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Speed work yesterday, hard stuff the two days before? That must mean today is an easy day!

It’s important to give yourself a chance to recover a bit, especially if you’re racing on the weekend – which I am assuming you are. So, especially if you’re racing on Sunday, take it easy today.

Today’s workout is: 2 hour moderate ride.

Get on your bike. Put it in the small ring. Ride for 2 hours at a moderate tempo; don’t attack the hills, don’t sprint at the town line, just roll along and smell the flowers.

OK – maybe not that slowly… just don’t kill it today. No hard efforts. Just roll steady… Sub threshold the whole way, for those who speak the techno-lingo…

M

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OK – cross practice last night, following the hard workout on Tuesday should have your legs a little bit dead, so today is a speed workout. Get ready to spin fast!

Today’s workout is Downhill Sprints.

Start by warming up well, a bit longer than usual – 30 minutes or so.

Find a gradual downhill that lets out on a flat section of road or trail. The ideal setup for this workout is a downhill that’s about a block long that lets out on a flat section of road another block or so in distance. Extra bonus points if you can loop back to the start without having to turn around – that would be perfect.

You’re going to do 3-5 sets of 5 sprints, full gas. Here’s how the sprints go:

Roll down the gradual descent in a comfortable gear. You want to hit the bottom of the hill going fast, but not yet in a sprint.

As soon as you hit the flat section at the bottom of the hill, get out of the saddle and give it full gas.

Go until you are spun out. That’s one rep. You’re doing sets of 5. Ouch.

Each sprint should take just a few seconds. Recover for 30 seconds to a minute between them, and 5 minutes between sets.

Stop when you hit 5 sets or just aren’t getting the same leg speed you were on the first couple of reps.

When you’re done, spin out and go home!

Tips –

– You should start the sprint in a pretty big gear, and spin it out. How big? It depends on how fast you’re going and how strong you are. You’re working on speed here, so don’t try to lug a giant gear, but the gear needs to be big enough that you accelerate when you hit it at the end of the downhill.

– Stand up out of the saddle when you start to sprint, and gradually sit down as you begin to spin out.

– Don’t forget to breathe. Seriously – too many people hold their breath when they sprint. Don’t be one of them.

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It’s Wednesday, and Wednesday is practice night, which means fun.

Yay!

Today’s workout is Cyclocross Skills Practice, and here’s what you’re going to do…

1 – warm up for 10 minutes.

2 – Stretch out after you’re warm. Pay special attention to all those movements you make hopping on and off the bike that are different from what you usually do.

3 – Barrier 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. Yeah, I know… what the hell… how do I do this? Better/more complete description of the skills side of things will show up on here soon, but this is just the *workout* of the day… cut me some slack!

4 – turning and handling skills for 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 can’t 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.

5 – practice starting efforts

– full-gas starts from a stand still, with one foot on the ground. Do these until you get 3 perfect starts in a row. Make the efforts long enough that you need to shift up a gear or two, but quit right after you do.

6 – Practice race

– This is best if you can do it with a group of riders that are just a wee bit better than you. Push your limits, and learn what you can do at speed. Go faster than you will race, but shorter. If you are racing for 60 minutes on the weekend, do a single 20 minute effort, or three 10 minute efforts.

7 – Warm down when you’re done. Spin the legs out until you loosen up, then spin for another couple of minutes. Have a drink of water, then go home.

8 – Have fun. Serious fun. This is my favorite day of the week, and I know plenty of folks who think the weekly practice session in Seattle is more fun than the races. I’m not sure I disagree…

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I warned you that I would make you do this one pretty frequently, so here it is again – the 2×20. Yup. Hurts sooooo good…

Slight twist this time – we’re doing the 2×20 get-up style. Here’s how it goes…

– 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 intervals.

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.

– Have fun!

Yay! Go 2×20’s !!

M

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Phew.

That was a long week, eh?

Take it easy today. Spin your legs out for about an hour, get a massage, get to bed early.

More hard stuff tomorrow…

Ok, more details:

– when I say “spin your legs out,” that’s pretty darn literal. Go ride real slow for a while. After a bit, you will find that your legs just feel better. When this happens, go home.

