It’s Tuesday, and if you’ve been following along, you know that generally means we’re doing something intervallic. As often as not, something 2×20-ish.
If you’ve been grooving along to the 2×20 vibe the last couple of weeks, you might want to consider sticking with that again this week. It isn’t a bad idea to keep grinding away on those, keep pushing up your number, especially if you’re finding yourself to be extremely time limited, or if you feel like you’re starting to make some real progress.
If you’re ready to kick things up a notch though,
…today we give you…
Over/Under Intervals!
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.
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’ve reached the duration of your typical race, or 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. The odds of being able to do these properly for race duration the first (or second, or third, or fourth…) time out are pretty slim, so don’t be too upset when that doesn’t happen. 2, 3 sets is pretty darn good for mere mortals.
If you did the workouts posted this weekend, I’m guessing that you’re pretty darn tired today!
Maybe not as tired as these gals…
But tired nonetheless.
Which is a-ok. Because it’s Monday. And on Monday, we rest.
Well, not just rest.
Most of us probably have work to do today, and rather than take the whole day completely off the bike, we’re going to jump start our recovery process by going for a…
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.
Looks like it’s fixin’ to be a pretty darn nice day just about everywhere. One of those late summer days that’s just made for getting out on the bike and putting in some miles.
Yup. You’re looking to average that power level for the whole damn thing, and as much as possible, you want to keep the output pretty darn consistent.
Just keep rolling along piling on the miles at a steady output level.
If you can, you do the whole damn ride one damn gear bigger than you feel comfortable.
Ouch.
When you start out, it’s probably going to feel like you’re pushing too easy on the hills, and too hard on the flats. Don’t let this get you twisted. You’re doing it right, and it’ll all even out eventually.
As the name says, this is a long roast. It’s absolutely fine to go shorter, but ideally you’re going to ride for 3 (ish) hours. More if you’re a beast. This is a ride where you don’t put out more wattage to increase the difficulty, you put in more distance, more saddle time.
How long can you go?
Odds are 3 hours is really going to be pushing it for most folks.
Find out if you’re one of ’em.
By the end, it’s just going to feel like your legs are made of lead. Or tapioca. One or the other, depending.
When you’re finished, go home, eat, relax, recover.
It seems incredibly strange to say this, but here we are… Saturday, August 13, and it’s almost cyclocross season.
The UCI race calendar kicks off in two weeks.
Yes, you heard that right. Two weeks. A week after that, the domestic US calendar gets going.
So, like it or not, ready or not, we’re about to start the season.
Wow.
Even if your local racing isn’t quite as imminent, it ain’t far off.
Time to start thinking about the season. Now.
I’m not saying that you should be out there on your CX bike this weekend doing hot laps (well, unless you’re going to those China races, or plan to be at Rochester. If that’s the case, maybe you should be.)
No, quite to the contrary, for most folks I think these next couple of weekends are best spent getting in some long, hard miles, to work on building your endurance base for the long winter season ahead.
Note, please: You don’t have to do this.
It is possible to have a good cross season without putting in any long rides, ever. If you’re racing for an hour, you canget away with never really training for much longer than race duration.
I’ve worked with extremely time-crunched clients who simply didn’t have the time to do anything long, ever, and we were able to make it work.
But it ain’t easy.
Volume can solve all manner of problems of form.
So if you can?
Get out there, and get some distance in this weekend.
Yikes! This one is going up pretty damn late. Sorry about that. I always try to get the WOTD cranked out before noon, but sometimes life interferes.
In this particular case, I’m in the midst of a data disaster on my computer… which suddenly isn’t reading a bunch of files that I need it to read. Luckily, I’ve got everything backed up, and will eventually – fingers crossed! – be able to get this figured out, but right now? Ugh. Crap. Blech.
Remember, people… back up your data!!!!
Anyways, onwards.
Once again, the Friday dilemma; what do I tell you to do, when what you do today depends on your plans for the weekend?
