That was one heck of a first weekend of racing, for me at least.
It was hot, and it was fast, and it was hot.
Really damn hot.
Our local race had a lakeshore sand run, and word is that it was 95 freakin degrees on the exposed sand.
Yikes.
I know I’ll miss this when the rains start, but right now?
Yikes.
So, needless to say, after a day of racing in that, it’s time for a…
Recovery Spin –
– Get on your bike. Roll out into the street, and just spin around for an hour.
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.
When you do your recovery ride – if you have the time – just get out and spin aimlessly.
At a certain point, your legs suddenly feel better.
As soon as that happens, turn around, go home, eat, stretch, and put your legs up.
Relax.
Or at least try to.
So, hey… while we’re talking about recovery day, let’s really nail down what exactly we mean when we say something like “no hard efforts”.
No
Hard
Efforts
.
Spin easy, darnit.
Easy!
I recently received a message from a rider in which they stated that they set themselves a goal wattage of 200 watts for the duration of their recovery rides, and they felt like sometimes they needed to push themselves too hard to reach that on an easy day.
Yup.
I bet it felt like that.
‘Cause that’s waaaay too damn hard.
Spin. Easy.
Just enough power to make the pedals go around in circles.
You’re looking for it to feel like there’s almost no chain on the bike.
E.A.S.Y.
You just lollygag your way around, twiddling a ridiculously easy gear and flushing the previous day’s race out of your system.
Pick a scenic route to ride, invite someone to ride with you who only gets on their bike once a year, put the collected works of Jack Handy on your Ipod…
Make sense?
Enjoy!
M
– OK, here’s the caveat. There are a very, very few people out there who need to throw a couple of jumps into their recovery spin in order to get their legs to loosen up so they can get to that supple, no chain feeling we’re looking for.
If it just ain’t working to spin and spin easy-like, it’s ok to hit the gas a couple of times to prime the pump. Don’t overdo it, we’re talking a couple of short efforts, think 5-10 seconds at well short of your max output.
Well, I know it must be race season, because folks have been asking me about warm up routines for race day.
OK, got ya covered.
With no further ado…
Warm It Up.
First of all, don’t overdo it.
I see way, way too many people spending a ridiculous amount of time on their trainers before the race, and frankly, I think a huge number of racers leave their best effort of the day back in the tent on the Gerbil Wheel before the race.
Don’t let this be you.
If you feel like you need to spend more than an hour warming up for your race, frankly you’re doing something wrong.
There’s been a fair bit written about warming up for cycling events, and if you spend any time at all reading through some of the stuff that’s out there, you will no doubt find that the only commonality is that most everyone disagrees.
Until you start reading some of the science, and some of the warm-up protocols suggested by those who have also read the science.
During endurance events of intermediate duration (4-5 min), performance is enhanced by warm-up irrespective of warm-up intensity
Note, also this little tidbit –
There were no differences in anaerobic power output during the trials, but aerobic power output during the first 1000 m was larger during both EWU (203 W) and HWU (208 W) versus NWU (163 W) trials.
Huh. Go figure.
I pretty much never warm up for road races, unless I Know the first few K are going to be pedal to the metal.
When people ask how I can get away with this (and they do!) I always respond with “that’s what the first lap/loop/5k is for…”
You can’t really get away with this in Cyclocross.
You need to hit that first K, hell that first hundred meters at 100%, with all guns blazing.
Warming up definitely improves your aerobic power output over the first K of a race.
End of story. You need to warm up for Cyclocross.
How much do you need to warm up?
Well, here’s where we get into interesting territory.
The study I linked to above basically showed no difference between the results of warm ups conducted at different levels of intensity and duration. The key was simply to warm up, get the legs turning over.
However you do it, warming up helps.
Nice.
Remember this the next time all hell breaks loose and you can barely get in any kind of a workout before your race. Even a little bit of a warm up helps.
