The Cyclocross Workout Of The Day for Wednesday, 11.9.16. “Welcome to the nightmare”

•November 9, 2016 • 1 Comment

Howdy folks,

Well…

 

 

We did it.

We put a dangerous con man in the Presidency. God help us all.

Times like these, sometimes the best thing that you can do is get out on the bike and try to ride the angst out of your system.

So that’s what we’re going to do tonight.

It’s skills night, but we’re going to keep it fast, loose, and fun.

It’s the least we can do.

Today’s workout is all about speed…

Go fast today.

Explode out of corners, accelerate up climbs, get out of the saddle and punch it every time you remount your bike after an obstacle.

Leg speed should be high tonight. No slogging a big gear, get the pedals turning over and get up to speed as quickly and emphatically as you can.

Think quick, snappy, dancing on the pedals type behavior. Maybe do everything one gear smaller than you ordinarily would tonight, just to reinforce the idea.

On with the workout!

 – warm up on bike, 10-15 minutes.

– Brief run. 5 minutes, focused on short, quick steps.

– Active stretching, as discussed in previous posts.

– Barrier skills, 10 minutes.

Every time you remount your bike, immediately get out of the saddle and sprint up to speed.

You are remounting with your hands on your hoods, right? If not, you should be. Every time you get back on the bike, butt comes off saddle, and you give ‘er gas. Hard to do this when you’re planted on the tops…

Begin slowly, and gradually up the tempo until you’re going too darn fast, then take it down a notch.

This is your race speed. Just one notch below your absolute max.

You should always be able to do things one notch faster in practice then you ever have to do them in a race.

When you try to get that extra tiny little bit of speed out of the technical sections in a race, you tend to wind up flat on your face.

Falling is always slow.

Get things perfect at race speed, and then move on to…

– Technical skills, 15-20 minutes.

Off cambers, tight turns, wide/fast turns, mud, sand…  whatever you’ve got to work with on your training circuit, have at it.

Remember, speed is everything tonight.

Come out of corners faster than you went into them.

Sprint through the sand & the mud.

Go fast.

– Starts

Full-gas starts from standing, foot on the ground. Just like the beginning of a race.

Each start effort should include a second effort: after you’ve gotten up to speed and settled into the saddle, get your ass back up off of it and hit the gas again. Second effort is the focus!

Go until you get 5 perfect starts in a row.

– Race simulation. 3 x 10 minutes, 2 minute rest between efforts.

Explode out of the corners.

Attack up the climbs.

Go fast.

Got it?

– Warm down.

Go Home. Eat. Recover.

Have fun!

M

 

 

 

 

Hi there…

Thanks for following my blog!

This thing started off as a lark, and over the years that I’ve been doing it, has become a little bit of a monster.

It takes a fair bit of time – and a wee bit of money – to keep this thing rolling, and it’s the time of the season where I’ve got to pay the bills to keep it going.

I’m not trying to get rich off this thing… or really even make any money from it at all.

It’d just make my life a fair bit easier if I didn’t lose money doing this.

Heck, allow me to rephrase that; I can’t keep doing this if I lose money on it.

So, hey… if you feel like you’ve gotten anything of value out of this blog, and you’d like to see it continue, please do me a favor – and yes, it’s a favor, and I will be truly thankful for it – and send a buck or two (or five, or whatever…) my way.

How do you do that?

Simply click on the graphic below, and PayPal will be glad to make it happen.

btn_donateCC_LG

Thanks for the consideration!

Now on with the workout…

 

The Cyclocross Workout Of The Day for Tuesday, 11.8.16. “(Election) Day Drinking”

•November 8, 2016 • Leave a Comment

Hi there…

Thanks for following my blog!

This thing started off as a lark, and over the years that I’ve been doing it, has become a little bit of a monster.

It takes a fair bit of time – and a wee bit of money – to keep this thing rolling, and it’s the time of the season where I’ve got to pay the bills to keep it going.