I you’re doing any race-type stuff this weekend, then you should be good to go.
Not racing this weekend?
Cool.
I’m going to be suggesting that you get out there and do some long(ish) fun(ish) miles this weekend, so today would actually be a good day to take it pretty easy.
If you really feel like riding, just go out and cruise around for an hour or so. Have some fun on the bike. Ride easy and enjoy the sights and sounds of a late-summer day, or go rip some turns on the local single track.
Sometimes unstructured time on the bike is an important part of “the plan.”
In honor of this great event, today we’re going to do some running!
(Wait, what? Never mind, man… just go with it.)
If you haven’t done much – or any running so far this season, Check out last week’s post.
If you have been running a bit?
Game on.
Time for some…
Stairing –
– First, figure out where you can do the workout.
We’re going to be running stairs today, so you need some stairs, or a small hill, or a grassy knoll – something you can run up. Stairs are best, but whatever you can come up with will work.
You don’t need NFL stadium stairs or anything crazy like that for this workout. Look for something that’s long enough to give you 10 seconds of running at a full sprint; That’ll be plenty long enough. We’re doing speed work, here. Short, sharp efforts.
On with the workout.
– get on your bike and warm up for 15 minutes or so.
(we’re going to warm up for any running efforts we do, all season, with some time on the bike. )
– Mosey on over to your stairs/knoll/whatever, and get set. Stretch, have a sip of water, turn up the volume on your Ipod.
– Jog up the stairs. Walk down.
Get a sense for the spacing and “feel” of the stairs. You’re going to be flying up these things in a full-on lactic acid bath shortly, so you want to get comfortable with the terrain.
– Repeat x5
– Sprint! up stairs, fast, using whatever stride is most comfortable. Walk down.
– Repeat x5
Rest for 1 minute, walking slowly up and down stairs.
– Sprint up stairs, this time using quick, tiny strides, 1 stairstep at a time. Walk down.
– Repeat x5
Rest again, same as before.
– Sprint up stairs, this time using long strides, several stairsteps at a time. Walk down.
– Repeat x 5
Rest again.
– Sprint up stairs, combining the previous two exercises – 1st time up, long strides; next time up, short strides, etc. Walk down.
Rest again, 2-5 minutes.
– Repeat entire damn thing until you just can’t do it anymore, or you are going so slowly it’s ridiculous.
Get back on bike, spin out your legs, go home.
Notes –
If you can, go really damn hard. If you do this right, it’s a brutal workout.
Don’t go that hard if you haven’t got the legs for that yet. Keep it under control. You want to build up to the point where you are going up the stairs in a dead sprint, and are completely gassed at the end of each set. That’s going to take a few sessions to build up to, though. Don’t kill yourself the first time out.
If anything starts to hurt, or feel strained, pulled, or otherwise bad – as in “something just ain’t right, bad” – stop. Just stop. Do Not Injure Yourself Running G-damn stairs in the pre-season, OK?
Especially during cyclocross season. In a couple of weeks we’ll be starting up clinic sessions out at the Wednesday Night Worlds MTB course on – you guessed it – Wednesday nights!
Which will be rad. I promise.
in the meantime, you can make your Wednesday almost as rad by getting out there and doing some groovy cross-bike practicing all on your lonesome!
OK, maybe not that rad. Who among us can actually claim to be that rad?
Yeah… they can.
On with the workout!
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 (We’ve talked about stretching on here in the past, check out the search function if you want/need some more info.)
3 – Dismount/remount skills for 5-10-15 minutes (depends how rusty/crappy 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.
Do just the most basic dismount/remount as per above until you have it down cold, smooth as silk.
When you’re perfect (hah!) throw some barriers into the mix.
– 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.
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 keep it there.
Smooooooth.
(If you don’t have barriers, anything will do. Use a log, put a stick on the ground – whatever.)
4 – Figure eight drill.
