Howdy folks,
Hey… it’s Sunday… Go Race!
I’ve had a few people ask me about warm ups for race day recently, so here’s a link to a post on that topic I wrote a while back.
Have fun out there,
M
The Cyclocross Workout Of The Day for Sunday, 11.1.15. “Go Race Yer Bike”
•November 1, 2015 • Leave a CommentThe Cyclocross Workout Of The Day for Saturday, 10.31.15. “Scary Openers”
•October 31, 2015 • Leave a CommentHowdy folks,
Happy Halloween!
It’s absolutely dumping rain up here in Seattle, which – believe it or not – has been a rare thing the last couple of cross seasons.
My guess is there are going to be a lot of folks looking for something to do inside on the trainer for openers today.
How about…
The R.S.W.O. –
– Get on trainer. Spin for 10 minutes or so.
– 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.
– Out of the saddle, sprint for 30 seconds.
Back to big/big combo.
– Spin for two minutes.
– 5-10 minute effort at your 2×20 output level.
Repeat the entire sequence, typically minus the second 2×10 level effort.
– Spin until your legs are feeling loose, then call it a day.
If you’re racing today, you can do an abbreviated version of this same workout as a warm-up. Drop the 2×20 level efforts, or cut the duration of them way down, and have at it. Works well, and has become a favorite of a lot of people I’ve given it to.
Happy Halloween!
M
Thanks for following my blog!
This thing started off as a lark, but over time it has become a little bit of a monster. There are over 1000 workouts on here! How the hell did that happen?!
It takes a fair bit of time – and a wee bit of money – to keep this thing rolling, and it’s suddenly the time of the year when the bills come due. I need to ante up if I want to keep the lights on for the page.
Honestly, I’m not trying to get rich off this thing… or 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!
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.
The Cyclocross Workout Of The Day for Friday, 10.30.15. “The Day Before The Day Before”
•October 30, 2015 • Leave a CommentHowdy folks,
Well, it’s Friday again.
Geeze… not only is it Friday, but it’s the day before Halloween?
With most folks racing on Sunday, I’m guessing that there will be a pretty high percentage of Halloween celebrations in which CX riders participate occurring this evening.
So, hey… have fun. Try not to overdo it too much.
Have some electrolyte drink ready for your morning hangover.
If you’re up late tonight, try if at all possible to sleep in tomorrow. I’ve said it many times, but what you do today has a big effect on what you’re capable of doing on race day. If you run the batteries dry tonight, you can’t expect them to be full again a day later.
Maybe when you’re in your early twenties you can fake it, but as the rings grow on the tree, it gets harder and harder to bounce back quickly. So do everything you can to help things along.
Stay hydrated. Make yourself get a full helping of sleep, even if you’re out late. Get your race gear packed and prepped today so you don’t have to do it tomorrow.
Stuff like that.
If you’re racing tomorrow?
Well, hopefully you won’t be out burning the midnight oil tonight.
If you can do that, and still race well the next day?
I kinda’ hate you. I remember what that was like.
Vaguely.
Even with your super-human levels of recovery, you still need to do some openers today, how about…
The L.B. Opener (or, almost Ignition, but not quite.)
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, it’s difficult to say without having your data in front of me. You’ll get the hang of it pretty quickly, but 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. Also not so hard that you’re going to feel this in your legs tomorrow.
Clear as mud?
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.
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.
Not racing tomorrow, but racing on Sunday?
Either take today completely off or, for a change of pace, how about doing the workout above?
Some people find that a little bit of sprinting 2 days before a race really helps them come race-day.
You might be one of them. Give it a try and find out.
Enjoy!
M
Thanks for following my blog!
This thing started off as a lark, but over time it has become a little bit of a monster. There are over 1000 workouts on here! How the hell did that happen?!
It takes a fair bit of time – and a wee bit of money – to keep this thing rolling, and it’s suddenly the time of the year when the bills come due. I need to ante up if I want to keep the lights on for the page.
Honestly, I’m not trying to get rich off this thing… or 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!
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.
The Cyclocross Workout Of The Day for Thursday, 10.29.15. “Yeah, I went there”
•October 29, 2015 • Leave a CommentHowdy folks,
Ugh, sorry about the formatting on this post. WordPress glitch that I can’t figure out an easy way to fix. Please click on this link to read the post with proper (legible!) formatting!