I’m not trying to get rich off this thing… or really even make any money from it at all.

It’d just make my life a fair bit easier if I didn’t lose money doing this.

Heck, allow me to rephrase that; I can’t keep doing this if I lose money on it.

So, hey… if you feel like you’ve gotten anything of value out of this blog, and you’d like to see it continue, please do me a favor – and yes, it’s a favor, and I will be truly thankful for it – and send a buck or two (or five, or whatever…) my way.

How do you do that?

Simply click on the graphic below, and PayPal will be glad to make it happen.

btn_donateCC_LG

Thanks for the consideration!

Now on with the workout…

 

 

 

Howdy folks,

If you live in the US, it’s election day. Yikes. This long National nightmare will – one way or another – soon be over.

Thank the gods.

 

gods

 

Unless it’s not.

That could still happen. It’s unlikely, but it could happen.

Craaaaaap.

Day drinking being not such a great idea in the middle of the season, we’re going to need a stout workout to get our minds off this possibility today.

Something like…

 

The MB15 – 

Warm up well. (Seriously. Warm up for this one, it’ll help.)

The basic idea here is to do a series of very short efforts with very little rest between them, for a pretty long period of time.

Sound confusing?

Here’s how it breaks down…

Warm up.

Get set…

Go!

15 seconds on

15 seconds off

15 seconds on

15 seconds off

…and so on and so on for the duration of the interval.

How long are you going to do this for?

– Ten minutes

How many sets?

– Three -four sets, 5 minutes between sets. Ideally, you aspire to pile enough ten-minute segments on top of one another to equal the duration of your races.

How hard do you go during the “on” segments?

– Pretty darn hard.

You’re familiar with the level of effort you put out in your 2×20’s by now, right?

You need to go harder than that.

More than a little bit harder.

Ideally, you’ll hit these on periods at right about 150% of your FTP, if that’s a number that means anything to you. If it doesn’t, it’s harder than what you’re dong your 2×20 effort at. A lot harder. For most folks it’s going to be about 50% harder.

Like I said, “ouch.”

How easy do you go during the “off” segments?

– A lot easier, but you aren’t soft pedaling.

Right about 50% of your FTP, or in the neighborhood of half as hard as your 2×20 level.

This is going to seem way too easy when you’re starting out, but by the end – if you’re doing these right – it’s probably going to be really damn hard to keep the “off” that high.

Ouch.

It gets worse.

Ultimately, you want to be able to do however many of these it takes to equal the duration of your typical CX race.

Seriously, Ouch.

Do what you can.

That’s the basics of this workout, but let’s talk about how folks tend to screw this up, shall we?

First of all, you really can’t do this workout correctly with a power meter that’s set to anything other than instantaneous power display. Even a 3-second display rate can screw things up; that’s 20% of the interval duration!

So, go check your PM settings and adjust accordingly.

Next big screw up? These aren’t sprints.

You’re looking to nail these output levels for the duration of the intervals, not way overshoot them and then coast back down to them.

If you’re doing a 300 watt “on” segment, that means 300 watts for 15 seconds, not 400 watts for 5 seconds and then 250 watts for 10 seconds.

That’s fine and all, but it’a different exercise.

A corollary to this is, on the “off” segment, you aren’t coasting. Ever. You’re doing 50% of your ftp. It’s not uncommon at all for people to experience the “off” portion as just as hard – or harder! – as the “on” section as the overall duration of the interval set reaches the duration of your race day.

In graphic form, your workout should look more like a square wave –

Square-Wave-1kHz-24W-Push-Pull-KT88-Tube-Amp

Than like this…

niki microb

(yup, snipped from a real-life attempt at this workout)

Make sense? Have at it!

“Enjoy” it!

M

 

What’s that you say? You’d kinda’ like to have a cycling coach help figure this stuff out for you? Check out…

se

(and, in case you’re wondering…. nope, S.E. doesn’t pay for the plug. I am one of their coaches, though, so if you’d like to work with me as a coach, click on the logo.)

