Crosssports's Weblog

Howdy folks,

We’re reaching the time in the season where your training schedule becomes a balancing act.

Too much training, and whoops…

Over the edge you go.

Too little?

Darn it. The machine thinks it’s time to get some rest in, starts to shut down, and you just can’t get rolling on race day.

This is tough stuff, and it’s hard to offer much in the way of advice to deal with it, other than, well…

Think about what you’re doing.

Try not to over do it, try not to back off too much.

Balance.

Having said all that, here’s something else to think about with your daily workouts: Specificity.

If you’re racing a lot, you can’t train all that much, and what training you do do, should be targeted.

Last week we did a workout that was specifically designed around the demands of a couple of the World Cup courses, but also made sense for a fair number of domestic races.

Today, we’re going to put our climbing legs on, and do some work on the short, sharp efforts found in all but the most flat, dirt crit-ish races.

We’re doing…

Short Hill Repeats – 

Ideally, these are done on a climb that is big-ring-able, but just at the edge of being a small ring climb.

Each effort should take 7-10 seconds.

30 seconds rest between efforts, 2-5 minutes between sets.

Warm up for approx. 1/2 hour, then…

Begin the first effort with an out of the saddle, full gas, race-pace effort.

ATTACK the climb.

7-10 seconds, full throttle.

It’s OK to sit down 1/2 -3/4 way through the effort, this is largely a question of style. Just make sure to keep the gas on.

Try to maintain intensity through the interval, if you find yourself slowing down significantly, you need to back it down closer to the 7

than 10 second side of the ledger.

You’re going to do 5 reps. That’s a set.

2 minutes between sets.

You’re going to try for 5 sets. If you can’t maintain the wattage/intensity of the first set in later sets, you’re probably in a little bit over

your head – which is alright – just don’t dig a deep hole. Call it a day if/when your wattage drops way below your initial efforts.

Spin out & warm down after.

Have fun!

M

~ by crosssports on November 8, 2012.

Posted in Cyclocross, The Workout Of The Day
Tags: balance, cyclocross intervals, cyclocross training, hill repeats, hill repeats for cycling, hill repeats for cyclocross