The Cyclocross Workout Of The Day for 11.5.11. – “You guessed it…”

•November 4, 2011 • Leave a Comment

Howdy folks,

I just know that you love the weekends… and who wouldn’t, right?

It’s the time for the racing of the bikes… that’s why we’ve been putting in all this work, right?

 

So, hey… racing today?

Go out and do that. The workout for you today is Race yer D**n Bike!

Racin’ on Sunday?
You guessed it.

You’re doing –

Can Openers –

 

– Warm up for 1/2 hour or so.

– Follow with several short attacking efforts, IE 30 seconds at 80% of your max, or pretty damn hard.

Back off and spin for 5 minutes.

– Follow with 10-15 minute effort at AT level, or CP30, or “I could talk to you if I had to, but I don’t want to” level.

Spin for several minutes.

– Follow with 5-6 full gas start efforts on a straight section of paved road, level or slightly uphill.  You want to begin these from a dead stop, with one foot unclipped. Do not stop until you get at least 3 perfect starts in a row, and I mean perfect; this is the cross equivalent of practicing free throws. make ‘em count.

… spin out legs, go home and rest. Get ready to race tomorrow.

Have fun!

M

Posted in Uncategorized

The Workout Of The Day for Friday, 11.4.11. – “Sweet.”

•November 3, 2011 • Leave a Comment

Howdy folks,

It’s Friday. Sweet :)

If you did yesterday’s workout – after all of my dire warnings – I’m pretty sure you’re well and truly gassed today.

Even if you didn’t, you probably need to take it a little bit easy today.

So, do that.

Your mission today – should you choose to accept it – is a nice, relaxing…

1-2 Hour Moderate Road Ride –

This isn’t a recovery ride, you’re going to go just a bit harder than that.

Put a little bit of mustard into the pedals, but not so much that you ever feel like you’re going hard.

Moderate means just that. Not hard, not easy… right in the middle. Easy enough that you could hold a conversation with the guy on the bike next to you, but hard enough that you may not really want to.

Have some fun. You’re not going easy enough to smell the flowers, but you should be able to sneak a peak at them as you whiz by…


That’s assuming you’re racing on Sunday.

If you’re racing on Saturday?

Can Openers for you today!

Have fun!

M

Posted in The Workout Of The Day
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Workout Of The Day for Thursday, 11.3.11. – “Spin? Blechhh…”

•November 2, 2011 • Leave a Comment

Howdy folks,

First of all, thanks *again* for the kind words from ya’all re: the blog. Your feedback is what keeps me motivated to continue with this sisyphean nightmare! 🙂 Thanks!

You’ve been working hard the last couple of days, and the 2×20′s  tend to get the legs feeling like mollasses, especially when you follow them with some wet & muddy skills practice like we had in Seattle last night.  We’re going to address that a little bit  today by doing some leg-speed drills, the ever popular …

Spin Ups –

– Get on your bike and warm up with a leisurely ride, just rolling around for 10-20 minutes.

– After you’re warm, find a nice, long, flat or slightly downhill section of road with little or no traffic.

– Begin the 1st 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 that it’s hard to maintain form out of the saddle, 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 3-5 times.

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.

Recover after the last set by rolling around in an easy gear until you feel relaxed, loose, and supple, then head on home, and get ready for the weekend.

 

That’s what most of you should do today…

If you’re feeling ambitious, though… this one’s for you. It’s the –

Blecchh Interval Workout –

Here’s how this goes…

warm up well, as if you were going to do a 2×20.

Feeling warm? Great! Start riding as if you were about to do a Classic 2×20 –

5 minutes into your 2×20, stand up, out of saddle.

Attack.

Hard.

Hard effort for 30 seconds, as if you were trying to make or bring back a hard move in a race.

Back down in the saddle, 30 second recovery.

back to 2×20 level.

5 minutes, then attack, same as before.

30 second attack, 30 second recovery.

5 minutes at 2×20 level, then one last attack.

30 seconds, all out.

Blecchh!


Recover for 10 minutes.

Repeat.

Do 2.

If you can, do 3 – although that would be really damn hard. Aim for 2.

If you can do 3?

Bonus.

Have… fun?

M

Posted in Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Cyclocross Workout Of The Day for Wednesday, 11.2.11. – “Be Like Mike”

•November 1, 2011 • 2 Comments

Howdy folks!

Today is Wednesday, and that means Cyclocross Skills Work is on the agenda for today.