The Cyclocross Workout Of The Day for Monday, 11.7.16. “Pretty Please”

•November 7, 2016 • Leave a Comment

Hi there…

Thanks for following my blog!

This thing started off as a lark, and over the years that I’ve been doing it, has become a little bit of a monster.

It takes a fair bit of time – and a wee bit of money – to keep this thing rolling, and it’s the time of the season where I’ve got to pay the bills to keep it going.

I’m not trying to get rich off this thing… or really even make any money from it at all.

It’d just make my life a fair bit easier if I didn’t lose money doing this.

Heck, allow me to rephrase that; I can’t keep doing this if I lose money on it.

So, hey… if you feel like you’ve gotten anything of value out of this blog, and you’d like to see it continue, please do me a favor – and yes, it’s a favor, and I will be truly thankful for it – and send a buck or two (or five, or whatever…) my way.

How do you do that?

Simply click on the graphic below, and PayPal will be glad to make it happen.

btn_donateCC_LG

Thanks for the consideration!

Now on with the workout…

 

 

Howdy folks,

Sorry about the lack of a real post yesterday. It was just one of those days. Long drive to the local race, running short of time… something had to give.

In this case, it was the CXWOTD. I try hard to keep cranking these out every damn day regardless of circumstance, but every once in a while it’s simply not possible.

 

Which reminds me… if you’re in the US, get out there and vote, OK? I’m not going to tell you who to vote for… but please vote against the orange con man from the great state of my birth.

Pretty please?

 

If you raced this weekend, you’re probably feeling pretty tired. That’s ok, ’cause today’s workout is a nice, relaxing…

 

Recovery Spin! – 

– Get on your bike. Roll out into the street – or into your living room if you’re on the turbo watching the vid – and just spin around for an hour. Or more. Or less. Whatever it takes.

– 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.

– Just get out on the road and spin easily and aimlessly. At a certain point, your legs will start to loosen up.

– When that happens, turn around and go home.

–  If you’re doing these on the trainer, same deal. Just spin. No hard efforts, just make the legs go around in circles in a small gear.

– Follow up with as much relaxation as you can. Eat, stretch, and put your legs up. Get a massage if possible.

 

Thankfully, it looks like the youtube posters are finally back up and running with the coverage of the Euro races! Yay! That means you can enjoy some coverage of Saturday’s Sint Niklass Cross while you spin on the trainer or, well, whenever/however you want.

Excellent.

 

 

Enjoy!

M

CXWOTD, 11.6.16.

•November 6, 2016 • Leave a Comment

Go Race!

Not racing?

Take the day off. You earned it.

 

M

The Cyclocross Workout Of The Day for Saturday, 11.5.16. “Open for the tail end of the season”

•November 5, 2016 • Leave a Comment

Hi there…

Thanks for following my blog!

This thing started off as a lark, and over the years that I’ve been doing it, has become a little bit of a monster.

It takes a fair bit of time – and a wee bit of money – to keep this thing rolling, and it’s the time of the season where I’ve got to pay the bills to keep it going.

I’m not trying to get rich off this thing… or really even make any money from it at all.

It’d just make my life a fair bit easier if I didn’t lose money doing this.

Heck, allow me to rephrase that; I can’t keep doing this if I lose money on it.

So, hey… if you feel like you’ve gotten anything of value out of this blog, and you’d like to see it continue, please do me a favor – and yes, it’s a favor, and I will be truly thankful for it – and send a buck or two (or five, or whatever…) my way.

How do you do that?

Simply click on the graphic below, and PayPal will be glad to make it happen.

btn_donateCC_LG

Thanks for the consideration!

Now on with the workout…

 

 

Howdy folks,

Hey! It’s Saturday! That means you might just be racing today. If you are, have a blast. For many of you, there aren’t just isn’t that much racing left.

