Congratulations! You made it through another season. Celebrate a little bit for a couple of days, and try to forget about bike racing for a while.
We’ll talk about planning for the upcoming season soon, and the first step towards that will be working out an objective assessment of the season past. So, hey – if you can’t stop thinking about ‘cross for a couple of days, go ahead and start the process by making a list of the high and low points of the season gone by. Lots more on the topic soon but this will get you started…
For those of you racing onward to Nationals… here’s an unusual one… tomorrow’s workout?
It’s Sunday, and that means it’s race day… and for a bunch of ya’all, it’s the last race of the year.
Go out and have fun today. Race hard, go fast.
Try to use all the tools that you worked so hard on all season, and see if you can’t put everything together today.
Above all, have fun.
Check back over the next couple of days; we’re going to talk about reviewing the season, and setting up for the season to come… and if you’re still racing, well… more workouts ahead…
Wow… Sunday is the last race of the year for a lot of you…
Congratulations in advance for the great (or heck – not-so-great) season!
Over the next couple of weeks, I will be keep the W.O.T.D. rolling for the folks who are racing through Nationals, and I will also be churning out some entries on the post-mortem for the season as a whole. What did you learn from the season? How do you start planning for next season? Should I just stop racing cross because I suck at it?
I will do my best to give you some tools to develop answers for these questions, and maybe get you thinking about some other things that make ya’ scratch yer head a bit…
So, on with the Workout Of The Day…
As you could probably guess, the workout for today is Can Openers…
Here’s the drill:
– 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 the legs, go home, and get ready for the race.
If you’re racing on Sunday, this would typically be an easy day – and if you rode anything close to the Workout Of The Day yesterday, that’s the plan – a 1-2 hour Moderate Ride.
Get out on the bike and cruise. Not quite a recovery spin, but still a light(ish) ride. No intervals, no big attacks or efforts, just pedal a medium gear at a medium effort for a medium distance.
Have the day off today?
Great!
Go ride with a friend, or your spouse. Ride to a coffee shop, rehydrate some of what you might have lost boozin’ it up yesterday, and then ride home.
At a moderate tempo 😮
Skipped riding yesterday? Feeling pretty flat, maybe a little hung-over?
Give yourself license to quit if it just isn’t working, but sometimes this is just what you need to get your a** in gear when you’re draggin’ it.
– Suuper under the weather? Just get out there. Go for a spin. Roll around for an hour or so. Try and get the legs to open up a bit.
If you have the day off, go for a short spin in the morning, come home, take a nap, and go out again in the afternoon for another short ride. Throw in a couple of little, bitty town-line-sign type efforts.
With the end of the Cyclocross season rapidly approaching and Road and MTB pre-season coming up fast, I am starting to receive enquiries regarding coaching services for the 2010 season.
At the moment, I have six five openings for the upcoming road/mountain bike season.
The pricing and description page for the Elite Cyclocross Program is up now, more info on Road and MTB to follow, but those programs basically follow the same outline.
…anyways, for those of you in the US, it’s Thanksgiving, and odds of getting much in the way of a scheduled, intense workout in are pretty slim. If you can, the workout for today is the Slow Roast –
This is also synchs up nicely with the idea of just getting out on the bike and sneaking a ride in; the Slow Roast is about as close to that as these workouts get!
If you live in Seattle, there is an organized benefit ride on Thanksgiving day that works well as a workout for today –
Here’s the beta –
Please join us for the 6th annual Seattle Thanksgiving Day Ride to benefit Northwest Harvest www.northwestharvest.org
We’ll meet at 9am and depart at 9.15 for a socially paced ride around the south end of Lake Washington.
A suggested donation of $5 per rider what I am asking, but whatever you can give would be a great help.
The Cycling community has contributed $800-$1,000 to Northwest Harvest the past several years, to help those in need at this time of year. Let’s try to, at least, match that and help where it’s really needed.
See you there, and let’s hope for dry roads 😉
Mick Walsh
Have fun, and be careful out there; plenty of knucklehead drivers in a holiday mood on the roads the next couple of days!
It’s Wednesday, and that means it’s Cyclocross Skills Night!
For some of you reading this, this is the last week of your season, and the last Wednesday night practice. Have fun tonight.
No big agenda, feel free to follow the basic outline of the previous Wed. night sessions, or just go out and play on your bike.
Set up a course, and go out and rail it. Go fast, round the rough edges off of any lingering little problems, or – heck – just do what you feel like.
HAVE
FUN
OK?
For those of you whose season is continuing on after this weekend, what we’re working on tonight is some of the little things that will help you in the big races, in particular the Portland GP and Nationals…
Here’s the schedule for tonight:
– warm up, 10-15 minutes.
– Brief run. 5 minutes.
– Stretch.
– Barrier skills, 10 minutes.
Ideally, run through the barriers with a bunch of other people, in traffic, and at odd angles.
Intentionally cut each other off, chop the line, and otherwise screw up the traffic through the barriers.
Make it tough. Really try to screw each other up!