I got an email from a reader recently that I thought I might respond to today, here it is:
Hey Matt,
Been following your workouts pretty well for 2 seasons now after your “boot camp” at Marymoor on Wednesday nights. Want to say many thanks for all your advice and hope your back heals up fast! I do have a specific issue I’m struggling with. Last weeks race at Magnuson is a great example. I’m doing well (or at least keeping up with the pack) headed into the uphill section of the gravel road when I slow down on the climb so much so that I’m dropped by most of the pack. Although I might pick off one or two riders on the flats or by taking advantage of their poor technical skills I never seem to be able to make up for the time lost on hills or inclines.Any suggestions from “the master” much appreciated!!Regards,Bill
First of all, “the master?” Hmmm…
Climbing…
Climbing is a tough one, because it’s really simple. It comes down to – essentially – two things:
What’s your w/kg ratio look like?
How much climbing do you do?
Above a certain degree of incline, where aerodynamic considerations become subordinate to the increasing toll of gravity, climbing is all about how much wattage you can produce relative to your mass.
Want to get better at climbing?
Produce more power, or lose weight, or both.
It’s a pretty simple equation, with a supply side and a demand side, and we just need to solve it for one – or, again – both.
Demand side –
When things go up hill, lower mass riders have an advantage. They’ve simply got less to haul up the slope.
Cyclocross climbs aren’t usually very long; heck, most of them wouldn’t even be considered climbs by road race standards, but they’re subject to the same law of gravity as every other discipline.
If you’re carrying a few pounds around the belly, you need to schlep it up the hill, and it makes a difference.
Sometimes a profound difference.
Sometimes a profound difference.
Want to climb faster? Drop the excess baggage.
Losing weight is pretty simple in concept, it’s just really difficult – and generally really unpleasant – to put into practice.
It’s very real, though, even in cyclocross, which generally tends to suit slightly heavier riders better than the road disciplines. Back to that in a minute.
Supply Side –
The power you put into your cranks is what gets you up the hill. The more you put in, the faster you go.
Again, pretty simple stuff.
The question is, how much power can you put out, and for how long?
A cyclocross race is, at most, about 65 minutes long. You’re never going to do a 45 minute long alpine climb in a cross race.
A really long climb in a CX race is maybe a minute or so in length, so when we’re talking about a rider’s ability to generate power, this is the type of duration we’re concerned with.
What does your 1-minute, maybe 2-minute power look like?
Robert Forsteman – pictured above – has pretty damn good 1-minute power.
He’s also freaking huge, which brings us to…
Balancing the Equation –
As mentioned previously, bigger folks generally do pretty well in cross relative to the road disciplines.
Why?
Well, for one thing, the climbs simply aren’t ever very long. Larger riders can generally produce higher levels of output than smaller riders, but – again, generally – they can’t produce as much wattage relative to body mass for as long a duration as smaller riders.
I’m glossing over pretty much all of the relevant science here, but suffice to say that it’s not really controversial to suggest that sprinters in Le Tour are likely to be bigger than the guys winning the mountain stages.
One of the cool things about cross is that it’s a cycling discipline that favors the all-rounder, the rider that’s neither a large-group sprinter nor climbing specialist.
You’re redlined for an hour, so it’s ain’t ever a pure sprint.
You’re powering over climbs that take seconds to surmount, so it ain’t ever a pure climb.
You’re doing all of this while trying to stay upright on variable terrain, so it’s something else entirely.
What does all of this mean?
Want to be better on the climbs in cross? Try to balance out the equation.
If you’re on the big side of things, and you produce pretty damn good wattage in the 5 second – 1 minute range, losing weight might be the easiest path to improvement.
If you’re on the small side of things, and you can float up hills for hours at a time but get gapped by the big guys on the overpass bumps in group rides, working on your short duration power production is probably the easiest path to improvement.
Really want to see some headway?
Work on both.
Get stronger, and get as lean as is practical and desirable given your goals, aspirations, and lifestyle.
Note, please: I’m not suggesting that anyone go on some insane diet, or enter down the pathway to eating disorder.
Losing body mass sucks for almost everyone, and it’s often simply not worth the trade off in quality of life for something that is, for most of us, just a hobby.
Heck, Bradley Wiggins has essentially said, flat-out, that he wasn’t ever again going to put himself through the deprivations necessary to get down to the body mass required to win The Tour.
And he was getting paid to do this.