How the heck did that happen? Yeesh, these seasons go by fast!

Of course, for as many of you as there are in the final weeks of the season, there are others with months still left to go.

If you’re one of those, and you’re going to be racing well into January, have you given some thought to when you’re going to take a week off?

You’ll want to do that at some point.

Preferably soon-ish.

Start thinking about it. We’ll talk more on the subject this coming week. Stay tuned…

Not racing today, but racing tomorrow?

Right on.

You’re doing…

Can Openers – 

 

Here’s the drill:

– Warm up for 1/2 hour or so, spinning easy with a couple of short bursts thrown in.

– Follow with several short attacking efforts, IE 30 seconds at 80% of your max, or pretty damn hard. 2 – 3 of ’em.

– Back off and spin for 5 minutes.

– Follow with 10-15 minute effort at right about your 2×20 output level, 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 hard 10 second efforts, ideally on CX type variable terrain, level or slightly uphill.

– Finish  with 5-6 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.

Enjoy!

M

 

 

 

What’s that you say? You’d kinda’ like to have a cycling coach help figure this stuff out for you? Check out…

se

(and, in case you’re wondering…. nope, S.E. doesn’t pay for the plug. I am one of their coaches, though, so if you’d like to work with me as a coach, click on the logo.)

 

The Cyclocross Workout Of The Day for Friday, 11.4.16. “Bygones”

•November 4, 2016 • Leave a Comment

Hi there…

Thanks for following my blog!

This thing started off as a lark, and over the years that I’ve been doing it, has become a little bit of a monster.

It takes a fair bit of time – and a wee bit of money – to keep this thing rolling, and it’s the time of the season where I’ve got to pay the bills to keep it going.

I’m not trying to get rich off this thing… or really even make any money from it at all.

It’d just make my life a fair bit easier if I didn’t lose money doing this.

Heck, allow me to rephrase that; I can’t keep doing this if I lose money on it.

So, hey… if you feel like you’ve gotten anything of value out of this blog, and you’d like to see it continue, please do me a favor – and yes, it’s a favor, and I will be truly thankful for it – and send a buck or two (or five, or whatever…) my way.

How do you do that?

Simply click on the graphic below, and PayPal will be glad to make it happen.

btn_donateCC_LG

Thanks for the consideration!

Now on with the workout…

 

Holy cow, it’s Friday already! How the heck did that happen?

If you’re racing tomorrow, you need to do some openers today. Yeah, yeah… if you’ve been following the blog for a while, that’s not exactly shocking news.

It’s true, though.

You’ve got to get these darn things in. They make a difference.

Well… usually.

This isn’t always true.

You know when you should skip the openers?

When you find yourself in a position to either cram in openers at the end of a long damn day full of other stuff, or get to sleep at a reasonable hour.

Openers are important.

Getting the sleep and recovery you need the night before a race is even more important.

I’ve made the wrong call on this myself enough times to know, and I’ve seen athletes I coach do the same.

The classic case is, you travel to a race. S**T goes haywire with your travel plans, and you arrive too late in the day to get your openers in without doing them at night, in the hotel room, on the trainer.

The home-base version is, work or life-stuff goes late, and suddenly it’s well past dinner time, and you’re in the same position; on the trainer, cranking out intervals at night.

This almost inevitably winds up being a bad idea. Just go to sleep.

Get a good warm up in before the race the next day, and forget about the things that you just couldn’t get done.

c73993a6848aea8d34f65666b633f0d8

 

‘Nuff said?

Onward to the openers! Today we’re doing…

 

Ignition – 

 

 

You’re going to do a series of short, hard sprints midway through a 1 – 1 1/2 hour ride. Before you head out the door, give some thought to where you can do that effectively.

A flat, straight, low-traffic section of road is what you’re looking for.

It would be great if it’s about a :45 minute ride away; that would make things nice and simple.

Hop on your bike and roll out the door.

