Crosssports's Weblog

Howdy folks,

I’m in Vegas at the Interbike tradeshow, and I’ll be on the sidelines for the CrossVegas World Cup Race tonight thanks to the fine folks at Clif Bar who hooked me up with tickets. Big, big thanks to them for getting me in, for their support of the event, and for being consistently, reliably, and unfailingly, a patron of the CX scene up here in Seattle.

I don’t give out a whole lot of plugs on here, but these fine folks sure as hell deserve one… and yup; I buy their products myself.

Onward!

In honor of the race and the suffering I expect to witness tonight, I’m going to hit you with something pretty evil today…

The MB15 – 

Warm up well. (Seriously. Warm up for this one, it’ll help.)

The basic idea here is to do a series of very short efforts with very little rest between them, for a pretty long period of time.

Sound confusing?

Here’s how it breaks down…

Warm up.

Get set…

Go!

15 seconds on

15 seconds off

15 seconds on

15 seconds off

…and so on and so on for the duration of the interval.

How long are you going to do this for?

– Ten minutes

How many sets?

– Three -four sets, 5 minutes between sets. Ideally, you aspire to pile enough ten-minute segments on top of one another to equal the duration of your races.

How hard do you go during the “on” segments?

– Pretty darn hard.

You’re familiar with the level of effort you put out in your 2×20’s by now, right?

You need to go harder than that.

A fair bit harder would be good.

Ideally, you’ll hit these on periods at right about 150% of your FTP, if that’s a number that means anything to you. If it doesn’t, it’s harder than what you’re dong your 2×20 effort at. A fair bit harder.

Like I said, “ouch.”

How easy do you go during the “off” segments?

– A lot easier, but you aren’t quite soft pedaling.

Right about 50% of your FTP, or half as hard as your 2×20 level.

Again, ouch.

Want to know the real “Ouch”?

Ultimately, you want to be able to do 6 sets of these, or 3 sets twenty minutes each, or however many it takes to equal the duration of your races.

Seriously, Ouch.

Do what you can.

Have fun,

M

~ by crosssports on September 16, 2015.

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 Racin