And he was getting paid to do this.
A Lot.
So, balance.
Maybe eat a little bit less, and a little more wisely.
And work to produce power in the ranges – and on the terrain – that’s one’s weakness.
For example, do more…
Hill Repeats that roadies would call short, but they ain’t on a cross bike!
Warm up well, ideally as you ride out to an area that has a climb that’s going to take you about a minute to summit, pedaling hard.
When you get to the hill, sprint up the damn thing. Hard.
Coast back down, go again. Hard.
Repeat x 5
That’s a set.
Recover for 2-5 minutes.
Do 5-6 sets, or as many as you can before seeing a precipitous drop in output level.
Warm down on way home.
Enjoy!
M
As long as this was, by the standards of this blog, it’s still a really, really simplified version of things. Please don’t take it as more than what it is, and fer chrissakes, don’t go out and do any crazy diet insanity. Discussions of body mass are so incredibly fraught with subtext, self image, and even danger that it’s serious business to even raise the topic. The thing is, gravity is real, and we do need to raise the issue to discuss climbing proficiency in an honest way. Be smart, remember this is just a hobby for almost all of us.
Ps – I’ll do some follow-up pieces over the next couple of weeks, and we’ll talk about some of the finer details on the supply side of the equation!
Thanks for following my blog!
This thing started off as a lark, but over time it has become a little bit of a monster. There are over 1000 workouts on here! How the hell did that happen?!
It takes a fair bit of time – and a wee bit of money – to keep this thing rolling, and it’s suddenly the time of the year when the bills come due. I need to ante up if I want to keep the lights on for the page.
Honestly, I’m not trying to get rich off this thing… or 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!
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.
The Cyclocross Workout Of The Day for Wednesday, 10.28.15. “Hit It And Quit It”
•October 28, 2015 • Leave a CommentHowdy folks,
I’m going to sound like a broken record here, but did you watch the Moto GP action this past weekend? If you haven’t yet, you should.
That, folks, is how you clean somebody out in a corner. Take note! 😉
It’s looking like the rain has finally arrived up here in Seattle, right as we reach the point in the season where people are starting to hit the wall. Lots of racing, reservoirs of road fitness starting to dry up, cold, wet, flu bugs floating around in a fetid fog… yup, it’s just about November.
So, while we’re going to do skills work as usual today, think about keeping it short, fast, and to the point tonight.
Don’t spend all night standing around in the wet. Hit it and quit it.
Wednesday Skills Session
Warm up for 10 minutes or so.
Some easy dismount/remount practice for about 10 minutes. Work on smooth.
Next, you’re going to go out and rock your race-pace skills…
Find some moderately flat, moderately technical terrain.
Lay out a short (2 minute or so so…) loop.
Ride it fast.
Do laps on this for the next 15 minutes or so, with a focus on Speed.
Work on your corner exits. Come out of ‘em fast. Out of the saddle, drill it, back in saddle, repeat at next corner.
Don’t get bogged down, don’t wear your legs out too much. Keep the cadence high and the gearing relatively low, just work on your fast.
Rest for about 5 minutes, then work on your starts.
5 sets of 5, full gas, and when I mean full gas, I’m talking full-on race speed, and make ‘em long enough that you hit that second effort point, where you have spun up, sat down, and now you need to get your ass back up out of the saddle and reaccelerate.
Remember, it’s that second effort that pays off in the race.
Work on that.
That’s it.
Go home, relax, get to bed early tonight.
Have fun!
M
Thanks for following my blog!
This thing started off as a lark, but over time it has become a little bit of a monster. There are over 1000 workouts on here! How the hell did that happen?!
It takes a fair bit of time – and a wee bit of money – to keep this thing rolling, and it’s suddenly the time of the year when the bills come due. I need to ante up if I want to keep the lights on for the page.
Honestly, I’m not trying to get rich off this thing… or 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!
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.
Thank you!
The Cyclocross Workout Of The Day for Tuesday, 10.27.15. “Not what we’ve done the last couple of weeks”
•October 27, 2015 • Leave a CommentHowdy folks,
Well, this one is going up late today. Sorry about that, had a bunch of work to catch up on. It’s been a busy couple of days!
I was really tempted to post up our Tuesday standby the 2×20 today, especially after hearing from a couple of people who had questions on the details of the workout, and from another couple of folks who had breakthroughs in the workout after drilling away at it the last couple of weeks.