Ride steady, at a moderate pace for 1/2 hour – 45 minutes, eventually winding up at the aforementioned stretch of road.

You’re now going to do a series of Hard out of the saddle sprints.

How hard?

Well, hard to say. You’ll start to get the hang of it pretty quickly, but figure that you’re shooting for an output level that will allow you to crank out all the sprints in the set at about the same level, but not easily.

You aren’t sprinting to failure here, and you aren’t doing a max power test.

Don’t overdo it, you’re trying to open your legs, not destroy them.

Make sense?

10 sprints, 10 seconds each.

1 minute between each sprint.

After the last sprint, roll back home spinning easily to recover.

Budget at least 15 – 20 minutes for the spin/ride back home.

when you get home, put your feet up and relax.

For some folks, this isn’t quite enough to get their legs open and ready the day before the race – or at least it doesn’t feel like it’s enough – and the importance of “feeling” ready can’t really be overestimated.

If you’re part of this club (I am) add a 10-minute effort at right about your 2×20 output level before you start the sprint sets.

Warm up, 10 minute effort, 5 minutes spinning, sprint efforts, spin down, go home.

Not racing on Saturday this week? Racing on Sunday?

Either take the day off, or go for a…

1.5 – 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

 

What’s that you say? You’d kinda’ like to have a cycling coach help figure this stuff out for you? Check out…

se

(and, in case you’re wondering…. nope, S.E. doesn’t pay for the plug. I am one of their coaches, though, so if you’d like to work with me as a coach, click on the logo.)

 

 

 

 

The Cyclocross Workout Of The Day for Thursday, 11.3.16. “Small Hills Out Of Molehills”

•November 3, 2016 • Leave a Comment

Hi there…

Thanks for following my blog!

This thing started off as a lark, and over the years that I’ve been doing it, has become a little bit of a monster.

It takes a fair bit of time – and a wee bit of money – to keep this thing rolling, and it’s the time of the season where I’ve got to pay the bills to keep it going.

I’m not trying to get rich off this thing… or really even make any money from it at all.

It’d just make my life a fair bit easier if I didn’t lose money doing this.

Heck, allow me to rephrase that; I can’t keep doing this if I lose money on it.

So, hey… if you feel like you’ve gotten anything of value out of this blog, and you’d like to see it continue, please do me a favor – and yes, it’s a favor, and I will be truly thankful for it – and send a buck or two (or five, or whatever…) my way.

How do you do that?

Simply click on the graphic below, and PayPal will be glad to make it happen.

btn_donateCC_LG

Thanks for the consideration!

Now on with the workout…

 

Today we’re doing…

Short Hill Repeats…

You want to do these on a climb that has you right on the edge of being over-geared.

There are a couple of ways to do this…

– big-ring-able, but just at the edge of being a small ring climb.

– small ring, but with steep or variable terrain or both.

Each effort should take 5 – 10 seconds or so, which tells you how long the climb needs to be.

black mole in open air, molehill

Maybe a little bit larger than that.

Now we’re talking.

Warm up for approx. 1/2 hour, then roll on up to the base of the climb you have selected.

Begin your intervals with an out of the saddle, full race-pace ATTACK into the climb.

You’re looking to blast up the climb, full gas the whole way.

It’s perfectly OK to sit down 1/2 -3/4 of way through the effort – especially if you need to do so to maintain traction – but don’t let the intensity drop.

Try to maintain your intensity for the duration of interval.

You’re going to recover for 30 seconds between each rep, and then 2-5 minutes between sets.

5 reps. per set.

Minimum of 5 sets. Hopefully more.

If you can do more than 5, great… but try to maintain the level of output you had on your first set.

If you have a power meter, you’re done when the wattage you can maintain throughout the set drops off the edge of the table; that’ll be pretty obvious when it happens.

If the power comes back after you recover for a couple of minutes, then you’re not done. You’re done when it doesn’t come back, make sense?

