Crosssports's Weblog

Howdy folks,

Let’s talk just a wee small bit about the couple of days before a race.

For a fairly large percentage of ya’all, the racing starts up in earnest this weekend, so it’s time to think about structuring our workouts in order to facilitate maximum success out at the races.

That’s kinda’ the whole point of all the training we’ve been doing, eh?

So, with that in mind, here’s how the couple of days bracketing a race might should look for most** folks.

2 days before race: Easy or off

1 Day before race: Openers session

Race Day:

Day After Race: Recovery spin

2 Days after race: Further recovery or training day.

Why are we talking about this today?

Well, if you’re racing this weekend, and you’re racing on Sunday, you should probably be taking it pretty easy today. 

Maybe even a day off the bike. 

But that ain’t the workout that you’re about to read.

This will be a theme throughout the season.

If you’re racing on Saturday, you just might need to change the order of your workouts around so that they actually work well with your own race schedule.

Make sense?

Onward…

[**most folks, as in there are definitely some who need to put in hard efforts two days before a race in order to have any kind of legs on race day. How do you know if you’re one of these kinda’ riders? Practice and experimentation. If you always race better the second day of a double weekend? Might need to go harder on your openers, but might really need to go harder two days before your race.]

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With racing on the schedule for this weekend, it’s a good idea to get some start practice and some speed work in, and we’re going to double-dip both of those today, and do some…

Start Intervals – 

Warm up well

Find yourself a nice flat stretch of road or a smooth path with little to no traffic, and enough distance to absolutely peg your output for 5-10 seconds.

That’s probably a longer piece  of road than you might think.

Begin each interval just as you would a Cross race. One foot down, standing still. 

It’s highly recommended that you start with your pedals level, not staggered (check out yesterday’s post here for more on the technical aspects of the start effort.) 

Count yourself down – 5…4…3…2…1… – then GO!

BAM! Full-gas start effort.

10 seconds, as hard as you can.

Recover for 1 full minute, then go again.

5 sets of 5 reps, more if you’re fit enough to do so.

How do you know if you’re fit enough to do more?

Your wattage output for the intervals doesn’t drop.

Don’t have a power meter?

This is exactly the kind of a workout they’re really nice for. 

Makes it pretty simple.

What you can do sans PM is draw a line on the road at the end point of your first interval.

You’re doing 10 second sprints, so when you stop making it to the line in 10 seconds?

You’re done. 

Finish off the workout by spinning out your legs until you feel them start to unwind from the sprint efforts.

Minimum of ten minutes.

Have fun!

M

~ by crosssports on September 4, 2014.

Posted in Cyclocross, Intervals, The Workout Of The Day
Tags: Bicycle racing, bike racing, cx classes, cx handling drills, cx intervals, CX practice, cx skills, CXWOTD, Cycling, Cyclo-cross, Cyclocross, cyclocross classes, cyclocross handling drills, cyclocross instruction, cyclocross intervals, Cyclocross Practice, cyclocross skills, cyclocross workouts, Fitness, Health, Heart rate, Howy folks, Intervals, Marymoor CX, Marymoor cyclocross, Marymoor practice, Personal Training, Physical exercise, Running, s: Aerobic exercise, Seattle, Sports, The Workout Of The Day Tags: Bicycle pedal, wootd, WOTD, XC Racing