OK, it’s just a study. Heck, it’s just one study.
Frankly, for Cyclocross, I think you need to warm up pretty hard, if for no other reason than that you don’t want the shock of that F-ing start effort to hit your body (and mind!) like a ton of bricks.
What you don’t need to do is warm up for a long time.
After a certain point, all a long warmup does is get you tired. And that ain’t good…
tired?
OK, so what should your warm up look like?
Something like this…
Get on your bike.
Ride at a super easy level for 5 minutes. No pressure on pedals, recovery day light.
5 minutes more at just one notch higher.
2-3 minutes at right around your 20 minute output level.
then
2-3 minutes at one notch/gear easier
30 second race pace effort.
recover for 2 minutes easy…
30 second race pace effort.
recover for 2 minutes…
2 full-gas start efforts, 2 minutes between them.
Spin for 5 minutes.
Go race.
That’s just the actual warm up, though.
You need to figure in course preview time, getting all your stuff schlepped to where it needs to be, registration… the whole package.
Heck, in a perfect world, you would go ride for an hour in the morning several hours before your race!
The whole shebang is what’s important, and in a perfect world, your race day would look something like this:
Wake up.
Eat breakfast.
Ride for an hour.
Snack, take a nap.
Eat lunch (3 hours before race.)
Course preview
(while mechanic preps bikes, team staff handles everything else.)
Snack, electrolyte drink, change into race clothing.
Warm up (that thing we just talked about)
Win Race.
Post-race cool down.
Yeah, right.
Oh well, we try.
Get as close to that as you can, and remember – the science shows that any warm up is better than none!
I’ve managed to do really well in races where the only warm up I got was a 1 or 2 lap preview of the course, and I know I’m not alone!
If you are forced to choose, always pre-ride rather than warm up.
You get a less than perfect course preview, and a less than perfect warm up, but part of each is better than none of one!
Ok, after all that, are you ready for the reality-based warm up?
Quite frankly, this is what I wind up doing most of the time, and almost always if I wind up stuck on the turbo. It’s the –
R.S.W.O. – The Rock Stupid Warm-up and Opener –
First, get everything you need to do before the race done. Sign up, course preview, etc., etc. More questions you probably didn’t even have on the topic of race day routine answered here –
– 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 (Usually minus the 2nd “20 minute level” effort.)
Oddly enough, this really simple warm up winds up looking a whole heck of a lot like…
…This…
Yup.
That’s the actual Team Sky Time Trial warmup, photo is of a reminder sheet that was posted on the side of the team bus.
Go figure.
’nuff said?
Have fun,
M
* If you don’t know what the heck I’m talking about when I say “20 minute level”, check this out…
** The Warm Up routines I describe here are actually pretty hard, and believe it or not, are likely to be too damn hard and too long for non-elite racers. You will need to experiment and figure out what works for you. Don’t be afraid to cut the warm up short, or go easier. You don’t get a prize for winning the warm up!
If you happened to read yesterday’s post, you’ll recall that we talked a bit about your routine in the couple of days before a race, and the WOTD was a set of Can Openers, one of our old-standby day before race openers workouts.
Today we’re going to hit you with another one of those openers routines, and it’s…
Ignition –
You’re going to be doing a series of short, hard sprints midway through a 1 1/2 – 2 hour ride, so give some thought to where you can do these effectively.
A flat, straight, low-traffic section of road or trail is what you’re looking for.
Even better if it’s about a :45 minute ride away; that will make things nice and simple.
Hop on your bike and roll out the door.
Ride steady, at an easy, relaxed pace for 45 minutes – 1 hour, eventually winding up at the aforementioned stretch of road.
You’re now going to do a series of Hard out of the saddle sprints from a very low starting speed, almost a standing start.
10 sprints, 10 seconds each.
1 minute between each sprint.
After the last sprint, roll back home spinning easily to recover.
Budget a minimum of 20 minutes for the spin/ride back home.