Spin out & warm down after.

Have fun

M

The Cyclocross Workout Of The Day for Wednesday, 11.2.16. “Free Throw(ing. Up.)”

•November 2, 2016 • Leave a Comment

Hi there…

Thanks for following my blog!

This thing started off as a lark, and over the years that I’ve been doing it, has become a little bit of a monster.

It takes a fair bit of time – and a wee bit of money – to keep this thing rolling, and it’s the time of the season where I’ve got to pay the bills to keep it going.

I’m not trying to get rich off this thing… or really even make any money from it at all.

It’d just make my life a fair bit easier if I didn’t lose money doing this.

Heck, allow me to rephrase that; I can’t keep doing this if I lose money on it.

So, hey… if you feel like you’ve gotten anything of value out of this blog, and you’d like to see it continue, please do me a favor – and yes, it’s a favor, and I will be truly thankful for it – and send a buck or two (or five, or whatever…) my way.

How do you do that?

Simply click on the graphic below, and PayPal will be glad to make it happen.

btn_donateCC_LG

Thanks for the consideration!

Now on with the workout…

 

 

 

Howdy folks,

Did you get your ballot in yet?

i-vomited

 

Yeah, me neither… but I’m filling it out as soon as I finish this.

Tonight, though? Tonight we vote for…

Skills – 

(yeah, yeah… I know… I’ve used the joke before, sorry. Just can’t help myself.)

It’s wet again this week, so once again we’re going to keep things brief(ish) and to the point.

 

Here’s how tonight is going to go…

– Warm up on the bike.

As long as it takes to get loose, you should have a light sweat on when you…

– Stretch.

Active stretching, focus on all the muscles you use getting on & off the bike, but don’t when you’re riding. Go as long as it takes to work everything and get loose.

– Mount & Remount skills. 10-15 minutes.

I would say that you probably don’t need me to blather on any more about this, if it wasn’t for some, uh, notable failures in this area recently (Hi Chris!)

Confidence in your basic skills is good, but overconfidence kills. Small little imperfections in our fundamental skills are something that we can get away with, right up until the point that we don’t. And then we’re on the deck, with a face full of mud.

It doesn’t matter what sport we’re talking about, practicing the fundamentals pays off, and you need to keep doing it as the season wears on, and little bad habits start to creep (back) in.

This stuff is like drilling your free throws in basketball. Doesn’t matter how good you are, or how big a star you are, or how boring it is, you’ve just got to do it…

…or deal with the consequences.

‘Nuff said?

– Technical skills on the bike. 10-15 minutes

Tight turns and off-cambers. As always, work on your entrances and exits from all the technical sections. Pedal, pedal, pedal. Try to pedal througheverything. Keep the gas on, power going through the rear wheel, and you maintain traction.

Work on it. Lots more on the bike handling topic in earlier posts, enter “Wednesday” in the search box, and you will likely get bored out of your skull with my verbosity…

– Starts. Go as long as it takes to get 5 perfect, full gas starts.

Make it feel like a race start. Get off the mark fast, sit down, shift, go again. Remember, it’s the second effort that gets you the early gap most of the time, not the initial effort off the line. Want to be good at your starts? It’s another free-throw type thing.

– Race simulation. 3 ten minute efforts, 2 minutes recovery between them.

No big complications here. Go really f-ing fast. Try and make these efforts faster and harder than you go in the races. You want to get to the point where your efforts in practice and training are so d**n hard that racing seems like a treat.

Yeah, I know… good luck with that, right?

– Warm down.

Spin out your legs. Take enough time doing this that you feel them unspool and loosen up. Go home, eat, relax.

Enjoy!

M

The Cyclocross Workout Of The Day for Tuesday, 11.1.16. “Over-under This”

•November 1, 2016 • Leave a Comment

Hi there…

Thanks for following my blog!

This thing started off as a lark, and over the years that I’ve been doing it, has become a little bit of a monster.