Working out by yourself? Set up a really tiny narrow barrier, and force yourself to squeeze through a space you don’t really fit through. Simulate screwy situations as best you can!
– Technical skills, 15-20 minutes.
– off cambers, tight turns, wide/fast turns, mud, sand… try to ride a little bit of everything. And make it weird!!
Get a couple of people together. One person is the wildcard, and takes as many screwy lines as they can through the course. Everybody else rides things “straight” and tries to get past the jackass in the way…
A small group (3-5 people) rides the course at a moderate tempo. The last person in line rides full gas until they are first in line, passing the other riders. When they get to the front, the last rider goes.
Do some bumping drills. Get on the bike and bum into each other. Learn how to be comfortable with some contact.
You get the idea, right?
– Starts, until you get 5 perfect starts in a row.
Do your basic, run-of-the-mill starts, but also do some “disaster” starts…
– Full gas start, straight ahead… suddenly, somebody yells “CRASH!”
Full on panic stop.
Start again.
– Start with 2-3 rows of people. First row intentionally soft-pedals the start. 2nd/3rd row need to negotiate traffic to get up to speed….
– Race simulation.
I would recommend a lap on/lap off approach tonight, unless by some miracle you’re still trying to squeeze in some fitness building in the next 3 weeks (really?)
Go fast… really fast… then recover. Go again. Try to go faster than race pace, but for a small amount of time.
HAVE
FUN
!
– Warm down.
– Go Home. Eat. Recover.
Remember… at this point in the season, keep it simple.
Avoid the temptation to add new skills to your quiver, unless you’re filling in a really obvious gap.
At this point, what you’ve got is what you’ve got. In these last few days, use only the best of the skills and approaches that you have learned and perfected all season. Throw everything else out.
…and if they seemed to disappear, never to be acknowledged, it’s because I’m an idiot.
It turns out that I had the spam filter on here cranked sky high, and nothing was getting through – and to make matters worse, the filtered-out messages were getting deleted.
My apologies, and I promise to do better in the future.
I’m going to hit you with a couple of different options today, but I’m going to break them up in a different way than in the past. Pretty simple, but different…
Going to Nationals (IE, still racing in 2 and 1/2 weeks)
and
Not Going to Nationals (IE, “Done with all this nonsense in a week. Bring on the libations!)
If you’re Not going to Nationals, but you’re going to the Portland races, or doing something else the weekend after this… pick one of the two options…
This might just be the last time you do these this season, so make ’em count… it’s kind-of celebratory, right?
Not going to nationals?
We’re going to do some some speed work today… the workout is 30/20/10 sprint intervals…
Here’s how these go:
– warm up well
– find a nice flat section of road to do the workout
– get up to speed, you want to start the interval from a comfortable speed, rolling in the big ring.
– get out of the saddle and sprint – 30 second effort.
– recover for 30 seconds.
– go again for 20 seconds
– recover for 30 seconds
– go again for 10 seconds.
recover for 1 minute, then repeat, in reverse:
– 10 second sprint
– 30 seconds recovery
– 20 second sprint
– 30 second recovery
– 30 second sprint
That’s one set. You’re looking to do 3-5 sets, 2-5 minutes rest between sets.
Start each effort out of the saddle. Sit down as necessary to keep the gear rolling.
Stop or take a break when your peak wattage or max speed has dropped appreciably. Quality over quantity – make the sprints fast rather than trying to do a whole bundle of mediocre efforts.
Take it easy. Go for an easy one hour spin. Low speed, little tiny gear. No effort on the pedals, just roll around until your legs loosen up.
If you’ve been reading these for awhile, you know the drill.
On to other things…
How did the racing go this weekend?
What worked? What didn’t?
3 weeks to nationals. If something isn’t working, time to laser-focus on it.
Nail down the details. Do it now.
Pre race routine dialed?
Dismounts and remounts on point?
Are you nailing the starts?
How is your speed? Can you match accelerations in the races?
How is the fitness? Have you gotten faster relative to the usual suspects in your race, have you gotten slower, or are you pretty much where you were?
How is the bike?
– The tendency at this late point in the season is to just let things slide, and hope those borderline little bike issues keep until next season. Just say “NO” to this, OK? I have seen way too many folks walk off the course at the tail end of the season with problems that could have been avoided with a little bit of late season preventative maintenance…
Chain in good shape?
Tires in good shape? Glued on well?
Shift and brake cables in good shape?
Brake pads in good shape?
How are your wheels?
True and dished?
Brake tracks in good shape?
If you have carbon rims, check them closely; look for cracks and nipples that are starting to pull out.
How is your “kit?”
Helmet free of cracks?
Shoes –
cleats in good shape?
Buckles and straps in good shape?
Make sure your soles aren’t coming off! This is really common!
How is your skinsuit/jersey/shorts holding up?
Developing holes?
Getting saggy in the britches? (I almost crashed last week when my saggy skinsuit caught the back of my seat on a re-mount. Em-bar-ras-sing.
You get the idea.
Take some time tomorrow during your easy day, and go over your parts and pieces. Make sure everything is still working.
You have just enough time before Nationals to find and fix any problems you might have.
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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