This weekend – if it’s at all possible – I recommend hitting one of the remaining few road or MTB races the summer. Cross racing is right around the corner, and it’s really darn hard to match the intensity of racing when you’re training on your own. So get it while you can!
So, if possible, your workout today is –
Go Race!
No racing in the card for you?
No sweat.
Take a stab at…
The Hills Have “I”s
Warm up, ideally in the course of a ride out to some pretty darn hilly terrain.
Find a hill – or a series of hills – that will take you 5-10 minutes to climb at pretty darn close to race pace.
Hit the base of the climb hard, out of the saddle, and accelerate into it.
Sit down when you feel you’re starting to lag, and drop a couple of gears. Spin (but still fast, IE about the same as your 2×20 minute level.)
Stay seated until you are breathing a little easier, then…
Out of the saddle, Attack! Hard like you did at the base of the climb.
Same as before, when you start to lag, sit down, spin.
Repeat to top of climb.
At the top of the climb, get out of the saddle, and accelerate as the grade eases. Power over the top and well into the descent, until your speed is great enough that coasting is faster than pedaling.
Coast/spin to bottom of climb.
Pedal at moderate intensity (IE, 1/2-2/3 of your 2×20 minute level,) for roughly equal to the amount of time it took to complete the entire climb, or until you get to the next hill, whichever is greater.
Hit that hill hard, same as the first one.
Repeat 3-5 times, or until you are spent, or until you run out of time.
If you do more than 3 repeats, spin easy for 5-10 minutes after 3rd repeat.
Total duration should be 2-3 hours, longer = more climbs.
If you do 4 hours, you’re either really damn fit, or you’re kidding yourself.
Better to go shorter and harder than to extend the ride and slow things down.
You made it through the week… which is awesome. But that means we’re one week closer to the start of the Cross season.
Yikes.
It’s sneaking up on us quickly!
So, what to do today…
Well, you know what? Lot’s of ya’all are still racing – finishing up the summer road or Mtb. season – and we need to factor that in to our workouts.
If you’re racing tomorrow, it makes today’s workout pretty obvious. You’re doing…
Can Openers –
Here’s the drill:
– 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 sprint efforts on a straight section of paved road, level or slightly uphill.
Do half of these from a near standstill, and for 1/2 of them, get going at a pretty good clip before you start the sprint.
… spin out the legs, go home, and get ready for the race.
What’s that you say? You aren’t racing tomorrow?
Give these a shot today anyways.
It’s important to get your day-before-race openers routine dialed in well before you use ’em in earnest.
When race season rolls around – and it ain’t that far away – you want to have a pretty damn good idea of just how much work you need to do the day before a race in order to prime your pump for a peak performance on race day itself.
The goal with your openers is to do just enough work to prepare your body for the next day’s efforts, while being absolutely certain that you don’t leave any of your performance out on the road the day before.
How do you figure out how much to do?
Practice, trial & error, and note-taking.
Do your openers, keep track of exactly what you do, and then keep track of the results the next day.
If you’ve been playing along, we’re just a couple of days into training, and we’ve already hit it pretty darn hard.
You know what?
Today is a good day to throttle down just a bit.
If ‘ya hit it hard every day, all year long, you can be pretty damn sure you won’t be able to give it your best when things get tough in the dog days of cross season.
So, if you want to turn the gas up this weekend & hit it hard at one of the few remaining summer races, or even if you’re “just” going to be working your ass off…
…training, today is all about the chill.
Heck, if you’re racing on Saturday – or if you’re feeling a little bit tired – maybe take today off entirely.
Like, don’t ride at all.
How crazy is that, eh?
Bonkers.
Not a bad idea though!
If you do feel compelled to ride today, take it a little bit easy.
Go for a…
1.5 – 2 Hour Moderate Ride –
Get on your bike.
Go ride for 2 hours.
No hard efforts, but do throw in a couple of moderate ones. By moderate, I mean just that. You can sprint for the town line, but you should be laughing while you do it.
You’re not doing a recovery spin, so you need to put a little bit of gas into the pedals… just don’t go out and kill yourself.
Check out the view, smell the flowers, just do it while you’re putting a little bit of effort into the pedals.
