The Cyclocross Workout Of The Day for Friday, 11.25.16. “Whinging Ignition”
Howdy folks,
Ouch. Sorry this is going up so damn late today. Rapidly discovering that a non-weight bearing leg injury means that everything takes about 3 times as long to do.
Enough of my whining and whinging.
Those of you who can still ride with all the turkey and pie fermenting in your bellies are probably looking for something to do today!
Which leads us, of course, to the inevitable question…
What are your plans for the weekend?
If you’re racing on Sunday, you might want to take it kinda easy today. I know, I know… it’s a nice day, and you might even have it off from work!
That’s cool.
Just don’t overdo it.
Maybe go for a…
One to Two Hour Moderate Ride –
Get on your bike.
Go ride for an hour or two.
No hard efforts, but do throw in a couple of moderate ones. By moderate, I mean just that. You can sprint for the town line, but you should be laughing while you do it.
You’re not doing a recovery spin, so you need to put a little bit of gas into the pedals… just don’t go out and kill yourself.
Check out the view, smell the flowers, just do it while you’re putting a little bit of effort into the pedals.
1 notch above a recovery ride.
Make sense?
Racing tomorrow?
Gotta’ get those openers in! How about…
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.
Enjoy!
M
Thanks for following along.
As you’ve probably noticed, there’s been a “begging for money” bit attached to the beginning of this page for a couple of weeks now.
I’d like to thank everyone who has chipped in this season – and the past couple of seasons – when I’ve asked you to. It’s made a difference.
How much of a difference?
Well, let’s put it this way; the small donations from you folks have kept the lights on on this page.
There’s a certain (small) amount of money that has to come out of my pocket to pay for this page, and there’s a certain (larger) amount of money that, as a self-employed person, I need to write off based on the time spent on writing, posting, and – yes – giving training advice away that other people charge for.
So, once again, thanks to those who have contributed.
As much as I hate to say it, though, the contributions this season are way down compared to the last two years, and I don’t know if I can keep this going unless more people contribute.
Yeah. That sucks. I hate to have to write it, but I just looked at my bank balance, and the bills sitting on my desk, and the paying work that I’m putting off while I sit here writing this, and… well… crap.
So, that’s where we’re at.
I don’t know what the future of the CXWOTD looks like. Maybe there’s a paywall, maybe I try to pursue some corporate sponsorship, maybe I just bag the whole thing, maybe I scale things down and post less often… heck, maybe I just decide that I don’t care what the numbers say, and keep going anyways.
I dunno.
Nothing is going to happen in the short term. At minimum, I’m going to play things out through the end of this season before making any decisions.
Just wanted to let ya’all know what was what.
So, hey… if you feel like you’ve gotten anything of value out of this blog, and you’d like to see it continue, 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.
Thanks for the consideration!
What’s that you say? You’d kinda’ like to have a cycling coach help figure this stuff out for you? Check out…
(and, in case you’re wondering…. nope, S.E. doesn’t pay for the plug. I am one of their coaches, though, so if you’d like to work with me as a coach, click on the logo.)
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