he Cyclocross Workout Of The Day for Wednesday, 12.7.16. “Fast Not Furious”

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Howdy folks,

Well, it’s Wednesday, and that means it’s Skills day here on the ‘ole blog.

Did you happen to check out the post from last week?

There’s a bunch on there to wade through, but if you’re wrapping your season up and haven’t read it, give it a shot. Let me know what you think.

There’s a slight chance we’ll be doing some off-season skills building clinics in the Seattle area this year, just to put my money where my mouth is on this stuff. Interested? Drop me a line.

So, about today…

Skills work, but don’t overdo it. Polish what you’ve got, don’t work on anything new.

Keep it fast, keep it light. Don’t push through to a level of deep fatigue. Fast, but not furious…

Here we go…

1 – warm up for 10 minutes.

2 – Stretch out after you’re warm.

Pay special attention to all the muscles used in those movements you make hopping on and off the bike that are different from what you usually do.

3 – Dismount/remount skills for 5 minutes , just ’cause.

– Start at literally a walking pace, and slowly increase speed until you can mount and dismount the bike smoothly and perfectly at full speed. Do not jump on and off the bike, you are looking to smoothly slide yourself on and off.

Need a refresher on the basics? Click here.

4 – Starts.

Just like the beginning of a race. One foot on the ground, dead standstill, get-up-and-go.

Begin with a few medium effort starts, fast but not all-out.

When you start to get the feel for things, hit it hard a couple of times, then back off.

Feeling solid?

Good.

Get yourself ready to go hard.

– Bang! Six full-gas starts.

– short effort, just go long enough that you are up to full speed, then back down, turn around, go again.

Spin easy for a couple of minutes, then…

– Bang! ~pause~ Bang!

– Six full-gas starts, but each start effort will look like this…

– Full effort start from a dead-stop, foot on ground.

– As soon as you get up to full speed, sit back in saddle, take one deep breath, go again, HARD!

– Ouch.

5 – Recover for a few minutes, then Finish the night with two short efforts on relatively easy terrain.

– “Easy” as in a loop on grass with some tight-ish turns on it, or some pretty buffed double-track.

– Go hard, and work on accelerations out of the turns.

– Every time you slow down entering a turn, get on the gas on the way out of it, ass out of the saddle, working hard.

– 5 minutes full gas, rest for 2 minutes, then go again for another 5.

– Start each effort with, well… with a start. Like you were working on a couple of minutes ago…

Warm down, go home, relax.

Enjoy!

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.