That’s the basic version of this.
Start with it, and see how you feel tomorrow.
Personally, I find that I need a little bit more to open up the legs, and I throw in a 10 minute steady effort at right around my 2×20 level immediately before the sprints.
Some people need more than that – although not many, and not much – and for some other folks, just the sprints is plenty.
It’ll take a bit of time to figure out what you need.
So, give it a shot, and take note of the results.
Next time, try a bit more or a bit less, and see what happens.
Lather, rinse repeat, and after a while you’ll start to figure out just how you need to structure your own openers set.
Or, you know, not.
Some people really just aren’t that great at figuring this stuff out.
Some other folks just don’t really care to, and have a great time just winging it week after week.
If you read all the way through this, that probably ain’t you, though.
Let’s talk just a wee small bit about the couple of days before a race.
For a fairly large percentage of ya’all, the racing starts up in earnest this weekend, so it’s time to think about structuring our workouts in order to facilitate maximum success out at the races.
That’s kinda’ the whole point of all the training we’ve been doing, eh?
So, with that in mind, here’s how the couple of days bracketing a race might should look for most** folks.
2 days before race: Easy or off
1 Day before race: Openers session
Race Day:
Day After Race: Recovery spin
2 Days after race: Further recovery or training day.
Why are we talking about this today?
Well, if you’re racing this weekend, and you’re racing on Sunday, you should probably be taking it pretty easy today.
Maybe even a day off the bike.
But that ain’t the workout that you’re about to read.
This will be a theme throughout the season.
If you’re racing on Saturday, you just might need to change the order of your workouts around so that they actually work well with your own race schedule.
Make sense?
Onward…
[**most folks, as in there are definitely some who need to put in hard efforts two days before a race in order to have any kind of legs on race day. How do you know if you’re one of these kinda’ riders? Practice and experimentation. If you always race better the second day of a double weekend? Might need to go harder on your openers, but might really need to go harder two days before your race.]
*********************
With racing on the schedule for this weekend, it’s a good idea to get some start practice and some speed work in, and we’re going to double-dip both of those today, and do some…
Start Intervals –
Warm up well
Find yourself a nice flat stretch of road or a smooth path with little to no traffic, and enough distance to absolutely peg your output for 5-10 seconds.
That’s probably a longer piece of road than you might think.
Begin each interval just as you would a Cross race. One foot down, standing still.
It’s highly recommended that you start with your pedals level, not staggered (check out yesterday’s post here for more on the technical aspects of the start effort.)
Count yourself down – 5…4…3…2…1… – then GO!
BAM! Full-gas start effort.
10 seconds, as hard as you can.
Recover for 1 full minute, then go again.
5 sets of 5 reps, more if you’re fit enough to do so.
How do you know if you’re fit enough to do more?
Your wattage output for the intervals doesn’t drop.
Don’t have a power meter?
This is exactly the kind of a workout they’re really nice for.
Makes it pretty simple.
What you can do sans PM is draw a line on the road at the end point of your first interval.
You’re doing 10 second sprints, so when you stop making it to the line in 10 seconds?
You’re done.
Finish off the workout by spinning out your legs until you feel them start to unwind from the sprint efforts.
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.
3 – Dismount/remount skills for 5-10-15 minutes (depends how rusty 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 wired, smooth at all speeds. When you are feeling confident, add some barriers to the session…
– 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. Again, think 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 it smooth.
(If you don’t have barriers, anything will do. Use a log, put a stick on the ground – whatever.)
4- Shouldering the bike.
Start with the basic dismount, as you’ve been working on.
Back things up a bit, and dismount again, but really focus on the “drift” phase of the dismount, where you are still clipped in with one foot, your off-side foot has already swung over the saddle, and you are coasting with your left hand on the bars and your right hand on the top tube.