For me (and lots of other folks) there’s a distinct point in the recovery ride where I go from feeling tired and dead legged to – bing! – less tired and less dead legged. Go home right then.

– If you are in the habit of getting massage, this is a good day to do it. If you aren’t maybe give it a shot. Good stuff.

M

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I’m heading out to StarCrossed, where I will be drowning my injury-laden lament at not being able to race from the comfort of the beer garden. Whoot. Or something.

So, for tomorrow’s workout, a replay of last Sunday…

Racing, damnit.

If you live in an area that has racing already, step it up and race.

If they ain’t racing where you are (yet…) go out and “simulate” a race. You know, pretend…

So, what are you working on today?

This is way too damn early to go full-gas for an hour, so break the race up into manageable sections and drill it in small chunks. Nail the start and the first lap, then back off for the second. Pile it back on for the third lap. Etc. , etc.

Above all, have fun. This isn’t the World Championships, so try to relax and have fun.

… and, yeah…. go fast…

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Howdy!

Well… options galore today. It turns out I’m not all that good at giving just one workout.

Sigh.

So, here’s what’s on tap:

– If you’re racing on Sunday, today you should do the “Can Openers” workout. I wrote that up for you last week – here’s the link:

https://crosssports.wordpress.com/2009/09/12/cyclocross-workout-of-the-day-for-912/

– If you’re racing today, well… go race. Have fun!

– If you aren’t racing, today you’re going running. That means we need to talk about running…

Here’s the first thing to remember about running for cyclocross: Most cyclists suck at running. Bad form, big legs, huge lungs, overambitious… it’s a recipe for injury.

I’m not going to try to  teach you how to run in a single blog entry. What I am going to do is tell you how not to run (for Cyclocross…)

Put simply, don’t run a lot.

The Knapp Time run up at The Rad Cup outside Seattle is one of the longest ‘cross runs on the planet. People spend the entire season bitching or raving about it.

It’s 80 meters long (give or take.) If you run it 8 times in the race, you’re running about 1/3 of a mile.

1/3 of a mile.

So, why the hell do people do 5k runs training for Cyclocross?

Beats me.

They shouldn’t.

Look, I like to run.

I do it for fun, and I do it for hours. I just don’t pretend that that helps me with my running in cyclocross. Do you want to be fast off the bike in ‘cross? Practice running like you do in ‘cross. Short, sharp, fast efforts, mostly up hill.

So, today’s effort:

First, figure out where you’re going to do this. Ideally, you’re looking for a short steep-ish grass hill, or a flight of stairs. You are going to do a series of 10 second intervals, so you want a slope/set of stairs of appropriate length.

You want this to be a place you can bike to (and back from,) or some place really close to home base.

Ride your bike for 1/2 hour or so to warm up. Ideally, ride to the site of the workout with your running shoes in a backpack. Park your bike, put your shoes on, and get psyched.

Sprint up the hill/stairs. Full Gas.

Walk down.

Repeat 10 times.

Get on bike. Spin out your legs.

Do it again.

Repeat as fitness and common sense dictate.

Get back on bike, and roll home.

Notes:

– Look, seriously, don’t hurt yourself. If you haven’t been doing any running, don’t like to run, can’t run – take it really easy. Do a set of 5. Skip the workout entirely. Be smart.

– Think speed. It’s better to do sets of 5 fast than sets of ten glacially. Work on short, fast steps. Don’t over-stride. Blah blah blah… form advice, not going to go there, go waste 10-12 years on a running forum if you’re curious…

– Running can be fun. Repeat this to yourself as you do these…

M

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Howdy!

Today we’ve got another split set of workouts. If you are racing this Sunday, you’re probably going to want to do the easier of the two – unless you’re training through the race (which you probably should be this early in the season!) If you’re local to me, and racing StarCross on Saturday, well… I’m not writing this for you, really :0). You folks should be doing the “Can Openers” workout from last week…

So, OK. If you’re racing on sunday, today’s workout is “Easy Rollin’.”

The name pretty much spells it out for you.

You’re going to get out on your bike and roll easy for 2 hours. No efforts, no steep hills, no craziness. Just ride a steady level that’s one notch above a recovery ride. You should feel like you want to go just a little bit faster at all times, and when you get home, you should get home wanting more. More speed, more time, harder faster (killkill…)

Pretty simple.