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 5-10-15 minutes (depends how rusty you are. Do more of these, less of everything else if you need to.)

– 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.

We’ve  worked on the super basics a bunch, but if you need a refresher? No sweat. Check ’em out here…

Do just the most  basic dismount/remount as per above until you have it wired, smooth at all speeds.

When you are feeling confident, add some barriers to the session…

– Again, start at a super, super slow speed.

– Approach the barrier, dismount smooth as silk.

– Step over the barrier, paying attention to how you lift the bike, and how you place your feet.

– Remount. Again, think smoooooth….

– Start with a single barrier, move to a double, and keep going slow until you have things wired. Then, speed things up until you aren’t smooth, back it down 1 notch, and make it smooth.

(If you don’t have barriers, anything will do. Use a log, put a stick on the ground – whatever.)

4- Shouldering the bike. 5 minutes.

We covered this at length a while back. Check it out here –

Tonight we’re adding…

5 – Starts.

Practice your 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, just to work on the mechanics. Round off your rough edges, and make sure you remember where the heck your pedals are.

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

Here are some tips –

– Start with your pedals at 3&9 o’clock, not 12 and six. It takes practice, but it really is better and faster. Every gate start event does it this way, and they aren’t crazy….

See what I mean?

-Try starting with your butt on the saddle, and your butt off the saddle. See what works best for you.

– Ditto, try starting with hands in the drops vs. hands on the hoods.

After you have tried a couple of variations at a medium/slow pace, get yourself set to go hard.

– Do 2 sets of six full-gas starts.

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

6 – Recover for a few minutes, then Finish the night with two interval 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.

– 6-8 minutes full gas, rest for 2 minutes, then go again for 5.

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

Warm down, go home, relax.

G’night,

M

Posted in Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Cyclocross Workout of The Day for Tuesday November 1, 2011 – “2×20’s suck, but…”

•October 31, 2011 • 4 Comments

Howdy folks,

Well, it’s Tuesday again… you love Tuesdays, right?

If I haven’t tipped my hand sufficiently already, it is, in fact –

2×20 Tuesday!

I had a couple of ideas for exotic 2×20 variants to throw in here today, but then I looked back at the last couple of weeks and realized that ya’all would be better off doing the old standby –

Classic 2×20 –

– 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 a workout that goes 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…)

You can also do the…

2×20 Get-Up Style –

Here’s how those go…

– 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. This is the get-up version, though, so…

Start the first interval out of the saddle, and stand for the first 30 seconds.

After those 30 seconds are up, sit down. Keep the effort going, and consistent. Don’t surge, don’t go harder when you get out of the saddle.

Stay seated for the next 1:30, then stand for 30 seconds.

Repeat to the end of the interval, and follow this format for the successive interval.

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 too 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 well… you will get better.

Tips:

– I do these on the trainer, with a stopwatch on the bars and an Ipod blaring in my ears. Start the stopwatch at the beginning of the interval, and the format is really easy to follow; you stand up for :30 at the 2:oo, 4:00, 6:00, etc. mark(s). Get it? It’s easy!

– A power meter will help you to keep the level of intensity constant. You want the power output to be as steady as possible with these. If you don’t have a PM, do these on the trainer,  choose a gear ratio and a cadence, and stick to that for the duration of the excercise – instant home made ergometer.

Honestly, pretty much anytime I suggest the Classic version of the 2×20, you can sub in the Get-Up Style… they’re pretty much interchangeable.

So, hey – why are we doing the old-school versions today?

Fundamentals, folks. it’s getting to the point in the season where some folks just need to double-down on the basics – like barrier skills, dismounts, remounts… you know, all the stuff you were screwing up at the races this past weekend 🙂 .

So, today we’re extending that to the basic building block interval, the 2×20.

You know it, you love hate it – so go out and nail it.

Have fun!

M

…hey, special hat-tip to TriGirl Pink. Check out her blog if you get the chance. Not because she said all those nice things about me & this blog (thanks for that… seriously, shucks that was nice of ‘ya,) but because she has some great content and some very cool workouts logged & graphed on the page.

Check it out, this is what those 2×20’s you haven’t been doing should look like! 🙂

Posted in Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Workout of The day for Monday, Halloween 2011 – “Good ‘ole…”

•October 30, 2011 • Leave a Comment

Howdy folks,

Happy Halloween!

