Ride hard, have fun… and come back with a good idea of the things you need to work on. We’re going to debrief after the event, but don’t worry about that now, just race. đ
No race today?
Do whatever the heck you feel like. Have some fun.
Don’t feel like riding?
No worries. Don’t even look at the bike. Go spend some time with your family or significant other… you will need the credits later, trust me…
I hope you’re enjoying your weekend! It’s gorgeous here in Seattle, and it seems awfully odd to be contemplating a Cyclocross race as the bright summer sun shines in…
…not that I’m complaining!
So, anyways… if you’re contemplating doing that Labor Day race tomorrow, guess what? 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 âI could talk to you if I had to, but I donât want toâ 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 âem count.
⌠spin out legs, go home and rest. Get ready to race tomorrow.
Not racing on Monday?
Cool. That probably means you’re taking the day off tomorrow, and are going to enjoy a little piece of the holiday.
Today, you should ride like you’re racing even if you’re not. Take it easy on Labor Day… go hard today.
Well… yikes. It’s race season for a bunch of you folks, with the insanely early Labor Day cross races kicking things off for many this weekend.
If that’s you, you have some decisions to make before you can decide what you’re doing today.
Most importantly, you need to decide if you care about that race on Monday.
If you do, you should probably take it kinda seriously, and not overdo things going in to it.
Is that you?
Cool.
Your workout today is…
1-2 Hour Moderate Ride â
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.
Youâre not doing a recovery spin, so you need to put a little bit of gas into the pedals⌠just donât go out and kill yourself.
Check out the view, smell the flowers, just do it while youâre putting a little bit of effort into the pedals.
1 notch above a recovery ride.
Make sense?
Not racing on Monday, or don’t care about the race?
Sweet. Today your ride is…
– Classic Rock â
This is it.
The season is starting.
Today, you get your ya-yas out…
Just go out and roll. Have some fun, play it by ear.
Is there a local fast group ride that you like to do when you have the time?
Cool.
Today you’re doing that. Take some pulls, ride aggressively… kinda’ go for it a bit.
Don’t scale back your efforts saving something for the race on Monday… you’re training through. It doesn’t matter!
Ideally, you’re looking to ride for 3-4 hours.
Or, well… whatever. This might be the last long ride of the year for you, so if you enjoy going long, go long.
Get it out of your system.
——————————————————————————————————
That’s nice and all, but what if you get out there and feel unmotivated?
Equally cool, don’t sweat it.
Get some easy miles in, then call it good and go home.
It’s a holiday, you’ll get another shot at this tomorrow.
If the answer is “yes,” you probably already know what you need to do today…
…you need to…
Take it Slow and Easy –
Go for a 1-2 Hour Moderate Ride â
This isnât a recovery ride. We want you to relax a bit today, but itâs important that you donât get your body thinking itâs time to shut things down.
Youâre going to go just a bit harder than that.
Put a little bit of muscle into the pedals, but not so much that you ever feel like youâre going hard. Or hard-ish.
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 the conversation better be damn interesting if youâre going to.
Have some fun.
I mean, youâre listening to Whitesnake â How could you not?
Traditionally, that has always meant that as a bike racer you could start to think about Cyclocross.
Nowadays, it means that you might just be racing Cyclocross this weekend.
Repeat – wow.
So, OK… time to kick things into high gear.
(I’m not kidding.)
Racing is imminent, it’s time for intensity.
Today we’re doing…
Zach’s Death Intervals
Warm up really well.
Find a fairly steep hill that you can do a 30 second hard effort on. Best bet is a climb that’s right on the big ring/small ring break point. You could do it in either one, depending…
Roll into the climb fast, and Sprint up it, 30 seconds hard effort.
Coast back down, turn around and go again immediately.
Repeat for a total of ten reps.
Yup. Ten.
Ouch.
Recover for 5-10 minutes, then go again. You’re trying to do 3-5 sets of ten.
Heck, you can also do some running today if you feel like it. Check out last weeks running workout. Definitely worth giving a shot to that today as well!
Guess what? I’m heading up a Cyclocross clinic for the folks at Mr. Crampy’s in Redmond. Mr. Crampy’s is the closest bike shop to the Marymoor Velodrome in Redmond, WA, and is run by a dedicated, friendly crew, and I’m excited to be working with them on this.
Well, itâs Wednesday again, and that means itâs CycloCross Skills night, so get ready to feel just a little bit less rusty than you did last week!
1 â warm up for 10 minutes.
2 â Stretch out after youâre 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 â Dismount/remount  skills for 15 minutes.
– 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 worked on the super basics a couple of weeks ago. Need a refresher? Check out –
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 sessionâŚ
– 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 smooooothâŚ.
– Start with a single barrier, move to a double, and keep going slow until you have things wired. Then, speed things up until you arenât smooth, back it down 1 notch, and make it smooth.
(If you donât have barriers, anything will do. Use a log, put a stick on the ground â whatever.)
4- Shouldering the bike.
Start with the basic dismount, as youâve been working on.
Back things up a bit, and dismount again, but really focus on the âdriftâ phase of the dismount, where you are still clipped in with one foot, your off-side foot has already swung over the saddle, and you are coasting with your left hand on the bars and your right hand on the top tube.
Concentrate on the moment where your left foot unclips, and you drop to the ground. Try to coast with both feet unclipped, weight transferred onto the bike through your hand on the top tube, and your right ass-cheek against the side of the saddle.
Drop to the ground, literally. No big step, nothing dramatic, just drop to the ground.
– I donât care if you âcowboyâ your dismount, or âstep-throughâ (right foot passes between left leg and frame.) Ideally you will work on both, and be equally competent, but there are riders on the World Cup circuit who neverdo a step through dismount, so⌠whatever.
