Crosssports's Weblog

Howdy folks,

Yikes.

That was one heck of a first weekend of racing, for me at least.

It was hot, and it was fast, and it was hot.

Really damn hot.

Our local race had a lakeshore sand run, and word is that it was 95 freakin degrees on the exposed sand.

Yikes.

I know I’ll miss this when the rains start, but right now?

Yikes.

So, needless to say, after a day of racing in that, it’s time for a…

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.

When you do your recovery ride – if you have the time – just get out 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.

Or at least try to.

So, hey… while we’re talking about recovery day, let’s really nail down what exactly we mean when we say something like “no hard efforts”.

No

Hard

Efforts

.

Spin easy, darnit.

Easy!

I recently received a message from a rider in which they stated that they set themselves a goal wattage of 200 watts for the duration of their recovery rides, and they felt like sometimes they needed to push themselves too hard to reach that on an easy day.

Yup.

I bet it felt like that.

‘Cause that’s waaaay too damn hard.

Spin. Easy.

Just enough power to make the pedals go around in circles.

You’re looking for it to feel like there’s almost no chain on the bike.

E.A.S.Y.

You just lollygag your way around, twiddling a ridiculously easy gear and flushing the previous day’s race out of your system.

Pick a scenic route to ride, invite someone to ride with you who only gets on their bike once a year, put the collected works of Jack Handy on your Ipod…

Make sense?

Enjoy!

M

– OK, here’s the caveat. There are a very, very few people out there who need to throw a couple of jumps into their recovery spin in order to get their legs to loosen up so they can get to that supple, no chain feeling we’re looking for.

If it just ain’t working to spin and spin easy-like, it’s ok to hit the gas a couple of times to prime the pump. Don’t overdo it, we’re talking a couple of short efforts, think 5-10 seconds at well short of your max output.

~ by crosssports on September 8, 2014.

Posted in Cyclocross, 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