Set up 2 cones or 2 rocks or two – somethings, whatever – on the side of a slightly sloping hill. One up hill, one down, about 5-8 meters apart.
Ride in a figure eight pattern around the cones…
– first pedaling the entire time.
No coasting.
Pedal the corners & the downhill.
Practice using the brakes while still pedaling. This is one of those secret techniques that – once you figure it out – makes a huge difference. When you stop pedaling you lose traction, so don’t stop. You can break and pedal at the same time, sometimes.
Experiment with this, it’s a game-changer.
Try different speeds, different lines, different angles.
See when/how/why/what works, and what doesn’t.
Take it slow and have fun.
We’ll build on this basic drill a lot in the next couple of weeks/months.
Yup. It’s Tuesday. Many of you probably know what that means.
It’s Two By Twenty Tuesday!
Today we’re doin’ ’em…
Get Up Style.
As we’ve talked about in previous posts, at it’s most basic the 2×20 looks like this:
– Warm up.
– Go as hard as you can for 20 minutes.
– Recover for 5 minutes.
– Go again for another 20 minutes.
The idea 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.
It’s all about doing two intervals.
Two intervals at as close to the same level of consistent, steady power output as you can manage.
If you’re doing this with a power meter, you want your wattage output to be as constant and unvaried as possible.
For both intervals.
Both.
How steady?
Can you keep it in a 10 watt range?
Probably not.
15 watts?
More likely
20 watts?
Try.
Keep it steady.
If you run out of gas before you finish the second interval, then you went too hard.
If your vision isn’t blurry at the end of the second interval, you went too easy. But guess what?
It’s way better to go too easy and finish both intervals than it is to go too hard and crater part way through the second 20.
That’s the basic version (and if you’re new to all this, it’s probably the version you should do.) Today, though?
Today we’re doing the get-up version, so…
Start your 20-minute 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 keep your level of output consistent.
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 next 20 minute interval.
Remember, 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’re doing this with a power meter, you want your wattage output to be as close to constant as possible, and the out of the saddle time we’re throwing in makes this even more challenging.
Keep it steady.
These take practice to do well, and the better you get, the harder they get, as your output level gets closer and closer to the absolute max you’re capable of doing for an interval of this duration.
Add in the constant standing and sitting component, and you’re going to know you did some work when you’re through.
I know I’m repeating myself, but do try to avoid the temptation to up the output level when you get out of the saddle, OK?
That’s an entirely different workout, and we’ll get there soon enough, I promise.
One of the things we’re learning with this workout is how to calibrate our out of the saddle efforts. We’re getting a better handle on what we’re actually doing when we stand up on the bike.
You need to know – really know – when you’re going harder and when you’re not.
What most people find when doing this workout is that every time they get out of the saddle their power output takes a big jump.
Which isn’t a huge surprise, because we largely train our bodies to correlate out of the saddle with “go time.”
The thing is, though?
Cyclocross ain’t road racing.
A lot of the time you’re getting out of the saddle not to accelerate, but due to a bike handling challenge.
Heck, in Cross if you get out of the saddle in a super sketchy tech section and really put the power down, pretty often that’s going to result in rear wheel slip and lack of traction, with the expected bad results.
Here’s a little secret:
One of the keys to good bike handling is having a really good understanding of how much power you’re producing, and the effect that has on your traction.
Step one to developing that understanding is getting a real feel for how your power output can change when you get out of the saddle.
Nothing will give you a better feel for that than this workout.
Make sense?
Especially since we’re trying to work on perception, not just output, this is a workout that works great on the trainer, and that’s how you should do ’em, if you can stand it. If not, really try to find the most vacant, flat, soulless terrain possible. The fewer the distractions the 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 exercise – instant home made ergometer.
I kinda’ like Mondays. It’s the start of a new week, a fresh start to a new adventure. A chance to….
Ah, who the hell am I kidding.
It’s Monday.