Repeat, trying to coast with your weight on the top tube for a longer and longer period of time.
Got it wired?
Good.
This time, drop to the ground and swing the bike up onto your shoulder using the hand on the top tube (next week, down tube grab shouldering. Donât worry about it right now.)
– Use both a palm-up and a palm-down grip on the top tube. Figure out which one works best for you.
– as you shoulder the bike, think about how you are going to carry it. There are really only two good optionsâŚ
1 â& 2 –
It doesnât really matter which one you choose, they both have their advantages. Just pick one. If you donât look like one of these two pictures when the bike is on your shoulder⌠well, you should.
So, the bike is on your shoulder.
Run.
It doesnât have to be uphill (weâre working on the skill, not the fitness, and youâre doing stairs tomorrowâŚ) but it helps.
Whatever. Just run a few steps.
Place the bike gently on the ground. Donât drop it, slam it down. Just place it.
Remount.
Repeat the whole cycle until youâre sick of it, then on toâŚ
5 â turning and handling skills for 10-15 minutes.
– work on tight, high speed turns as well as super tight low speed turns. Roll some off camber slopes, and learn to turn on them as well.
– Put two traffic cones about 10 feet apart from each other, and ride a figure eight around them, pedalling the entire time.
Make the turns tighter and tighter until you canât hold the line and you fall down. Learn where the break point is between riding a tight line and falling on your ass, and push that line until you are definitively over it.
6 â Finish the night with two 5-minute efforts on relatively easy terrain.
– âEasyâ 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 5 minutes, then go for 5 again.
Itâs Tuesday, and that means â yup â itâsâŚ
2Ă20 Tuesday!
I’m guessing this isn’t a surprisee, eh?
At this point, you should be starting to get the hang of this, and you should be getting better at the basic 2×20.
Better and stronger.
Or, maybe youâre suddenly getting worse at them.
That would be a signalâŚ
…you know, the âTake a rest, stupid!â signal.
This early in the season, if your 2Ă20 numbers arenât going up – and you’ve been doing them for a couple/few weeks, and have gotten the hang of ’em – you need to be better rested when you do them, or you need to go harder.
One or the other.
Or, well, youâre where youâre at, and you really arenât going to be able to get any better.
Thatâs possible.
Not likely, but possible.
Really unlikely this early in the process.
Unless you just finished a hard road season. Then there could be a lot of different things going on here.
If you just finished the road or MTB season, and your #s are dropping on your baseline workouts?
Be honest with yourself.
Back things down a notch.
Remember, if you donât have trouble breathing⌠heck, with seeing straight at the end of these intervals you arenât going hard enough.
Or, if youâre looking for something new and different, you can try theâŚ
Half & Half  (& Half ) â
– This isnât the same thing as doing a 2Ă20, itâs something to do if you need a break from the damn 2Ă20â˛s. Weâre going to be working slightly different energy systems here, so even if you really like this, donât sub it for the 2Ă20 every week, ok?
– This is also a good way to start working your way into Over/Under intervals, something we will be doing a bit down the road. In fact, weâre doing part of an over/under for 1/2 of this (hence the goofy exercise name dujourâŚ)
Here we goâŚ
Workout is best done on a flat(ish) stretch of open road, with very little traffic. You need to be able to ride hard for 20 minute, going hard enough that you canât see very well, without needing to stop.
I do these on the trainer. Itâs easier and safer.
âŚand Iâm crazy.
â Warm up well.
Do 1/2 of a Classic 2Ă20. (or a 2Ă20 Get-Up Style. Doesnât really matter.)
Rest for 5 minutes.
Now youâre going to do a 10 minute effort.
âŚbut wait⌠there are some details to get straight before you launch into it.
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?
Hereâs the rub.
Youâre 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 canât sit back down and keep churning away at your 2Ă20 level.
This takes some practice to figure out.
Donât get all freaked out if you blow it and canât hold the effort until the end. You tried, right?
Having said that, donât wuss out and quit. This is some difficult s***, man. You want to get faster, right?
OK.
Hereâs 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 2Ă20 zone. Hold this until the minute mark, then â
Sprint again. 10 seconds.
Back in saddle, 2Ă20 level until 2 minute markâŚ
Repeat.
RepeatâŚ
Repeat, until you have hit the 10 minute mark.
At the 10 minute mark, finish with one 10 second all-out sprint.
If you have done the interval right, you shouldnât be able to crank the final sprint all that much harder than the earlier sprints.
Pick yourself up off the ground, roll around and recover for a while.
Well, yikes… this went up awfully late! Sorry about that!
It’s up now, though… so no whining, OK? It’s not like you’re paying for this! đ
So, on with the workout…
If you actually managed to plow your way through yesterday’s workout, odds are you’re pretty darn gassed. Take that into account today, OK? Don’t take a chance on blowing your whole season by overtraining and burning out before things even get started!
If you’re feeling tired, take it Slow and Easy today –
Go for a 1-2 Hour Moderate Ride â
This isnât a recovery ride. We want you to relax a bit today, but itâs important that you donât get your body thinking itâs time to shut things down.
Youâre going to go just a bit harder than that.
Put a little bit of muscle into the pedals, but not so much that you ever feel like youâre going hard. Or hard-ish.
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 the conversation better be damn interesting if youâre going to.
Have some fun.
I mean, youâre listening to Whitesnake â How could you not?
If you aren’t hurting today, odds are it’s because you didn’t do the workout yesterday, so hey… give that  a try today, OK?
Or, heck… go race. But well, that was one of the options for yesterday anyways, so I’m starting to get redundant.
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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