The Cyclocross Workout Of The Day for Thursday, 11.20.14. “Kryptonite”
Howdy folks,
My apologies for the lack of a workout yesterday.
I just had one of those days. “Upgraded” my phone to the newest version of the Android OS, and it bricked the damn thing, which led to a ridiculous amount of time spent trying to bring the thing back to life, skipped meals, a daily routine in tatters, and no post on here.
Blech.
Not recommended.
What do I recommend?
Well, it kinda depends.
The workout we did last Thursday is kind of my own personal kryptonite…
…the workout I know I should do, but always find a reason to not do, and it always comes back to bite me in the ass.
I finished second in a race a couple of weeks ago, and the only damn thing that got me dropped was the fact that I couldn’t follow the guy who won on an uphill drag.
Because I didn’t do the g-damn…
Short Hill Repeats…**
You want to do these on a climb that has you right on the edge of being over-geared.
There are a couple of ways to do this…
– big-ringable, but just at the edge of being a small ring climb.
– small ring, but steep or with variable terrain, or both.
Each effort should take 5 seconds or so, which tells you how long the climb needs to be, eh?
Warm up for approx. 1/2 hour, then roll on up to the base of the climb you have selected.
Begin your intervals with an out of the saddle, full race-pace ATTACK into the climb.
You’re looking to blast up the climb, full gas the whole way.
It’s perfectly OK to sit down 1/2 -3/4 of way through the effort – especially if you need to do so to maintain traction – but don’t let the intensity drop.
Try to maintain your intensity for the duration of interval, got it?
You’re going to recover for 30 seconds between each rep, and then 2-5 minutes between sets.
5 reps. per set.
Minimum of 5 sets.
If you can do more than that, great… but make sure you’re maintaining something in the ballpark of the level of output you had on your first set.
You aren’t trying to do all these at the same wattage – there’s some pretty good scientific evidence that if you absolutely drill your first intervals at a level that you can’t repeat for the rest of the set, it’s actually a good thing – but you don’t want to drive yourself into the ground after the wheels have come off.
If you have a power meter, you’re done when the wattage you can maintain throughout the set drops off the edge of the table.
That’ll be pretty obvious when it happens, trust me.
Spin out & warm down after.
So, that’s the thing I should probably be doing today, and that’s why I’m putting it up.
But it might not be what you should be doing.
Your workout today?
Think of the one thing you always manage to find an excuse to not do, the workout you absolutely hate.
Do that.
Sorry kid.
It’s for your own good.
M
** Gotta’ be real here, ok? I didn’t lose just because I didn’t do the damn hill repeats… It had an awful lot to do with the fact that the person who did win was pretty damn good, and absolutely better than me. Credit where credit is due, and try to take motivation while still giving other’s their due, eh?
*********
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