren’t bored to tears already.
Suffice to say, there are a couple of options on the table for your training today, and they start with…
– Racing on Monday, but planning on taking it pretty seriously, or you’re relatively new to the game?
Sweet. Your workout for today is Can Openers –
Here’s the drill:
– Warm up for 1/2 hour or so.
– Follow with several short attacking efforts, IE 30 seconds at 80% of your max, or pretty damn hard.
– Back off and spin for 5 minutes.
– Follow with 10-15 minute effort at AT level, or CP30, or “I could talk to you if I had to, but I don’t want to” level.
– Spin for several minutes.
– Follow with 5-6 full gas start efforts on a straight section of paved road, level or slightly uphill.
You want to begin these from a dead stop, with one foot unclipped.
Do not stop until you get at least 3 perfect starts in a row, and I mean perfect; this is the cross equivalent of practicing free throws. make ‘em count.
… spin out the legs, go home, and get ready for the race.
Notice that this is a slightly different version of the Can Openers I’ve been posting the last couple of weeks; this is the full-on Cyclocross version. Do ’em on your cross bike, and if you can do ’em on variable cross-like terrain as well? Awesome.
If you’re racing on Monday, but you plan to race through it (yeah, I know – read yesterday’s post, OK?) You can do a couple of different things today –
Start your ride by doing Spin-Ups –
https://crosssports.wordpress.com/2010/08/19/the-workout-of-the-day-for-friday-8-19-like-a-record/
…And finish up by doing the Can Openers, same as described above.
The Openers workout takes about an hour, so this will push things up to 2 hours or so. You get a little bit of a workout in, but don’t dig such a hole that you will be a total basket case in the race tomorrow.
Do you really not give a damn at all about Monday’s race, or (like me!) need to work?
OK.
Here you go –
https://crosssports.wordpress.com/2010/08/06/1173/
It’s The Hills Have “I’s” and yeah, it’s pretty scary hard.
Like I was saying, not something to do if you care about being fast on Monday!
🙂
🙂
One last potential workout idea for ya’all…
I waited out the rain today, and got some nice riding in.
If it rains tomorrow, I’m training inside.
I did a road race in the rain last week, and I just can’t deal with another damn bike cleaning session right now.
So, while I hope it’s nice out tomorrow, if it isn’t I’m doing a Half and Half.
One of the optional workouts last week was the Half and Half & Half –
This is the same thing, except you do a full 20 minutes for the over/under interval.
Yeah, ouch.
This means you can’t hold the same wattage for the “under” part of the second interval as you do for the 2×20. You need to back it down a notch.
How much?
Honestly, it’s tough for me to tell you without seeing your test numbers.
Sorry, that’s why people actually pay me sometimes, rather than just read this and do it themselves 🙂
Basically, you will need to work at this until you find what output level will allow you to hold a constant “under” level, while still allowing you to do hard “over,” yet also leave you ready to pass out at the end of the interval.
If you’ve got a power meter, try starting out with an “under” of about 20 watts below your 20 minute level, and an “over” of about 20 watts above.
No power meter? Try riding one gear easier (at the same cadence!) and then one gear harder than you would do for your 2×20 efforts.
Good luck!
M
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