Crosssports's Weblog

Howdy folks,

Well, it’s Saturday, and that means today is the first real event of the local CX season up here in Seattle, the WWOCX Cyclocross Festival. I’m sitting this one out, race-wise, but I will be headed uot to St. Eds to check out some of the action and cheer the particpants (and yes, they’ve got a men’s race!) on.

Hope to see you out there if you’re a local.

Before I head over there, I’m going to punish myself on the trainer with everybody’s favorite workout, the 2×20.

I’m adding a twist today, though, and doing the…

2×20 With a 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.

If you don’t happen to live in Seattle where we’re looking to have some pretty epic weather conditions today, or maybe if you do and you’re just a wee bit of a masochist, maybe don’t do that 2×20 nonsense today.

Instead go for a…

Hard Group Ride –

Get out there and kick some A** on the local roadie ride, or on the trails with your buddies.

Push the pace if and when you can, try and go hard – harder than usual – and see how you recover from some stiff efforts on a course or in a group you know pretty well.

Duration? 3 hours or so. OK to go long(er. Ish.) today, but better to go kinda long and really damn hard.

Try to ride a bit over your head.

Either ride with a group of riders that are just slightly better than you – and ride defensively – or push the tempo at the front with a group that you’re comfortable in.

Have fun!

M

Yup. You should check out…

~ by crosssports on August 29, 2015.

Posted in Cyclocross, Intervals, The Workout Of The Day