Crosssports's Weblog

Howdy folks,

My apologies for not posting yesterday. I could detail the reasons it didn’t get done, but… doesn’t really matter, does it?

So that brings us to today, which (unless I’ve really knocked a screw loose) is Friday.

As we’ve talked about before, Friday is tough to program. Here then follow some options…

Racing on Sunday this weekend?

Take today completely off.

Yup, you heard me. Day off. Nada, nothing.

Racing tomorrow?

Today you’re doing some kind of openers. Since the weather absolutely stinks up in my neck of the woods, we’re going with something that works well on the trainer…

The Rock – 

(Why the heck do I call it this? It’s in earlier posts…)

– Get on trainer. Spin for about 5 minutes.

– 2-3 minutes at just below ftp/your 20 minute output level

– Shift into big ring/largest cog combination.

– Ride 30 seconds in this gear, then shift up one cog.

– Ride 30 seconds in this gear, then shift up one cog.

– Repeat until you hit the hardest gear you’ve got, or can handle.

– Ride 30 seconds in that gear, and then shift all the way back down to the Big/big combo.

– Ride 30 seconds in that gear, then immediately shift to hardest gear you can handle.

– Full gas sprint, out of the saddle, for 30 seconds.

Back to big/big combo.

– Spin for two minutes.

Repeat The entire sequence

That’ll be guaranteed to have you open and ready for tomorrow.

Enjoy!

M

Posted in Cyclocross

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 use when you’re riding. Stretch just as long as it takes you to get loose.

– Mount & Remount skills. 10-15 minutes.

I wish I  could say that I don’t need to continue to blather on and on about the necessity to practice this stuff, but I was out at the races this past weekend, and I saw ya’all.

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.

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. There’s lots more on the bike handling topic in earlier posts, simply enter “Wednesday” in the search box, and you’ll have a fair bit to wade through.

– 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.

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 step down in intensity.

How do you do that? You make your race-pace efforts shorter!!

We’re doing ten minute efforts because if you only go for ten minutes at a time, you can dial up the effort so it’s harder than you can possible maintain for the duration of an actual race.

Seems obvious, right? Why, then, do I see so many people out at Wednesday Night CX Practice just tooling around and around in circles for 45 minutes-an hour week after week, with the obvious consequence of never getting any faster?

It’s a total g-damn mystery, amirite?

– 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

Posted in Cyclocross

Howdy folks,

We’re mixing things up a bit this week, and doing some running today.

What?!? Running on a Tuesday?!

Yup.

Change is good!

Enjoy…

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 stair steps 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.

– Run up stairs sideways. Yup, you read that right. Sideways. Try it, it’ll make sense. More of an agility drill than anything else, but it’ll be good for you.

– Repeat 2-5 times.

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 it 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.

As mentioned last week, for quite a while I’ve been saying that I don’t think that most CX racers really need to do much running work. It just hasn’t been that important for most of the races on the domestic US scene. The running that happens organically in the races and in practice is enough to keep the legs moving, and the time needed to add extra running to the schedule is generally better spent doing something more important, like riding yer damn bike.

Having said that, I lost a race on Sunday in large part because I just couldn’t run with the guy who won.

Who I coach, and who I’ve been having do more running than usual this season.

Hey, that coaching thing works!

Enjoy,

M

Hey folks! If you’re interested in that individual coaching thing I mentioned, Go Check out…

Posted in Cyclocross

Howdy folks,

Happy Monday! I hope you all had a great weekend of racing. I was actually able to make my way out to the races this weekend, and have some thoughts after watching a fair bit of racing that I hope to be able to share with you later in the week. Stay tuned.

Today being the Monday following a weekend of racing, we are of course going for a nice, relaxing…

Recovery Spin…

Just like it sounds…

– 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.

It’s getting harder and harder to find free race vid content, without going back to the footage of years past, so while I will continue to post up Monday cross videos, the contemporary stuff is mostly going to look like this…

But hey, there’s always previous year’s content!

Enjoy!

M

Posted in Cyclocross

Go Race. Have fun.

Posted in Cyclocross

Howdy folks,

Minimum fluff today. It’s Saturday, you’re either out racing already, or you’re racing tomorrow.

If you’re racing today… good luck, have fun.