We’re going to do a bit of running today, and it’s really damn important you don’t overdo it.
Like, seriously.
I’ve seen more than one person throw the majority of their season away because they blew their legs up doing some overly-ambitious running in the early days of the season.
So, don’t be that guy.
This workout ain’t for most of you. It’s for folks who are up to a stout damn running workout today.
Find some stairs. Don’t have to be super long, you’re only going to need something that takes 5-15 seconds to run up, full tilt.
If there aren’t any stairs conveniently located, you can use a hillside or a grassy knoll or something…
…but stairs definitely work best. So use ’em if you got ’em.
A short flight of ’em.
Got that? These are all short efforts. 15 seconds is probably too long for most people.
– 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.
– 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 stairstep at a time. Jog down.
– Repeat x3
Rest again, same as before.
– Sprint up stairs, this time using long strides, several stairsteps 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 –
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.
– Don’t go hard if you don’t already have some running in this season. In fact, don’t do this workout at all. Do this instead.
– If you’re super fit, or crazy, do a 20 minute effort on the bike (1/2 a Classic 2×20) immediately before running. Be aware, this is a completely bonkers workout combo if you do it right, and if you do do it right, you will probably need a rest day tomorrow.
If you were following along with us yesterday, I said that today was going to be a bit of a test session, and I wasn’t kidding.
This probably won’t come as any kind of a surprise if you’ve visited the page in previous seasons.
What day is today?
It’s…
2×20 Tuesday!
The 2×20 is one of the primary building blocks of your fitness, and it is a great default workout. Short on time? Not sure what to do? Do a set of these.
The 2×20 isn’t just a staple workout, though. It also doubles as a test session, a regular, oft-repeated gauge of your fitness.
That’s really what we’re after today; setting a baseline for your fitness for all the workouts you’ll do as the season rolls on.
Keep track of your performance in this, and in all of the 2×20′s you do!
Ideally, you want to keep track of your performance in all your workouts, but it’s extra-special super-duper important on these. You’re going to do them on a pretty regular basis, and if you keep track of ‘em, you’ll find that you’ve left a really good trail of bread crumbs behind you all season.
It doesn’t matter how you do this keeping-track-of. Wattage, heart rate, what gear you’re pushing on the trainer; don’t really care. Just figure out some way of measuring your performance during the workout, and write it down/download it/whatever.
Every time.
Yes, it’s great if you have a wattage measuring device, but it isn’t critical. If you do these intervals on a trainer, you can keep track of the cadence used, and the gear ratio, and you can track your progress that way. Works great.
It’s all about establishing some kind of metrics to keep track of, can you dig it?
We will be referring to these metrics throughout the season, and your level of output in the 2×20 will form the basis for determining your target output in most of the workouts we do from here on out.
So, hey… what the heck is this 2×20 thing?
Pretty simply, 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.
That’s the basic version. Success on this is, however, all in the details.
First of all, warm up.
No, seriously. Don’t just hop on the bike and blast one out.
Warming up makes a difference, especially if you’re doing this as a test session.
You don’t need to do anything super hard or super involved, just make sure the legs are up and running before you kick off the workout proper.
Spin for a bit, blast a couple of 30 second to 2 minute efforts off pretty hard, spin a bit more, then go for it.
When you do go for it, really go for it.
But in a controlled sort of way.
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 run out of gas before you finish the second interval, you went to hard. If your vision isn’t blurry at the end of the second interval, you went too easy.
If you’re doing this with a powermeter, you want your wattage output to be as close to constant as possible. How constant?
Can you keep it in a 10 watt range?
Probably not.
15 watts?
More likely
20 watts?
Try.
Keep it steady.
These take practice to do well, and the better you get, the harder they get (you’re welcome.) This is a workout that’s a natural for the turbo trainer, and that’s how I do ‘em.
This is a good thing, because I always wind up flat on my back on the floor trying not to puke after the 2nd interval.
I’m really not kidding about the blurry vision thing. You should aspire to seeing-spots level of output on these.
If you can learn to push through your limits, really push, you will get better and you will get better fast.
It’ll be painful, though.
I promise.
Have fun!