Concentrate on the moment where your left foot unclips, and you drop to the ground. Try to coast with both feet unclipped, weight transferred onto the bike through your hand on the top tube, and your right ass-cheek against the side of the saddle.
Drop to the ground, literally. No big step, nothing dramatic, just drop to the ground.
– I don’t care if you “cowboy” your dismount, or “step-through” (right foot passes between left leg and frame.) Ideally you will work on both, and be equally competent, but there are riders on the World Cup circuit who neverdo a step through dismount, so… whatever.
Repeat, trying to coast with your weight on the top tube for a longer and longer period of time.
Got it wired?
Good.
This time, drop to the ground and swing the bike up onto your shoulder using the hand on the top tube (next week, down tube grab shouldering. Don’t worry about it right now.)
– Use both a palm-up and a palm-down grip on the top tube. Figure out which one works best for you.
– as you shoulder the bike, think about how you are going to carry it. There are really only two good options…
1 –
2 –
It doesn’t really matter which one you choose, both have their advantages, just pick one.
If you don’t look like one of these two pictures when the bike is on your shoulder… well, you should.
So, the bike is on your shoulder.
Run.
It doesn’t have to be uphill (we’re working on the skill, not the fitness, and you’re doing stairs tomorrow…) but it helps.
Whatever. Just run a few steps.
Place the bike gently on the ground. Don’t drop it, slam it down. Just place it.
Remount.
Repeat the whole cycle until you’re sick of it, then on to…
5 – Starts.
Practice your starts, just like the beginning of a race. One foot on the ground, dead standstill, get-up-and-go.
Begin with a few medium effort starts, just to work on the mechanics. Round off your rough edges, and make sure you remember where the heck your pedals are.
When you start to get the feel for things, hit it hard a couple of times, then back off.
Here are some tips –
– Start with your pedals at 3&9 o’clock, not 12 and six.
It might take some practice if you’re used to starting with your pedals ant closer to 6 & 12, but it really is better and faster.
Every gate start event does it this way, and they do it for a reason, eh?
See what I mean?
-Try starting with your butt on the saddle, and your butt off the saddle. See what works best for you.
– Ditto, try starting with hands in the drops vs. hands on the hoods.
After you have tried a couple of variations at a medium/slow pace, get yourself set to go hard.
– Do 2 sets of six full-gas starts.
– short effort, just go long enough that you are up to full speed, then back down, turn around, go again.
6 – Recover for a few minutes, then Finish the night with two interval efforts on relatively easy terrain.
– “Easy” as in a loop on grass with some tight-ish turns on it, or some pretty buffed double-track.
– Go hard, and work on accelerations out of the turns.
– Every time you slow down entering a turn, get on the gas on the way out of it, ass out of the saddle, working hard.
– 6-8 minutes full gas, rest for 2 minutes, then go again for 5.
– Start each effort with, well… with a start. Like you were working on a couple of minutes ago…
Well, as promised yesterday, I’ve got something terrible for you today.
This is a workout for folks who really want to get a race in today, but don’t have a race to go to.
So they feel a compelling need to torture themselves instead.
It’s ain’t easy, and if you haven’t been training hard, you probably shouldn’t do it.
But if you’re highly motivated, and looking for a challenge?
Tear off a piece of…
The Doppelganger –
– Warm up well. If you have time, warm up as you would for a race. It’s good practice, if nothing else.
– After you have warmed up, do five full-gas starts. As always, focus on the second effort in your start, working on getting back on the gas right after you max-out on your initial effort and begin to sit down.
Start the interval with a sprint, out of the saddle pretty hard, but not full gas.
Sprint for 10 seconds.
Back in saddle, drop into your 2×20 zone. Hold this until the minute mark, then –
Sprint again. 10 seconds.
Back in saddle, 2×20 level until 2 minute mark…
Repeat.
Repeat…
Repeat, until you have hit the 10 minute mark.
