How did the 2×20’sgo yesterday? Legs feeling a wee bit heavy today?
No sweat. We’ve got the antidote for that, and it’s on the docket for today.
We’re doing…
Spin Ups –
– Get on your bike and warm up with a leisurely spin, 10-20 minutes.
– After you’re warm, find a nice, long, flat or slightly downhill section of road with little or no traffic.
– Begin interval by rolling into it at a moderate speed, in a gear that’s smaller than you would typically use to sprint.
– Get out of the saddle and sprint.
– Spin the gear up out of the saddle. When your leg speed gets to the point where it’s hard to maintain, sit down and keep going until you are totally spun-out. We’re talking fast, can’t turn ‘em over any faster…
Think Road-Runner fast…
– Repeat x3-5
Recover for 5 minutes, rolling around at a leisurely pace.
– Go again, same thing.
Recover, then repeat as time and fitness allow. Shoot for 3-5 sets of 3-5.
I had technical difficulties last night, and by that I mean that I fell asleep on the couch – with the computer on my lap – while I was working on this. I guess that’s what happens when you get 6 hours of sleep total over the weekend ’cause you’re live-blogging the Olympic Road Races… blech…
ANYways, onwards…
It’s Tuesday, and if you’ve been around this blog for a while, you can probably guess what that means…
It’s Two by Twenty Tuesday!
– Warm up.
– Go as hard as you can for 20 minutes.
– Recover for 2 minutes.
– Go again for another 20 minutes.
That’s the basic version. Success on this is, however, all in the details.
The idea here is to go as hard as you can for the duration of both intervals without being forced to go easier at the end of the second interval. If you run out of gas before you finish the second interval, you went to hard. If your vision isn’t blurry at the end of the second interval, you went too easy.
If you’re doing this with a powermeter, you want your wattage output to be as close to constant as possible. We’re talking 10 watt variance at the most. Keep it steady.
These take practice to do well, and the better you get, the harder they get. This is another workout that works great on the trainer, and that’s how I do ‘em, which is a good thing… because I always wind up flat on my back on the floor trying not to puke after the 2nd interval.
I’m really not kidding about the seeing spots thing. If you can learn to push through your limits when you do these, you will get better and you will get better fast.
Have fun!
M
PS – if you’re in the Seattle area, come on out to the cross clinic I’m leading tonight… Info Here.
It’s Monday, and with some rare exceptions, on Monday we take it easy.
Use today to recover from the work of the weekend, get those real-world necessities taken care of… things of that sort.
I know some of you probably took it pretty easy yesterday, too.
No big deal.
If you were tired enough to need an easy day yesterday, another one today probably isn’t going to hurt.
Make sense?
Good! Today you’re doing a…
One Hour Recovery Spin.
– Get on your bike. Roll out into the street, and just spin around for an hour.
Really small gear, no hard efforts – heck, no medium effort. Spin. You’re looking to move your legs around in circles, almost like there is no chain on the bike. The idea is to get your body moving, flush the systems out, and speed your recovery.
When you do your recovery ride -if you have the time- just get out and spin aimlessly. At a certain point, your legs suddenly feel better.
As soon as that happens, turn around, go home, eat, stretch, and put your legs up.
…or, you know, go to work.
Or School.
Or whatever real-world hassle you have to deal with.
If you have some extra energy, today is also an excellent day to get in some core work; remember, Good Quality core work! No crappy sit ups!
Here’s the foundation of what I’m doing right now –
Stability ball roll-outs –
Superman Back extensions –
“six-inch” isometric extension.
Lie down on your back, hands together behind your lumbar spine. Raise your legs 6 inches in the air. Hold.
It’s Sunday, and that means that the workout for many of you is pretty obvious (well, for the road race crew anyways…)
Option #1 for today is –
Race Your Ass Off!
Whatever local racing is on tap for today, do it.
Take full advantage of the few remaining road and MTB races, and get some hard efforts in.
