Crosssports's Weblog

Howdy folks,

Well, Stormpocalypse hasn’t quite hit us yet, so I still have internet. And power. For now.

Keep your fingers crossed for me!

It’s Friday, so the question is, are you racing tomorrow?

If you are, time for…

Ignition – 

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, hard to say. You’ll start to get the hang of it pretty quickly, but figure that 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.

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.

Make sense?

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.

For some folks, this isn’t quite enough to get their legs open and ready the day before the race – or at least it doesn’t feel like it’s enough – and the importance of “feeling” ready can’t really be overestimated.

If you’re part of this club (I am) add a 10-minute effort at right about your 2×20 output level before you start the sprint sets.

Warm up, 10 minute effort, 5 minutes spinning, sprint efforts, spin down, go home.

Kick some butt tomorrow. Yeah, that’s compulsory.

Not racing tomorrow, but racing on Sunday?

Go for an easy spin today, or perhaps even take the day off.

Unless that doesn’t work for you.

It doesn’t for everybody. Some people definitely need to ride pretty hard two days before a race to have legs that are open enough to ride well on race day.

Do you know if you’re one of them?

Only one way to find out. Take a day off two days before your race, see how it goes.

Then ride hard two days before your race, see how it goes.

Repeat enough times to establish if there is a pattern to your response.

If you happen to be working with a coach, this is the kind of thing they might/should be looking for in your training/racing logs. Yeah, no “might” there, really.

Doesn’t mean they are, though.

Something to think about, and maybe ask about.

One size definitely does not fit all when it comes to things like Openers, and how individuals respond to them.

So, try different stuff out. Don’t just do one thing all the time and assume it’s the best thing for you. Try different approaches until you have actual evidence that something works for you.

Evidence is good.

Later!

M

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~ by crosssports on October 14, 2016.

Posted in Cyclocross, openers, The Workout Of The Day