The Cyclocross Workout Of The Day for Wednesday, 11.11.15. “Veteran Speed”
Howdy folks,
Best wishes to all who served their country on this Veterans Day holiday! This is a holiday that meant a lot to my family (in particular, my WWII Veteran Dad) as I was growing up, so it always brings back memories and powerful associations. I know I’m not alone in this.
As it is a holiday, some of you might have the day off today. If you do, and you can, take advantage of the day off and go for a long ride today. Get a few hours of endurance training in, pushing the pace on the hills, but mostly just putting in some saddle time. We’ve talked about it before; this is the time of year when people start to run out of the deep fitness that comes from putting in the long miles. All that work you did over the summer is starting to wear thin, and there are very few opportunities to get miles in when you’re racing on the weekends.
If today is one of those opportunities for you, take advantage of it.
For the rest of us, it’s…
Cyclocross Skills Day!
Today’s workout is all about speed…
Go fast today.
Explode out of corners, accelerate up climbs, get out of the saddle and punch it every time you remount your bike after an obstacle.
Leg speed should be high tonight. No slogging a big gear, get the pedals turning over and get up to speed as quickly and emphatically as you can.
Think quick, snappy, dancing on the pedals type behavior. Maybe do everything one gear smaller than you ordinarily would tonight, just to reinforce the idea.
On with the workout!
– warm up on bike, 10-15 minutes.
– Brief run. 5 minutes, focused on short, quick steps.
– Active stretching, as discussed in previous posts.
– Barrier skills, 10 minutes.
Every time you remount your bike, immediately get out of the saddle and sprint up to speed.
You are remounting with your hands on your hoods, right? If not, you should be. Every time you get back on the bike, butt comes off saddle, and you give ‘er gas. Hard to do this when you’re planted on the tops…
Begin slowly, and gradually up the tempo until you’re going too darn fast, then take it down a notch.
This is your race speed. Just one notch below your absolute max.
You should always be able to do things one notch faster in practice then you ever have to do them in a race.
When you try to get that extra tiny little bit of speed out of the technical sections in a race, you tend to wind up flat on your face.
Falling is always slow.
Get things perfect at race speed, and then move on to…
– Technical skills, 15-20 minutes.
Off cambers, tight turns, wide/fast turns, mud, sand… whatever you’ve got to work with on your training circuit, have at it.
Remember, speed is everything tonight.
Come out of corners faster than you went into them.
Sprint through the sand & the mud.
Go fast.
– Starts
Full-gas starts from standing, foot on the ground. Just like the beginning of a race.
Each start effort should include a second effort: after you’ve gotten up to speed and settled into the saddle, get your ass back up off of it and hit the gas again. Second effort is the focus!
Go until you get 5 perfect starts in a row.
– Race simulation. 3 x 10 minutes, 2 minute rest between efforts.
Explode out of the corners.
Attack up the climbs.
Go fast.
Got it?
– Warm down.
Go Home. Eat. Recover.
Have fun!
M
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