Workout option #2?
Hard Group Ride –
Get out there and kick some A** on the local roadie ride, or on the trails with your buddies.
Push the pace if and when you can, try and go hard – harder than usual – and see how you recover from some stiff efforts on a course or in a group you know pretty well.
Duration? 3 hours or so. OK to go long today, but better to go kinda long and really damn hard.
You want to finish up the ride tired, sore, and needing to rest a bit tomorrow; basically, if you aren’t racing today, go hard enough that when you’re done, you feel like you did.
Have fun, ride hard, and remember: easy day tomorrow, leave it all on the road/trail today…
If you rode hard yesterday, though?
Maybe take it a little easy today, and just go out and cruise for a while.
Get some fun, unstructured miles in and enjoy your time on the bike.
You’re going to be doing a bunch of hard riding over the next couple of weeks… so go on out there, and enjoy the summer day; it’s going to drift away before you know it!
This weekend – if it’s at all possible – I recommend getting in the last (or almost last!) road or MTB race of your season. The Cross racing is right around the corner, and it’s really darn hard to match the intensity of racing when you’re training on your own!
So, if you can manage it, your workout today is –
Go Race!
No racing in your neck of the woods?
Today’s Workout – if you’re not racing – is…
The Hills Have “I”s
(“I” is for “intensity.”)
Warm up, ideally in the course of a ride out to some pretty darn hilly terrain.
Find a hill – or a series of hills – that will take you 5,10,15 minutes to climb at pretty darn close to race pace.
Hit the base of the climb hard, out of the saddle, and accelerate into it.
Sit down when you feel you’re starting to lag, and drop a couple of gears. Spin (but still fast, IE about the same as your 2×20 minute level.)
Stay seated until you are breathing a little easier, then…
Out of the saddle, Attack! Hard like you did at the base of the climb.
Same as before, when you start to lag, sit down, spin.
Repeat to top of climb.
At the top of the climb, get out of the saddle, and accelerate as the grade eases. Power over the top and well into the descent, until your speed is great enough that coasting is faster than pedaling.
Coast/spin to bottom of climb.
Pedal at moderate intensity (IE – 2/3 of your 2×20 minute level,) for roughly equal to the amount of time it took to complete the entire climb, or until you get to the next hill, whichever is greater.
Repeat 3-5 times, or until you are spent, or until you run out of time.
If you do more than 3 repeats, spin easy for 5-10 minutes after 3rd repeat.
Total duration should be 2-4 hours, longer = more climbs.
If you do 4 hours plus, you’re either really damn fit, or you’re kidding yourself.
Better to go shorter and harder than to extend the ride and slow things down.
For a lot of you, there’s still some road or Mountain Bike racing going on, and that makes today’s workout pretty much dependent on what you’re doing this weekend.
Yikes… if you’ve been playing along, we’re two days in, and we’ve already hit this training thing pretty darn hard.
You know what?
Take it a little bit easy today.
Go for a…
2 Hour Moderate Ride –
Get on your bike.
Go ride for 2 hours.
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.
If you were right on top of our entry to the new season, and did the 2×20’s yesterday, there’s a pretty good chance you’re feeling a bit gassed today – especially if that was your first time doing them this season, or – gulp! – ever!
No sweat. Feeling tapped out? Take it easy today. Go for a…
1 Hour Recovery Spin –
– Get on your bike. Roll out into the street, and just spin around for an hour.
– Really small gear, no hard efforts – heck, no medium effort.
– Spin. You’re looking to move your legs around in circles, almost like there is no chain on the bike.
– The idea is to get your body moving, flush the systems out, and speed your recovery.
– Just get out on the road and spin aimlessly. At a certain point, your legs suddenly feel better.
– As soon as that happens, turn around, go home, eat, stretch, and put your legs up.
Relax.
Feeling pretty darn good today?
Sweet.