M
PS –
In the Seattle area where I live, Tuesday nights are a local weekday circuit race, for a couple/few more weeks, at least.
That’s what I’m doing tonight. Maybe you should, too. If you’re up for it, think about taking advantage of the remnants of your local road racing season to train up for Cross. Get it when you can, while you can, though. There probably aren’t all that many road/mtb. racing opportunities left as the season winds down in front of our eyes…
I hope you had a great weekend, and managed to get some riding in. Yay, summer! Long days, warm weather… already on the way out.
Seriously… did anyone else notice that the days are already getting shorter?
I can’t decide if I’m bummed or excited ’cause that means that ‘cross is truly right around the corner.
Maybe a little bit of both?
Either way, enough of the chit-chat, on with the Workout Of The Day…
(Ok, maybe not that workout…)
So, hey… did you happen to follow the weekend workout suggestions that went up on Saturday?
If you did, you might be feeling pretty well rested right now, and be ready and rarin’ to go this week.
If so, tomorrow is going to be a bit of a test session, setting some performance levels for the rest of the season.
You should get ready for that by doing some openers today, something like…
L.B. Number One –
In the course of a pretty easy 1:30 ride, you’re going to do a series of 10 second sprints, six of ‘em.
So, first, make sure you have a spot where you can go pretty darn fast for 10 seconds without getting killed. Think level ground, secluded road, low traffic.
Ride out to the spot, warming your legs up on the way. 1/2 hour – 45 minutes warmup is about perfect.
Get yourself set, with a time-keeping device at the ready.
Sprint hard.
Full gas, out of the saddle for 10 seconds.
You want to start these in a gear that’s easy enough that you can blast out of the saddle from a near dead standstill. It’s a short interval, so you don’t want to lug a big gear up to speed, focus on an explosive, relatively easy-gear effort.
Recover for one minute, then do it again.
Repeat the whole shebang 10 times.
After the last interval, spin your way home, finishing up the last of the 1.5 hour ride.
When you get back, Put your feet up, relax, and get ready for the next day’s workout.
Did you ride pretty hard over the weekend? Feeling a little bit gassed today?
Yeah, maybe you shouldn’t go hard today.
Maybe instead you should go for a nice, relaxing…
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.
Just get out on the road 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.
This is the time of year where I spend a fair bit of time talking to a fair number of prospective new training clients.
Care to guess what is by far the number one thing I hear from them?
No?
Well, it’s…
“I need help with making sure I don’t flame out half way through the season.”
Sound familiar?
Had the same concern?
Guess what…
Step one towards making sure that doesn’t happen is not turning yourself into burnt toast before the season even starts.
Soooooo…
If you’ve been riding or racing your road bike or your mountain bike all season, I’m guessing you’ve probably got a fair bit of mileage in the tank right now.
You’re probably pretty fit and fast.
If you’re hoping to be fast in November, December, January, though?
You may well be too fit & fast.
Heck, if you’ve been hitting it hard, and you’re really committed to cross, you might want to think about taking a little break.
Like, Right Now.
Don’t wait too long. Some folks that I work with directly have already taken some time off, or are in the middle of it as we speak.
What do I mean by this?
When was the last time you had a full week without racing or hard riding, and just gave yourself a chance to recover and chill out?
If it’s been a while, now’s the time.
Right now.
Just chill.
No hard training.
Spend some time with your family, your friends (you’ve still got those, right?!)
Relax.
Get some rest in the tank so that you can start training hard, soon.
‘Cause trust me, you’re going to.
Thinkin’ the above doesn’t apply to you?
You’re rested and ready, and rar’in to get things going in earnest for the upcoming Cross season?
Nothing on the local race calendar that’s appealing? Still feeling like you want to take advantage of the great weather to get yer ya-ya’s out?
Cool.
Go for a…
Hard Group Ride…
3, 4, 5 hours… whatever is just a little bit hard for you.
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.
The idea is to ride just outside your comfort zone all day.
Push your limits.
Try not to pay to much attention to your power meter or heart rate monitor, just ride hard.
Does all that sound like it’s just a little bit too much right now?
No problem.
Something more sensible is probably… well, way more sensible.