If you’re racing tomorrow, 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

Posted in Cyclocross

Howdy folks,

As I have mentioned many times in the past, posting workouts for Friday is tough. The weekend schedule for people is pretty varied, and the difference between what you want to do today if you’re racing tomorrow vs Sunday vs Tomorrow and  Sunday is pretty vast.

So, well… what are you doing this weekend?

Racing on Sunday, but not tomorrow?

Take it easy today.

Go for a chill recovery spin. Get it done early, and try to get an extra couple of hours sleep tonight.

Racing tomorrow?

You need to do some openers today. How about…

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.

Have fun!

M

Posted in Cyclocross

Howdy folks,

As promised, today is a repeat of last Thursday’s workout. Enjoy!

We’re going to do some speed work today. We’re going to do some…

Ten Second Max Sprints – 

This is a pretty simple workout in concept, but harder to actually do than it appears at first blush. Short version…

– Warm up

20 minutes or so, making sure to include some short, hard efforts.

– Full-gas, all out sprint for ten seconds.

– Recover for 12 minutes.

– Full-gas, all out sprint for ten seconds.

– Recover for 12 minutes.

– Full-gas, all out sprint for ten seconds.

– Recover for 12 minutes.

– Full-gas, all out sprint for ten seconds.

– Recover for 12 minutes.

– Full-gas, all out sprint for ten seconds.

– Spin out your legs, recover for another 10 minutes or so, then go home. You’re done.
Wait… that’s it?

Yup.

Five ten-second sprints.

That’s it.

Here’s the thing, though; these are legit, 100%, all you can do sprints.

Think “If I don’t win this sprint, someone I love is going to die” type sprints.

If this doesn’t sound hard to you, that just means you’ve never actually gone that hard before.

It isn’t something that most people – even bike racers – have actually done. They may think they have, but… nope.

Just fwiw, here’s what it looks like when you’ve really, truly given a 100% effort in a sprint…

Posted in Cyclocross

Howdy folks,

It’s Wednesday, and Wednesday is the day we do skills work.

We’re going to do that today, but we’re going to focus on one particular thing.

SPEED.

We’re going to 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 is going to be high tonight. No slogging a big gear, get the pedals moving and get up to speed as quickly and emphatically as you can.

Think quick, snappy, dancing on the pedals type behavior. Do everything one gear smaller than you ordinarily would tonight, which will force you to turn the pedals over quickly.

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

Posted in Cyclocross

Howdy folks,

First of all, sorry about yesterday’s post. It didn’t go up until today for some weird reason. Was having some connectivity issues yesterday, and I guess something when haywire when the post of the post was posting. Or some such nonsense. Blecch.

On with today!
We’re going to do some running. If you’ve followed along with this mess in previous years, you’ve heard me talk about how I don’t think running should take the in-season place of importance that it did “back in the day.”

I still, by and large, believe that. But the specific caveats that have always existed to counter this belief are,  in some ways, beginning to outweigh the general truth of it.

To wit, Nationals.

If you’re thinking about attending Nationals the next couple of years – and want to do well –  you’re probably going to want to have some running in your legs.

The general trend of less running in domestic CX races also seems to be headed a little tiny bit in the opposite direction.

So, today we’re…

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 stair steps 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.

– Run up stairs sideways. Yup, you read that right. Sideways. Try it, it’ll make sense. More of an agility drill than anything else, but it’ll be good for you.

– Repeat 2-5 times.

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 it 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.

As mentioned in the preamble to all this, for quite a while I’ve been saying that I don’t think that most CX racers really need to do much running work. It just hasn’t been that important for most of the races on the domestic US scene. The running that happens organically in the races and in practice is enough to keep the legs moving, and the time needed to add extra running to the schedule is generally better spent doing something more important, like riding yer damn bike.

Having said that, if you are consistently losing ground every time you get off the bike, or if you happen to live in a part of the country where the local races have you running a lot, or you want to do well on a Nationals course that may well feature a fair bit of off-the-bike… things maybe change.

Maybe.

This is exactly the sort of thing that individual coaching is useful for. I’ve got some clients who do running workouts all the way through the CX season, and others who do none at all. One size absolutely don’t fit all.

So, give today’s workout a shot, and see how it works for you. We’ll do this again next week – with an option for people who would rather do something on the bike instead – and you might decide you like it.

Or not.

Enjoy,

M

Hey folks! If you’re interested in that individual coaching thing I mentioned, Go Check out…

Posted in Cyclocross