Workworkworkworkworkwork…
Even though I’m (essentially) self-employed, Monday is a hell day. Always too much stuff to do, and lots to catch up with that somehow went un-done over the weekend. Note, please: this post finally going up at almost 1:00!
Ugh. Mondays.
Blecch.
After a weekend of (hopefully!) riding pretty hard, the workload on Monday can make it pretty darn tempting to just forego the riding completely.
I mean, ‘ya need to recover, amiright? How better to recover from the weekend’s efforts than to take a day off?
I’ll tell you how!
Go for a…
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.
Make it happen, no matter how stacked the day is.
Just an hour.
Heck, if you can’t manage even that, just 1/2 hour.
Yay, WordPress! Before you go any farther, please click this link so that you can read this post without the strange formatting that makes it look horrible on the full page view. Blecch. I’m working on setting up an entirely new web page for the CXWOTD, but it’s taking time/money that are both in short supply right now, so I don’t have a firm date for completion. Stay tuned for the inevitable post begging for money to finance the project. Onward!
It’s Sunday! If you’re at all like me, you’re watching the Women’s Olympic Road race, and when it’s over with, you’re going to go for a ride yourself.
Hard not to get inspired watching these gals tear that course up… and what a course it is! Hard, technical… whoever wins this race is a deserving champ.
“Deserving champ” is more than just hyperbole. One of the announcers on the stream I’ve been watching (not the useless TV broadcast!) Just talked about the work Giorgia Bronzini put in to get her body mass down in order to competitive on the selective Olympic course.
If you’ve ever tried to do something like that, you know how hard it is… especially when you’re trying to ride/race a bike at the same time, and recover from those on the bike efforts.
Who doesn’t like to tuck into a giant meal after a long, hard ride? Can you imagine riding your ass off all day, only to roll back home, walk into the kitchen, and then weigh out just enough food to make it possible to do so again, with just enough calorie deficit to be sure that the lbs are coming off, but not so much that you’re doing damage to yourself?
…and then you do it again the next day.
…and the next.
…and the next.
Etc.
Yuck.
No fun. No fun at all.
That’s the kind of work that goes into success at that level, though.
There’s a reason that you read about pro-tour level cyclists getting all manner of small sicknesses, all the time; they’re constantly pushing the boundary line between being lean and fast, and lean and ill.
One of the keys to avoiding the “Ill” part?
Put the work in to the body composition part of the speed equation when you aren’t racing.
It’s one hell of a lot easier, and the consequences for pushing the line too far aren’t as well… consequential.
If you’re a cyclocross racer – and if you aren’t, what are you doing reading this? – the time to work on this kind of thing is now.
Racing is just around the corner. Heck, I just registered for my first race of the season.
So, feeling like you might want to lose a couple of lbs before the season starts?
Feeling like you might need to put a few on so that you don’t spend the whole CX season fighting the flu?
(don’t laugh… that wound up being one of the things that hurt me as a young CX racer back in the day, before I was an old man. Too damn skinny, sick all the damn time.)
If not, and if you’re feeling particularly motivated from watching the Olympics, why not have a go at that today?
If you did do that yesterday, odds are you’re pretty tired today.
There are a couple of ways to go when you’ve had a hard day one of the weekend
Roll hard again today. Do something Kitchen Sink-ish, and really earn that recovery day tomorrow.
Ride short and hard. Get some sharp efforts in to work on a different energy system than you used yesterday. Something like…
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-ringable, but just at the edge of being a small ring climb.
– small ring, but steep or with variable terrain, or both.
Each effort should take 5 second or so, which tells you how long the climb needs to be, eh?
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, got it?
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.
If you can do more than that, great… but make sure you’re maintaining 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, trust me.
Spin out & warm down after.
“Dude!” I hear you saying. “I’m pretty gassed today. This stuff is just too damn much!” Okey doke. Let’s turn it down a notch, and aim for…
Moderation – 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…
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.
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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