The Workout Of The Day for Tuesday, 11.27.12. “A Twist.”
Howdy folks,
As I write this, I’m about to head off to the season-ending party for the Seattle Cyclocross series.
Yup. It’s pretty much all over here, end of season, sadface.
That just ain’t so for many of you, though… so we’re going to keep plugging away with the workouts – as long as there is interest.
I will put some posts up soon with some thoughts on what you should be doing in your offseason, and related topics; look for them soon, and if you have any questions on that or related topics, please feel free to ask away, here or on the Facebook page.
But enough of that.
You’re here, you’re looking for a workout, and it’s Tuesday.
That means we’re doing a Tuesday standard, but with a twist…
Hehehe… a “twist”, get it?
(Sorry… loopy from painkillers…)
Today, it’s the…
2×20 With Happy Ending…
– Warm up.
– Go as hard as you can for 20 minutes.
– Recover for 2 minutes.
– Go again for another 20 minutes.
That’s the basic version. Success on this is, however, all in the details.
The idea here is to go as hard as you can for the duration of both intervals without being forced to go easier at the end of the second interval. If you run out of gas before you finish the second interval, you went to hard. If your vision isn’t blurry at the end of the second interval, you went too easy.
If you’re doing this with a powermeter, you want your wattage output to be as close to constant as possible. We’re talking 10 watt variance at the most. Keep it steady.
These take practice to do well, and the better you get, the harder they get. This is another workout that works great on the trainer, and that’s how I do ‘em, which is a good thing… because I always wind up flat on my back on the floor trying not to puke after the 2nd interval.
I’m really not kidding about the seeing spots thing.
But hey… that’s not all.
This is the Happy Ending version.
What does that mean?
Immediately after your 2nd twenty minute interval, you’re going to begin a series of five, ten-second “sprint” efforts, with 50 seconds of recovery between them.
It looks like this…
After 2nd 20 minute interval…
-spin for 1 minute.
sprint for ten seconds, starting at the one minute mark on your watch.
-spin until you hit the 2 minute mark on your watch
sprint for ten seconds
-spin until you hit the 3 minute mark on your watch
sprint for ten seconds
Etc., etc., continuing until you hit the five minute mark, and give the last little bit of your energy in one final 10 second sprint.
Ouch.
Have fun!
M