It takes a fair bit of time – and a wee bit of money – to keep this thing rolling, and it’s the time of the season where I’ve got to pay the bills to keep it going.

I’m not trying to get rich off this thing… or really even make any money from it at all.

It’d just make my life a fair bit easier if I didn’t lose money doing this.

Heck, allow me to rephrase that; I can’t keep doing this if I lose money on it.

So, hey… if you feel like you’ve gotten anything of value out of this blog, and you’d like to see it continue, please do me a favor – and yes, it’s a favor, and I will be truly thankful for it – and send a buck or two (or five, or whatever…) my way.

How do you do that?

Simply click on the graphic below, and PayPal will be glad to make it happen.

btn_donateCC_LG

Thanks for the consideration!

Now on with the workout…

 

 

Today we’re doing…

Over/Under Intervals! 

 

 

over-under

So, what the heck is an over/under interval?

– “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 Classic 2×20 workout. Whatever wattage, heart rate, or gear ratio you use for that interval will serve as your threshold baseline.

Get a solid idea of the wattage, heart rate, or tempo you ride your 20 minute intervals in, and keep it firmly stuck in your mind. This is important; you are going to bounce above and below this level for the rest of the workout.

Get a stopwatch. Put it on your bars.

Start the stopwatch.

Begin today’s workout by doing a 5 minute effort at your 2×20 level.

After the 20 minute-style baseline effort, spin easy for 2 -5 minutes.

When you are ready, begin the 10 minute Over/under thusly:

– Ride for one minute at your baseline/20 minute intensity 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 2-5 minutes.

– Do it again for 10 minutes.

– Rest again for 2 minutes.

– Pile sets on until you’re starting to see a precipitous drop in your output level. You’ll know when that happens, even if you aren’t using a power meter. If you’re really a baller, keep rolling sets until you’ve completed enough to be the equivalent of your typical race duration.

Yikes.

Have fun!

 

M

The Cyclocross Workout Of The Day for Monday, 10.31.16. “Halloween Spin”

•October 31, 2016 • Leave a Comment

Hi there…

Thanks for following my blog!

This thing started off as a lark, and over the years that I’ve been doing it, has become a little bit of a monster.

It takes a fair bit of time – and a wee bit of money – to keep this thing rolling, and it’s the time of the season where I’ve got to pay the bills to keep it going.

I’m not trying to get rich off this thing… or really even make any money from it at all.

It’d just make my life a fair bit easier if I didn’t lose money doing this.

Heck, allow me to rephrase that; I can’t keep doing this if I lose money on it.

So, hey… if you feel like you’ve gotten anything of value out of this blog, and you’d like to see it continue, please do me a favor – and yes, it’s a favor, and I will be truly thankful for it – and send a buck or two (or five, or whatever…) my way.

How do you do that?

Simply click on the graphic below, and PayPal will be glad to make it happen.

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Thanks for the consideration!

Now on with the workout…

 

Happy Halloween!

 

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You rode hard this weekend.

You deserve a break today.

How about a nice, relaxing…

Recovery Spin! – 

– Get on your bike. Roll out into the street – or into your living room if you’re on the turbo watching the vid – and just spin around for an hour. Or more. Or less. Whatever it takes.

– 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.

– Just get out on the road and spin easily and aimlessly. At a certain point, your legs will start to loosen up.

– When that happens, turn around and go home.

–  If you’re doing these on the trainer, same deal. Just spin. No hard efforts, just make the legs go around in circles in a small gear.

– Follow up with as much relaxation as you can. Eat, stretch, and put your legs up. Get a massage if possible. Try not to eat all the candy that the lack of costumed marauders leaves sitting in the big bowl in the hallway. Please, someone come and take all this candy away, please?

Enjoy your Monday!

Today’s vid; couldn’t find footage of this weekend’s races, so here’s a flashback to last year, the first European Cyclocross Championship…