Next week we’ll take another shot at that one. Today, though?
Today we’re doing…
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.
A fair bit harder would be good.
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 fair bit harder.
Like I said, “ouch.”
How easy do you go during the “off” segments?
– A lot easier, but you aren’t quite soft pedaling.
Right about 50% of your FTP, or half as hard as your 2×20 level.
Again, ouch.
Want to know the real “Ouch”?
Ultimately, you want to be able to do 6 sets of these, or 3 sets twenty minutes each, or however many it takes to equal the duration of your races.
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 –
Than like this…
(yup, snipped from a real-life attempt at this workout)
Make sense?
Have fun,
M
Thanks for following my blog!
This thing started off as a lark, but over time it has become a little bit of a monster. There are over 1000 workouts on here! How the hell did that happen?!
It takes a fair bit of time – and a wee bit of money – to keep this thing rolling, and it’s suddenly the time of the year when the bills come due. I need to ante up if I want to keep the lights on for the page.
Honestly, I’m not trying to get rich off this thing… or 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!
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.
Thank you!
The Cyclocross Workout Of The Day for Monday, 10.26.15. “Non-hoven”
•October 26, 2015 • Leave a CommentHowdy folks,
Well, that was a rough weekend. I’m laid up on the couch today taking muscle relaxants after another back flare up. Blecch.
No sympathy pleas here, though; I wasn’t able to complete the whole race yesterday, but I was able to race most of it. That’s a success, given that I slept sitting up the night before, on a heating pad, just trying to keep things un-locked enough to be able to ride at all.
We can only play the hands we’re dealt, and it just wasn’t in the cards for me to have a great race this weekend.
And that’s ok.
A nice thing about not getting paid to ride your bike is that you can have a bad day and not worry about how it’s going to impact the revenue stream.
As seriously as you or I might take this whole racing the bike thing, it’s still only a hobby.
Yesterday was also a day spent honoring the memory of a great man, my friend Jerry Baker.
It was great to see so many faces from the past several decades of cyclocross in the Seattle area come out to the N Seatac venue where so many great races took place, all of them with Jerry involved.
He’s gone, but his influence and his memory live on.
And that made yesterday a great day.
Perspective, what a concept!
On the topic of the people who do get paid to ride their bikes, this past weekend was the Zonhoven Superprestige race, and it wasn’t broadcast live on any of the usual sites. There isn’t even any sign of full-race coverage floating around today. What the heck is going on?
This is one of the coolest races on the schedule, and there’s no video?
Bummer.
If you happen to come across a vid of the full race, please drop me a line with a link, but in the meantime, here’s some race-recap vid…
Hey, how about a workout?
You probably saw this one coming a mile away, today we’re 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 can, follow up with as much relaxation as you can. Eat, stretch, and put your legs up. Get a massage if possible.
Enjoy!
M
Thanks for following my blog!
This thing started off as a lark, but over time it has become a little bit of a monster. There are over 1000 workouts on here! How the hell did that happen?!
It takes a fair bit of time – and a wee bit of money – to keep this thing rolling, and it’s suddenly the time of the year when the bills come due. I need to ante up if I want to keep the lights on for the page.
Honestly, I’m not trying to get rich off this thing… or 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!
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.
Thank you!
The Cyclocross Workout Of The Day for Saturday, 10.24.15. “I Never Joke About The Can Opener”
•October 23, 2015 • Leave a CommentHowdy folks,
Saturday! Time to get your gear tight, your head on straight, and get ready to race on Sunday.
Well, that or you’re racing today… in which case, good luck! Have fun, ride hard, don’t forget to have fun!
Racing on Sunday?
Today 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 AT level, or CP30, 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.
Have fun!
M
Thanks for following my blog!
This thing started off as a lark, but over time it has become a little bit of a monster. There are over 1000 workouts on here! How the hell did that happen?!
It takes a fair bit of time – and a wee bit of money – to keep this thing rolling, and it’s suddenly the time of the year when the bills come due. I need to ante up if I want to keep the lights on for the page.
Honestly, I’m not trying to get rich off this thing… or 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!
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.
Thank you!
The Cyclocross Workout Of The Day for Friday, 10.23.15. “Sleepy”
•October 23, 2015 • Leave a CommentHowdy folks,
It’s Friday again! If you’re racing this weekend, today is an important day. Whatever you do today sets the stage for your form at the races this weekend.