 

I’m going to keep things short today so you can get some fun in on this quasi-holiday we find ourselves having. But remember, tomorrow is Tuesday, if you wind up in a position like pumpkin above is in, you’re gonna regret it tomorrow!

Enough warning nonsense, on with the workout. Today you’re doing…

Your basic good-ole Recovery Ride.

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. Sometimes this takes 1/2 an hour, sometimes it takes 2 hours. After a while, when you get used to having the recovery ride as part of your routine, you know it when you feel it.

As soon as that happens, turn around, go home, eat, stretch, and put your legs up.

Don’t forget to do some core work today, if you can’t force yourself to stuff it into your schedule later in the week!

G’night,

M

Posted in The Workout Of The Day
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Cyclocross Workout Of The Day for Sunday, 10.30.11. – “Race.Like.”

•October 29, 2011 • 2 Comments

Howdy folks,

You’re racing today, so the workout is pretty self explanatory, right?

Go Race.

If you haven’t read it yet, you may want to check out the post on warming up I wrote a while back… people seem to like the suggested routines. Give ‘em a try, and let me know if they work for you…

https://crosssports.wordpress.com/2010/09/11/the-workout-of-the-day-for-sunday-9-12-too-damn-warm/

If you aren’t racing tomorrow… well, heck… why not?

Kidding.

No race, you should get some hard riding in today. Do something as much like a race as you can.

Maybe try out…

The Doppelganger – 

– Warm up well. If you have time, warm up as you would for a race. It’s good practice, if nothing else.

– After you have warmed up, do five full-gas starts. As always, focus on the second effort in your start, working on getting back on the gas right after you max-out on your initial effort and begin to sit down.

– 20 minutes at your 2×20 pace.

– 2 minute rest.

– 10 minutes of Over/Under intervals

The baseline for this interval is the level of effort/output you just did in the 20 minute effort.

However hard you went in that interval, you are going to try and hold that for the 10 minutes.

Easy, right?

Here’s the rub.

You’re going to sprint for 10 seconds every minute of the interval.

How hard are you going to sprint?

Hard, but not so hard that after you sprint, you can’t sit back down and keep churning away at your 2×20 level.

This takes some practice to figure out.

Don’t get all freaked out if you blow it and can’t hold the effort until the end. You tried, right?

Having said that, don’t wuss out and quit. This is some difficult s***, man. You want to get faster, right?

OK.

Here’s how this works.

Use a stopwatch. Put it on your bars.

Start the stopwatch.

Start the interval with a sprint, out of the saddle pretty hard, but not full gas.

Sprint for 10 seconds.

Back in saddle, drop into your 2×20 zone. Hold this until the minute mark, then –

Sprint again. 10 seconds.

Back in saddle, 2×20 level until 2 minute mark…

Repeat.

Repeat…

Repeat, until you have hit the 10 minute mark.

– 5 minute recovery

– 10 minutes at 2×20 level

– 2 minute recovery

– 10 minute Over/Under Intervals

– SPRINT at the very end of the last interval. 30 seconds, all out.

Really all out, like “I’m sprinting for the Maillot Arc en ciel” all out. You should be at least half-blind at the end of the sprint.

Heck, you should be so gassed when you start the sprint that just upping the tempo a little bit puts you in a box.

You asked for a race simulation, right?

Ouch…

Notes –

Yes, this is f-ing hard. You asked for it…

DO NOT DO THIS IF YOU ARE SKIPPING A RACE TO RECOVER! DUH!

You can always just sub in a 2×20 (or better yet a 3×20…) when you can’t race. That’s a hard damn workout if you do it right, but certainly nothing like the nightmare I just handed to you…

Have fun!

M

Posted in The Workout Of The Day

The Cyclocross Workout Of The Day for Saturday, 10.29.11. – “Winter Opening”

•October 28, 2011 • Leave a Comment

Howdy folks,

It’s the weekend again, and – of course – that means most of you are off to the races.

So, if you’re racing today, you know what you’re doing.

Go Race!

Racing on Sunday?

Yup. Today you’re doing –

Can Openers –


Warm up for 1/2 hour or so.

Follow with several short attacking efforts, IE 30 seconds at 80% of your max, or pretty damn hard.

Back off and spin for 5 minutes.

Follow with 10-15 minute effort at AT level, or CP30, or “I could talk to you if I had to, but I don’t want to” level.

Spin for several minutes.

Follow with 5-6 full gas start efforts on a straight section of paved road, level or slightly uphill.  You want to begin these from a dead stop, with one foot unclipped. Do not stop until you get at least 3 perfect starts in a row, and I mean perfect; this is the cross equivalent of practicing free throws. make ‘em count.

