Crosssports's Weblog

Howdy folks,

Welcome back!

I hope you’re ready to go kinda/sorta hard today!

Well, Ok.

Not kinda/sorta, more like authentically hard. We’re jumping right in at the deep end!

Before we get started, please read this:

https://crosssports.wordpress.com/2009/09/11/cross-workout-of-the-day/

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No, seriously, read it…

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OK? Make sense?

Great. Here we go…

We’re going to start things out with the first Classic 2×20 of the season, and here’s the description of the workout, lazily cribbed from a post last year:

The 2×20 is one of the primary building blocks of your fitness, and is a great default workout. Short on time? Not sure what to do? Do one of these.

So, what the heck is it?

Pretty simply, the 2×20 looks like this:

– 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.

(…but, yeah, it will hurt.)

(…a lot.)

(…but, you know, the good kind of hurt…)

That’s the workout, and I’m sure you can’t wait to run right out and get going on it, but here are some thoughts before you leave…

– In the Seattle area, where I live, Tuesday nights are a local weekday circuit race, and that’s what I’m doing tonight. Take advantage of local racing when you have it, while you have it, there probably aren’t all that many road racing opportunities available as the season winds down.

– The 2×20 isn’t just a staple workout, it also doubles as a test session, a regular, oft-repeated metric of your fitness. Keep track of your performance in this, and all of the 2×20′s you do!

It doesn’t matter how you do it – wattage, heart rate, what gear you’re pushing on the trainer – just figure out some way of measuring your performance during the workout, and write it down.

Every time.

We will be referring to these metrics throughout the season, and your level of output in the 2×20 will form the basis for measuring your output in most of the workouts we do this season.

That’s why we’re starting with it as our first workout of the season 

Have fun!

M

Image, and lots of info on swimming pools, at: http://home.howstuffworks.com/swimming-pool.htm/printable

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Sometimes, victory feels like this...

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Howdy folks,

My apologies for the lack of posting recently. As I mentioned earlier, logistics conspired against me during my holiday travels, and there just wasn’t much I could do about it.

So, hey… here we are, it’s the week before Nationals.

This is the end of the road for many of the few of you left.

…and then there are those of you continuing on until Worlds.

Yikes.

What a long damn season…

So, hey… no workout of the day, today. Instead, I’m going to drop an outline of the week before your big race on ‘ya.

Since everyone races on different days, what i’m going to do is post-up a “Week of the big race” schedule. You plug in your race day, count back, and – Voila! a schedule…

SO,

Monday –

Easy recovery spin

Tuesday –

Spin-Ups, Form Sprints, or 1-2 Hour Moderate Ride

Wednesday –

Slow Roast, or 3 (or 2…) x10 (basically 1/2 a Classic 2×20) or 1-2 Hour Moderate Ride

Thursday

Spin Ups or  Form Sprints

Friday –

1-2 Hour Moderate Ride and/or Course Preview

Saturday –

Can Openers and  Course Preview

Sunday –

Race. Yer. Ass. Off.

The descriptions/explanations for all of these workouts can be found by entering the name of the workout in the search box over to the left of the page. If you’ve been following for a while, there isn’t anything here you haven’t seen before (except the TTs; I will try to get something up about them in a day or so…)

Have fun,

M

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…sorry for the lack of updates this week. I headed out of town to spend Christmas with my family, and ran into an unanticipated lack of internet access.

I will be back in the land of fast internet shortly, and will get some content up to see you through the end of the season,

ciao,

M

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Howdy folks,

Well, it’s Wednesday, but no Skills workout today.

If you feel like doing some of that kind of thing, head on down to the search function on the bottom right hand side of the page, enter “Wednesday,” and you’ll find a whole bunch of content to work with.

Honestly, it might not be a bad idea to do a little skills session… y’know, brush up on the little things that you have trouble with?

Think about it…

For the majority of us, though, on the agenda for today is 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.

1 notch above a recovery ride.

Have Fun!

M

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