Races like Zonhoven!
If you’re racing tomorrow, you need to do some form of openers today. How about…
The L.B. Opener (or, almost Ignition, but not quite.)
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, it’s difficult to say without having your data in front of me. You’ll get the hang of it pretty quickly, but 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. Also not so hard that you’re going to feel this in your legs tomorrow.
Clear as mud?
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.
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.
If you’re racing on Sunday, think about taking it really easy today. Maybe even take the day entirely off.
Above all, try to get to sleep early. Sleep is really damn important, even – perhaps especially – if you’re the type of person who doesn’t tend to get much of it.
I’m definitely in that category.
This isn’t a good thing.
At this point in my life, it’s become pretty clear that I’m never going to be one of those folks who gets the 8 hours of sleep every night, and I almost never do the night before a race. I actually do just fine with less than 8, but my natural tendency towards 5 or 6 is simply too little. I’ve tracked my sleep patterns, compared them to my performance, and I know that when I drop below a certain threshold my performance suffers.
So I need to work at getting more sleep in. Taking naps is really the best answer, but hoo boy, that can be difficult.
“Sorry I missed that conference call, I was taking a nap!”
Yeah, that’ll go over well.
I’m working to figure out ways to make it happen, but it is work.
That’s kind of the point of this whole sermon.
We need to work on our recovery every bit as much as we need to work on building our fitness.
Recovery is, in fact, an integral part of building that fitness.
So think about thinking about it.
Start with your sleep.
Are you getting enough?
Do you even know?
Keep track of it for a while, what you find might surprise you.
Later,
M
Hey there…
Thanks for following my blog!
This thing started off as a lark, but over time it has become a little bit of a monster. There are over 1000 workouts on here! How the hell did that happen?!
It takes a fair bit of time – and a wee bit of money – to keep this thing rolling, and it’s suddenly the time of the year when the bills come due. I need to ante up if I want to keep the lights on for the page.
Honestly, I’m not trying to get rich off this thing… or 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!
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.
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Thank you!
The Cyclocross Workout Of The Day for Thursday, 10.22.15. “Stairing Back At You”
•October 22, 2015 • Leave a CommentHowdy folks,
If you were out at last night’s Cyclocross Practice at the Jerry Baker Memorial Velodrome (just had to write the whole name out) this vid is for you…
Dude has serious hops.
Onward with today’s workout!
By special request, today we’re doing some…
Stairing –
Start by finding yourself some stairs.
These are going to be short intervals, so you don’t need stadium stairs or anything like that. Something in the neighborhood of one single flight of standard office building stairs is perfect.
In a pinch, you can use a grassy knoll or hillside, but stairs are really the ticket for what we’re dong today.
– get on your bike and warm up for 15 minutes or so.
– Mosey on over to your stairs and get set. Stretch, have a sip of water, turn up the volume on your Ipod.
– Jog up the stairs. Walk down.
– Repeat x3
– Sprint! up stairs, fast, using whatever stride is most comfortable. Walk down.
– Repeat x3
Rest for 1 minute, walking slowly up and down stairs.
– Sprint up stairs, this time using quick, tiny strides, 1 stair step at a time. Jog down.
– Repeat x3
Rest again, same as before.
– Sprint up stairs, this time using long strides, several stair steps at a time. Walk down.
– Repeat x 3
Rest again.
– Sprint up stairs, combining the previous two exercises; long step, followed by 2 short steps. Do 1x.
Walk down.
– Run up stairs, high knees, exaggeratedly so
Repeat x3
Rest again, 2-5 minutes.
Sprint up stairs, free form, just go as fast as you can. Go until spent.
– Repeat entire damn thing if you’re a freaking animal.
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.
– If you haven’t been doing much running this season, be careful. Don’t overdo this, and don’t risk screwing everything up for the rest of the season by blowing up a knee or something. Better yet, try this.
Have fun!
M
Hey there…
Thanks for following my blog!
This thing started off as a lark, but over time it has become a little bit of a monster. There are over 1000 workouts on here! How the hell did that happen?!
It takes a fair bit of time – and a wee bit of money – to keep this thing rolling, and it’s suddenly the time of the year when the bills come due. I need to ante up if I want to keep the lights on for the page.
Honestly, I’m not trying to get rich off this thing… or 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!
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.
Thank you!
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