The Cyclocross Workout Of The Day for Friday, 10.23.15. “Sleepy”
Howdy folks,
It’s Friday again! If you’re racing this weekend, today is an important day. Whatever you do today sets the stage for your form at the races this weekend.
Races like Zonhoven!
If you’re racing tomorrow, you need to do some form of openers today. How about…
The L.B. Opener (or, almost Ignition, but not quite.)
You’re going to do a series of short, hard sprints midway through a 1 – 1 1/2 hour ride. Before you head out the door, give some thought to where you can do that effectively.
A flat, straight, low-traffic section of road is what you’re looking for.
It would be great if it’s about a :45 minute ride away; that would make things nice and simple.
Hop on your bike and roll out the door.
Ride steady, at a moderate pace for 1/2 hour – 45 minutes, eventually winding up at the aforementioned stretch of road.
You’re now going to do a series of Hard out of the saddle sprints.
How hard?
Well, it’s difficult to say without having your data in front of me. You’ll get the hang of it pretty quickly, but you’re shooting for an output level that will allow you to crank out all the sprints in the set at about the same level, but not easily. Also not so hard that you’re going to feel this in your legs tomorrow.
Clear as mud?
You aren’t sprinting to failure here, and you aren’t doing a max power test.
Don’t overdo it, you’re trying to open your legs, not destroy them.
10 sprints, 10 seconds each.
1 minute between each sprint.
After the last sprint, roll back home spinning easily to recover.
Budget at least 15 – 20 minutes for the spin/ride back home.
when you get home, put your feet up and relax.
If you’re racing on Sunday, think about taking it really easy today. Maybe even take the day entirely off.
Above all, try to get to sleep early. Sleep is really damn important, even – perhaps especially – if you’re the type of person who doesn’t tend to get much of it.
I’m definitely in that category.
This isn’t a good thing.
At this point in my life, it’s become pretty clear that I’m never going to be one of those folks who gets the 8 hours of sleep every night, and I almost never do the night before a race. I actually do just fine with less than 8, but my natural tendency towards 5 or 6 is simply too little. I’ve tracked my sleep patterns, compared them to my performance, and I know that when I drop below a certain threshold my performance suffers.
So I need to work at getting more sleep in. Taking naps is really the best answer, but hoo boy, that can be difficult.
“Sorry I missed that conference call, I was taking a nap!”
Yeah, that’ll go over well.
I’m working to figure out ways to make it happen, but it is work.
That’s kind of the point of this whole sermon.
We need to work on our recovery every bit as much as we need to work on building our fitness.
Recovery is, in fact, an integral part of building that fitness.
So think about thinking about it.
Start with your sleep.
Are you getting enough?
Do you even know?
Keep track of it for a while, what you find might surprise you.
Later,
M
Hey there…
Thanks for following my blog!
This thing started off as a lark, but over time it has become a little bit of a monster. There are over 1000 workouts on here! How the hell did that happen?!
It takes a fair bit of time – and a wee bit of money – to keep this thing rolling, and it’s suddenly the time of the year when the bills come due. I need to ante up if I want to keep the lights on for the page.
Honestly, I’m not trying to get rich off this thing… or even make any money from it at all.
It’d just make my life a fair bit easier if I didn’t lose money doing this!
So, hey… if you feel like you’ve gotten anything of value out of this blog, please do me a favor – and yes, it’s a favor, and I will be truly thankful for it – and send a buck or two (or five, or whatever…) my way.
How do you do that?
Simply click on the graphic below, and PayPal will be glad to make it happen.
Thank you!
Crosssports's Weblog 