If you aren’t racing, or if you’re training through, or if you just want to be mad at me for kicking your butt, here’s what you’re doing:

2×10 or 3×10 Over-Unders.

Ok, up-front word to the wise; If you do this right, it’s going to hurt.

– 2×10 or 3×10 means you are going to do either 2 or 3 of these, 10 minutes each.

– “Over-under” means that you are going to be working right around the level of your threshold, both above and below. What is your threshold? Well, for our purposes, we are going to reference the 2×20 workout we did a couple of days ago. Whatever wattage, heart rate, or gear ratio you did that workout at is going to serve as your threshold today.

Didn’t do that workout?

OK.

Your threshold will be whatever level you feel like you can hold for an effort of 20 minutes.

Don’t worry about it too much; you’re going to figure it out.

Start by warming up well.

Now that you have an idea of what level you’re going to use as a baseline, you’re going to ride at that level for 5 minutes. Get a solid idea of the wattage, heart rate, or tempo you are riding at, and get it solidly stuck in your mind. This is important; you are going to bounce above and below this level for the rest of the workout.

After the 5 minute baseline effort, spin easy for 2 minutes. Then begin the first interval…

Here’s how the first (and second, and third…) over-under interval will work:

Ride for one minute at your baseline level. At the end of that minute, ride 10 seconds at 25 watts, 10 beats, or 1 gear higher than the baseline level. After the 10 seconds, ride 20 seconds at 25 watts, 10 beats, or 1 gear lower than the baseline. After the 20 seconds, you go back to the ten (over,) followed again by the 20 (under,) etc., etc.

Got it? 1 minute baseline, 10 up, 20 down, 10 up, 20 down. Repeat the up/down efforts to the end of the interval.

Rest 5 minutes.

Repeat the first interval.

Rest 5 minutes.

Repeat again (or not…)

Spin around to recover, then go home and relax… masochist…

Notes:

– The  “over” and “under” of the intervals I have given above is approximate. You are looking to go as hard as you can for the “over” while still recovering enough with the “under” to complete the interval. Keep the “under” barely under, though. Don’t go easier on the under to allow yourself a harder “over.” Do these a few times and you’ll get the hang of it – I promise…

– The idea here is to get you better at attacking and responding to attacks in a cross race. You’re motoring along at your limit, all of a sudden someone attacks; what do you do? You follow the damn attack, and look to recover a bit when the tempo drops just a little bit… get it?

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Today’s workout is short hill repeats. Ouch.

Roll around for a while to warm up; you’re going to hit these intervals hard, so make sure you’re ready to go.

Find a short, steep hill. You’re looking for something that’s barely rideable in your big ring, but probably better done in the small ring. You’re going to be doing intervals that are a minute in duration or less, so find a hill that’s the right length, or pick a landmark that takes about a minute to get to if you’re really charging.

Here’s the format for the intervals:

You’re going to do two sets of ten, with a 5-10 minute break in between.

No more than 10 minutes. Shorter if you can.

The rest period is highly dependent on your fitness level. You’re looking to go for the second set as soon as you are rested enough to do it at the same level output level as the first. Yikes.

These are full-gas efforts. Go as hard as you can for each interval, with the understanding that you are doing 2 sets of ten, and you want to finish the damn workout.

Try to maintain a consistant level of output for each interval; don’t surge and fade. If you have a powermeter, you are trying to maintain a consistant output level for the duration of the interval. If you don’t have a pm, pick a gear and a cadence and stick with it. We’re hoping to work on your power a bit here, so if you’re up to it, look to do these intervals in a gear that is just bit taller than you are comfortable. Would you usually climb this hill in a 46×25? Go 46×23. Yarrggghhhh!

Start each interval standing, but sit your ass down as soon as you get up to speed, and do the rest of the interval seated. Don’t stand up! We’re doing that workout next week…

Got it? Have fun!

m

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Yuck!

I just realized that the workout of the dayfor 9/16 didn’t post to the site when I finished it yesterday. Damnit.  I have absolutely no idea why that happened.

Damnit.

Sorry about that! It’s up now, for what it’s worth.

Working on the post for 9/17 right now – and I promise I will double check to make sure it goes up when I press “publish!”

M

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