… spin out legs, go home and rest. Get ready to race tomorrow.

If you hadn’t happened to notice, the weather has finally changed just about everywhere, and we’re suddenly in winter.

For me , that generally signals a dramatic decrease in my desire to ride outside. If it’s dumping out, or crazy freakin’ cold, I’m opening my can inside, and replacing the usual Openers workout with –

The RSWO – The Rock Stupid Warmup & Opener:

– Get on trainer. Spin for about 5 minutes.

– Shift into big ring/largest cog combination.

– Ride 30 seconds in this gear, then shift up one cog.

– Ride 30 seconds in this gear, then shift up one cog.

– Repeat until you hit the hardest gear you’ve got, or can handle.

– Ride 30 seconds in that gear, and then shift all the way back down to the Big/big combo.

– Ride 30 seconds in that gear, then immediately shift to hardest gear you can handle.

– Full gas sprint, out of the saddle,  for 30 seconds.

Back to big/big combo.

– Spin for two minutes.

– 5-10 minute effort at your 2×20 output level.

Repeat The entire sequence (Usually minus the 2nd 5-10 minute effort.)

Give it a try!

G’night,

M

 

Posted in The Workout Of The Day
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Cyclocross Workout Of The Day for Friday, 10.28.11. – “Opener impossible”

•October 27, 2011 • Leave a Comment

Howdy folks,

Your mission today…

(should you choose to accept it!)

…is a nice, relaxing…

1-2 Hour Moderate Road Ride –

This isn’t a recovery ride, you’re going to go just a bit harder than that.

Put a little bit of mustard into the pedals, but not so much that you ever feel like you’re going hard.

Moderate means just that. Not hard, not easy… right in the middle. Easy enough that you could hold a conversation with the guy on the bike next to you, but hard enough that you may not really want to.

Have some fun. You’re not going easy enough to smell the flowers, but you should be able to sneak a peak at them as you whiz by…

But wait…

This is assuming you’re racing on Sunday…

If you’re racing on Saturday?

Can Openers for you today –

 

Warm up for 1/2 hour or so.

Follow with several short attacking efforts, IE 30 seconds at 80% of your max, or pretty damn hard.

Back off and spin for 5 minutes.

Follow with 10-15 minute effort at AT level, or CP30, or “I could talk to you if I had to, but I don’t want to” level.

Spin for several minutes.

Follow with 5-6 full gas start efforts on a straight section of paved road, level or slightly uphill.

You want to begin these from a dead stop, with one foot unclipped.

Do not stop until you get at least 3 perfect starts in a row, and I mean perfect; this is the cross equivalent of practicing free throws.

Make ‘em count.

… spin out legs, go home and rest. Get ready to race tomorrow.

Have fun!

M

Posted in Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Cyclocross Workout Of The Day for Thursday, 10.27.11. – “Humble Pie.”

•October 26, 2011 • Leave a Comment

Howdy folks,

Thursday means the work week is almost over, and more importantly 🙂 , it means that it’s time to start thinking about the weekend’s racing schedule.

We’ve been  (or, well, many of us have been…) taking it kinda-sorta easy this week, and that kinda-sorta continues today.

Kinda.

Sorta.

(If you haven’t read it yet, right about now would be a good time to roll back in time a couple of days and check out Monday’s Post…)

If you’re racing on Saturday, you *definitely* need to get out on the bike today, and you should get a little tiny bit of intensity in.

You’re doing…

Spin Ups –

– Get on your bike and warm up with a leisurely ride, just rolling around for 10-20 minutes.

– After you’re warm, find a nice, long, flat or slightly downhill section of road with little or no traffic.

– Begin the 1st 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 that it’s hard to maintain form out of the saddle, 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 3-5 times.

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.

Recover after the last set by rolling around in an easy gear until you feel relaxed, loose, and supple, then head on home, and get ready for the weekend.

…………………….

If you’re racing on Sunday, you can take it really easy today.

Heck, you would be OK taking the day off completely.

That’s not ideal, but it wouldn’t kill ya’, and it’s not a bad idea if you were feeling pretty deep in a hole at the beginning of the week…

If you’re feeling pretty decent, though, and you really want to get a nice ride in today,  you’re going 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.

1 notch above a recovery ride.

Have Fun!

M

Posted in The Workout Of The Day
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »