Crosssports's Weblog

Howdy folks,

We usually devote the Wednesday CXWOTD to skills work, but since a fair number of people are suddenly finding themselves out in the cold (so to speak… ) with an end having come to local organized practice sessions, how about a bit of a change of pace?

One of the big problems that tends to rear  it’s ugly little head this time of the season is endurance. More to the point, a lack of endurance.

Racers have the legs to go like gangbusters at the start of the race but they fall off the pace 1/2 way through, and by the time they get the bell, they’re rolling like a wounded bird.

Been feeling a bit like this yourself?

No go left in the tank at the end of the race?

I’m going to hazard a guess that it’s been a while since you hammered out  a few hours in a single go on a long group ride.

There’s nothing wrong with that, but…

One of the nice things about Cross season is that you don’t really need to go out and spend hours chasing the roadies around in the crappy weather to get your  winter training in.

But…

Fact remains, if you race cross, you get – and maintain – a damn solid level of fitness without having to wade through the mires of the typical off season.

But…

Folks still tend to see the wheels come off their endurance a bit this time of the season.

Pretty often, this is mostly due to the lack of longer miles in the training diet, but…

That isn’t the only cause.

Burnout/overtraining is also one of the reasons for this.

How can you tell the difference?

You’ve been tracking your performance in training, right?

Pull out those notes now.

– Have you been showing good, consistent numbers in training with no real noticeable drop in performance?

–  Not waking up dreaming of a day where you can get 12 hours more sleep?

– Not finding yourself repeatedly in strange situations where it takes a massive mental effort to prevent yourself from murdering relative innocents with an axe for what would generally be considered really minor transgressions?

– Running out of steam earlier in the races than you did at the beginning of the season?

If you answered “yes” to most or all of those, you probably need to work a bit on your endurance.

So, what can you do?

Well, if you’re a pro, you do a short block of endurance training, with some long, hard, steady rides.

If you’re a super-duper top level Euro-pro, you head off to Mallorca for a week where you can not only ride for hours in the sun, but also duck the vampires for a while.

Not so plausible if you’ve got a day job.

Working stiff?

Gotta’ do things a little bit differently.

Heck, how about an old-school, traditional, part of the Euro-pro Crosser’s training routine, something a World Cup veteran I coach calls “The Belgian Wednesday.”

Around here, we call it the…

Slow Roast

Ideally, you would make this a longer ride than most, 2 – 2  1/2 hours. It’s absolutely fine to go shorter, but go as long as you can/are able, up to 2 1/2 hours.

No real warm up effort required. You pretty much hop on the bike and go.

So, hop on the bike.

Ramp up to a level of output that’s approximately 2/3 of your FTP level, or 2/3 of what you’ve been doing your 2×20 Workouts at.

Hold this level for the duration of the ride.

Seriously, you’re looking to average that power level for the whole damn thing.

One twist… do it in a big damn gear.

If you can, you do the whole damn ride one damn gear bigger than you feel comfortable.

Bonus points for doing this on the trainer.

Ouch.

When you’re finished, go home, eat, relax, 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 as you may have noticed, I’ve recently started asking for folks to chip in a bit if they feel like what they’re getting her is worth something to them.

Honestly, it’s not like I’m trying to get rich off this here 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 quite as much money doing this as I currently do.

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

So, hey… if you feel like you’ve gotten anything of value out of this blog, 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.

Posted in Cyclocross, Intervals, The Workout Of The Day
Tags: Bicycle racing, bike racing, cx classes, cx handling drills, cx intervals, CX practice, cx skills, CXWOTD, Cycling, Cyclo-cross, Cyclocross, cyclocross classes, cyclocross handling drills, cyclocross instruction, cyclocross intervals, Cyclocross Practice, cyclocross skills, cyclocross workouts, Fitness, Health, Heart rate, Howy folks, Intervals, Marymoor CX, Marymoor cyclocross, Marymoor practice, Personal Training, Physical exercise, Running, s: Aerobic exercise, Seattle, Sports, The Workout Of The Day Tags: Bicycle pedal, wootd, WOTD, XC Racing

Howdy folks,

So… you’re still racing.

Season ain’t over, in fact you’re going to be plugging away at this cyclocross thing well into January.

Guess what?

Whoops. That’s The Guess Who. Darnit, failed pun attempt.

Anyways, It’s…

2 x 20 Tuesday!

Get Up Style today.

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 – check out this post for the beta on Over/Under efforts.

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.”

Cyclocross ain’t road racing, though.

A lot of the time you’re getting out of the saddle not to accelerate, but due to a bike handling challenge.

Heck, if you get out of the saddle in a super sketchy tech section and reflexively put the power down,  that might just result in rear wheel slip and lack of traction, with the expected bad results.

One of the keys to good bike handling is having an almost instinctive 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’s especially suited to the indoor 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.

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 as you may have noticed, I’ve recently started asking for folks to chip in a bit if they feel like what they’re getting her is worth something to them.

Honestly, it’s not like I’m trying to get rich off this here 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 quite as much money doing this as I currently do.

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

So, hey… if you feel like you’ve gotten anything of value out of this blog, 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.

Posted in Cyclocross, Intervals, The Workout Of The Day
Tags: Bicycle racing, bike racing, cx classes, cx handling drills, cx intervals, CX practice, cx skills, CXWOTD, Cycling, Cyclo-cross, Cyclocross, cyclocross classes, cyclocross handling drills, cyclocross instruction, cyclocross intervals, Cyclocross Practice, cyclocross skills, cyclocross workouts, Fitness, Health, Heart rate, Howy folks, Intervals, Marymoor CX, Marymoor cyclocross, Marymoor practice, Personal Training, Physical exercise, Running, s: Aerobic exercise, Seattle, Sports, The Workout Of The Day Tags: Bicycle pedal, wootd, WOTD, XC Racing

Howdy folks,

Well, this is the last week of the season up here in the Seattle area.

Kinda.

There are still a couple of races on the docket up north, and there are still a bunch of folks looking to play out the string and try to get to Nationals – even Master’s Worlds – with some vestige of fitness.

But for most people up here, the season is a wrap as of Sunday.

If you’re a member of this cohort, congrats; you’re almost there, another season done and dusted. Almost.

Still got to make it through this week.

So, about that…

With a week left, you almost certainly aren’t going to get any stronger from the training you do this week.

You can – maybe – get a little bit faster by doing some speed work this week, and that’s what we’re going to focus on for the next couple of days.

Whatever you do, though, don’t overdo it this week. You absolutely can throw away the last race of the season by trying to cram in a bunch of training in a futile attempt to restore the fitness that’s gradually been leached away from you racing weekend after weekend with not enough recovery and little to no long endurance work.

Yay, cyclocross!

If you’re one of those people whose season isn’t over for a while yet?
Keep plugging away. Have a 2×20 Tuesday! 

The Cyclocross Workout Of The Day will continue up through Nationals, and we’ll talk about some ways to keep things going strong even after the racing has tapered off.

Back to the last week of racing crew.

Speed work today.

Your fitness ain’t gonna’ go up before this weekend, but with a couple of sprint workouts this week, you might just be able to get your legs moving a little bit faster by the weekend.

So lets get…

Going Downhill Fast – 

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 turns into  a flat section of road another block or so in length.

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.

Sit back down as you get up to full speed, and try to go even faster.

Go until you are spun out.

Spun out means that your legs can’t go any faster, your form goes completely to hell, or you start bobbing up and down on the saddle a lot.

Ideally, a little bit of all of those things.

Remember, we’re working on leg speed today, so really focus on turning your legs over. The goal isn’t to make the bike go fast, the goal is to make your legs go fast.

There’s a difference, eh? Try to keep it in mind, ok?

That’s one rep. You’re doing sets of 5.

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 your legs 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.

– Important, let me reiterate: stand up out of the saddle when you start to sprint, and gradually sit down as you begin to spin up into your sprint.

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

Have fun!

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 as you may have noticed, I’ve recently started asking for folks to chip in a bit if they feel like what they’re getting her is worth something to them.

Honestly, it’s not like I’m trying to get rich off this here 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 quite as much money doing this as I currently do.

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

So, hey… if you feel like you’ve gotten anything of value out of this blog, 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.

Posted in Cyclocross, Intervals, The Workout Of The Day
Tags: Bicycle racing, bike racing, cx classes, cx handling drills, cx intervals, CX practice, cx skills, CXWOTD, Cycling, Cyclo-cross, Cyclocross, cyclocross classes, cyclocross handling drills, cyclocross instruction, cyclocross intervals, Cyclocross Practice, cyclocross skills, cyclocross workouts, Fitness, Health, Heart rate, Howy folks, Intervals, Marymoor CX, Marymoor cyclocross, Marymoor practice, Personal Training, Physical exercise, Running, s: Aerobic exercise, Seattle, Sports, The Workout Of The Day Tags: Bicycle pedal, wootd, WOTD, XC Racing