The Workout Of The Day for Monday, 7.22.13 – “Crabs”
Howdy folks,
I hope you enjoyed your weekend, and the finale of the TDF…
How great was that, eh?
I’ve got to admit, though… I’m kinda’ bummed that the new Tour Champ is such a shambling mess of a travesty of an aesthetic nightmare on the bike…
Dude looks like a monkey humping a pickle barrel. Like a human/crab hybrid.
Yikes.
Enough with the tour chatter, though (if I keep going I’ll start in on Phil&Paul and we’ll be here for a while…)
Let’s talk about some training, eh?
We’re starting things afresh this week, so the first thing we’re going to need to do is get some testing in, an assessment of where our fitness is at right now. We won’t talk too much about the actual testing right now, but since we’re going to do it, we need to lay a little bit of groundwork in order to have our legs & lungs open and ready to give us some good data.
You’re going to do a stout test/workout on either Tuesday or Wednesday this week, and what you do today will have a pretty big effect on how that goes.
So, if you’re gonna’ hit that test hard tomorrow, today you’re doing…
L.B. Number One –
In the course of a pretty easy 1:30 ride, you’re going to do a series of 10 second sprints, six of ’em.
So, first, make sure you have a spot where you can go pretty darn fast for 10 seconds without getting killed. Think level ground, secluded road, low traffic.
Ride out to the spot, warming your legs up on the way. 1/2 hour – 45 minutes warmup is about perfect.
Get yourself set, with a time-keeping device at the ready.
Sprint hard.
Full gas, out of the saddle for 10 seconds.
You want to start these in a gear that’s easy enough that you can blast out of the saddle from a near dead standstill. It’s a short interval, so you don’t want to lug a big gear up to speed, focus on an explosive, relatively easy-gear effort.
Recover for one minute, then do it again.
Repeat the whole shebang 10 times.
After the last interval, spin your way home, finishing up the last of the 1.5 hour ride.
When you get back, Put your feet up, relax, and get ready for the next day’s workout.
That’s what you’re doing if you want to do the test/workout tomorrow.
Prefer to do that on Wednesday, or ride pretty darn hard this weekend (In which case you really shouldn’t do the test on Tuesday)?
Great.
Go for an easy…
Recovery Spin –
Get on your bike. Roll out into the street, and just spin around for an hour.
Really small gear, no hard efforts – heck, no medium effort.
Spin. You’re looking to move your legs around in circles, almost like there is no chain on the bike.
The idea is to get your body moving, flush the systems out, and speed your recovery.
Just get out on the road and spin aimlessly. At a certain point, your legs suddenly feel better.
As soon as that happens, turn around, go home, eat, stretch, and put your legs up.
Relax.
Have fun,
M
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