– 5 minute recovery
– 10 minutes at 2×20 level
– 2 minute recovery
– 10 minute Over/Under Intervals
– SPRINT at the very end of the last interval. 30 seconds, all out.
Really all out, like “I’m sprinting for my life/the cash/the girl” all out.
You should be at least half-blind at the end of the sprint.
Heck, you should be so gassed when you start the sprint that just upping the tempo a little bit puts you in a box.
You asked for a race simulation, right?
Ouch…
Notes –
Yes, this is f-ing hard. Shoulda’ raced.
You can always just sub in a 2×20 (or better yet a 3×20…) when you can’t race. These are hard damn workouts if you do them right, but certainly nothing like the nightmare I just handed to you…
There’s some racing to be done this weekend, for some of ya’all at least.
If you happen to be one of the folks racing tomorrow – Labor Day – then today’s workout is an important one.
you need to do enough work to ensure that you’ve primed the pumps for tomorrow’s efforts, but not so much that you empty the tank prematurely.
How do you know how much is the right amount to do?
Well… practice.
You try your openers with slight variations over the course of the season (or seasons…) and keep track of the results.
Starting with this first race, and today’s…
Can Openers –
Warm up for 1/2 hour or so.
Follow with several short attacking efforts, IE 30 seconds at 80% of your max, or pretty damn hard.
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 full gas 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.
We all know how important starts are in the race, so make ‘em count.
I don’t quit until I nail 5 in a row, but set your own threshold.
Got em’ dialed? Ripped ‘em?
Cool.
Spin out the legs, then go home and rest.
You’re ready to race.
Hey!
Not racing this weekend?
Go out and have some fun today.
Get some good, hard riding in.
Or think about doing a set of openers today followed by a race simulation-type workout tomorrow so that you can have a dry run at your openers strategy before it really matters.
I’ll be posting up a race simulation workout tomorrow, and trust me, it’s about as hard as any race you’ll ever do.
Which means a Monday cyclocross race for some people.
If You’re one of those people?
You’ve got a choice to make.
Are you taking the race on Monday seriously?
If so, you should take it pretty easy in your training today.
Go for a nice, easy Recovery Spin, or maybe even take the day off the bike.
You’ll be doing a little bit of intensity tomorrow to open up your legs and get ready to race, but if you want to be flying on Monday?
Need to chill a bit today.
That’s just one choice, though.
You might also choose to ride through the race on Monday, and sacrifice a bit of performance in this one event for the potential of gains in fitness later on down the road.
How does that work?
Well, basically, you treat race day just like any other training day.
You aren’t trying to be particularly fast or on form for that day, and you aren’t focusing your training schedule on that day.
For a Monday race, training through would mean that you go about your weekend as you normally would, and then just show up at the race after a couple of days of (probably) pretty hard riding, and see what happens.
That might not be a bad way to go this early in the grand scheme of things, but I can’t really tell you if it is or not.
What I can tell you is that if you’re riding through, really ride through.
Don’t half-ass it, or use riding through as an excuse you tell your buddies for having a crappy day.
Go hard this weekend and then just race with whatever is left in your legs on Monday, or take it easy today, hitthe openers tomorrow, and try to give it your best on Monday.
Either one of those is a good plan.
An indecisive muddling-through, middle ground, neither one nor the other approach, though?
Not a good plan.
So pick one.
And rock it.
Make sense?
So hey… riding through this weekend, or not racing at all this weekend?
Nice.
Today, go for a…
Hard Group Ride –
Get out there and kick some A** on the local roadie ride, or on the trails with your buddies.
Push the pace if and when you can, try and go hard – harder than usual – and see how you recover from some stiff efforts on a course or in a group you know pretty well.
Duration? 3 hours or so. OK to go long(er. Ish.) today, but better to go kinda long and really damn hard.
Try to ride a bit over your head.
Either ride with a group of riders that are just slightly better than you – and ride defensively – or push the tempo at the front with a group that you’re comfortable in.
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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