Today, you’re going to do some (gulp!) running…
So, a few words about running for cyclocross before we get going…
First of all, don’t get yourself all twisted up with this running thing. Cyclocross is a Cyclingevent, not a running race. There is absolutely no reason to train for ‘cross by doing long runs!
Even if you’re racing a course like Seattle’s Steilacoom, with it’s legendary run up, you still spend a very small amount of each race running. As a really good point of reference, the total distance of all the running in the Pro race at Steilacoom is something in the neighborhood of 1/3 of a mile.
1/3 of a mile! Total! That’s it!
OK, granted – you’re running pretty damn hard for that short distance, but still… tell me again why you think you need to do 5k runs in practice?
I like to run, and I like to run pretty long distances.
I do it for fun.
I don’t do it during the cross season.
Any running I do in-season is short, sharp, and focused on speed. Some of the athletes I coach don’t do any running at all during the season, and it hasn’t stopped them from winning new jerseys in December.
If you’re a runner by inclination and disposition, and you really enjoy those endurance runs… well, get them out of your system now.
Ok, on with the workout… today we are Stairing At The Sun
– First, figure out where you can do the workout. We’re going to be running stairs today, so you need some stairs…
…or a small hill, or a grassy knoll – something you can run up. Stairs are best, but whatever you can come up with will work.
You don’t need NFL stadium stairs or anything crazy like that for this workout. Look for something that’s long enough to give you 10 seconds of running at a full sprint; That’ll be plenty long enough. We’re doing speed work, here. Short, sharp efforts.
On with the workout.
– get on your bike (huh?!) and warm up for 15 minutes or so.
(we’re going to warm up for any running efforts we do, all season, with some time on the bike. )
– Mosey on over to your stairs/knoll/whatever, and get set. Stretch, have a sip of water, turn up the volume on your Ipod.
– Jog up the stairs. Walk down.
Get a sense for the spacing and “feel” of the stairs. You’re going to be flying up these things in a full-on lactic acid bath shortly, so you want to get comfortable with the terrain…
So you don’t have any… problems…
– Repeat x5
– Sprint! up stairs, fast, using whatever stride is most comfortable. Walk down.
– Repeat x5
Rest for 1 minute, walking slowly up and down stairs.
– Sprint up stairs, this time using quick, tiny strides, 1 stairstep at a time. Walk down.
– Repeat x5
Rest again, same as before.
– Sprint up stairs, this time using long strides, several stairsteps at a time. Walk down.
– Repeat x 5
Rest again.
– Sprint up stairs, combining the previous two exercises – 1st time up, long strides; next time up, short strides, etc. Walk down.
Rest again, 2-5 minutes.
*If this is your first time running this season, that’s it. You’re done. Feel free – heck, feel obligated – to stop early if you have any tweaks, twinges, or strange feelings in your legs.*
In fact, make that an order.
If this is your first time running this season, go only until you start to feel soreness. That may make this a really, really short workout. That is 100% OK.
– If you’ve got some running miles in ya’ already, repeat the entire damn thing until you just can’t do it anymore, or until you are going so slowly it’s ridiculous.
Get back on bike, spin out your legs, go home.
Notes –
The idea here is to get good enough at this to go really damn hard. If you do this right, it’s a brutal workout.
Don’t go that hard if it’s your first (or nearly first) time running this season. Keep it under control. You want to build up to the point where you are going up the stairs in a dead sprint, and are completely gassed at the end of each set.
We’re going to do this exercise – or a variation of it – every week for a while, so be patient. You will get better at it, and I will throw in some variations that will keep it fun and challenging, including some agility and lateral stability drills. Stay tuned!
You betcha. I do the personal coaching/trainer thing. Clients have included multiple National and even World Champions, and 2/3 of My Cyclocross athletes made the podium at Nationals in 2009, with one taking home the Stars and Stripes. Interested? Drop me a line at: crosssports@gmail.com
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