Be the smart one in the group, and go for a…
One to Two Hour Moderate Ride –
Get on your bike.
Go ride for an hour or two.
No hard efforts, but do throw in a couple of moderate ones. By moderate, I mean just that. You can sprint for the town line, but you should be laughing while you do it.
You’re not doing a recovery spin, so you need to put a little bit of gas into the pedals… just don’t go out and kill yourself.
Check out the view, smell the flowers, just do it while you’re putting a little bit of effort into the pedals.
If you were following along with us the last couple of days, you’ve probably got some sore legs today after the running workout we did yesterday.
So, take it easy today.
Go for a…
One to Two Hour Moderate Ride –
Get on your bike.
Go ride for an hour or two.
No hard efforts, but do throw in a couple of moderate ones. By moderate, I mean just that. You can sprint for the town line, but you should be laughing while you do it.
You’re not doing a recovery spin, so you need to put a little bit of gas into the pedals… just don’t go out and kill yourself.
Check out the view, smell the flowers, just do it while you’re putting a little bit of effort into the pedals.
1 notch above a recovery ride.
Make sense?
Have fun!
M
PS – if you’re looking for something a bit more intense to do today and you came here hoping for ideas, check out the search box lower down on this page, or simply keep scrolling down. You’ll find something. If you’re new here, it might not be obvious, but there are several hundred workouts up here, going back a couple/few years.
Today we’re going to talk a little bit about running.
In fact, why don’t we use that as the title of today’s Workout Of The Day…
A little bit of running.
Right off the bat, let’s get this straight… I’m pretty serious when I say a little bit of running.
Unless you’ve been running a whole bunch already this year for some strange reason, whatever you do, don’t head out the door today and try to lay down a blazing fast run…
That would be a really bad idea.
Not that I know this from experienc…
Oh, hell… who am I kidding? I’m totally speaking from experience.
I can’t tell you how many times – over soo many years – I started out my cyclocross training with a way too fast, way too long run that totally toasted my legs and made me super damn sore.
And accomplished precious little else.
That’s the key here, folks.
Doing a workout that hurts you and makes it impossible to train for a while just ain’t very darn useful. At all.
So don’t do that, OK?
Heck, I’ve seen many, many riders over the years put themselves on the couch for a whole week – even weeks – by blowing up various body parts in a misguided attempt to channel a year’s worth of not-running anxiety into one single workout.
Please.
Don’t.
Do.
That.
OK?
Got it?
Make sense?
OK.
So, onward.
Some words about running for cross, generally:
With the way cross races go these days, especially in the US, you might not need to train your running at all to be really, really damn fast, even at the top level of the sport.
It’s just not that important anymore.
If you’re in really damn good bike form, you can fake your way through the miniscule amount of off-the-bike awkwardness that passes for running on today’s courses.
In fact, for most folks, I don’t recommend doing any run-specific training during the season.
None. Zip. Nada.
99.9% of what goes on in a Cyclocross race has nothing to do with running at all, so why would you waste precious training time on that .1%?
You wouldn’t, and you shouldn’t, with one important caveat: if you run so damn poorly that you throw your entire race away the second your feet hit the ground, you need to work on that.
Let’s expand on that a bit.
If you roll into the cross season without having done any running at all, there’s actually a pretty good chance that the first time your feet hit the ground and you need to hoof it in a race, things aren’t going to go so well.
So, while I’m not all that big on run training in-season, I’m definitely afan of running in the pre-season.
You don’t need to become an awesome runner, but if you can get just enough running miles in your legs that you don’t suffer a giant shock to the system when you launch off the bike in those early races, you just might have purchased yourself a nice little advantage.
I’m always down with things that give us a nice little advantage.
So, we’re going to do some running the next couple/few weeks.
A little bit of running.
How little?
Well, for right now, you need to stop running before your legs get sore.
If you haven’t done any running since last Cross season, that’s going to be an absurdly short amount of time.
Seriously absurd.
We’re talking 10, maybe even five minutes.
Yup.
A five minute run. A ten minute run. You stop before you hurt yourself, and if you start to feel sore knees/legs/whatever, you’re starting to hurt yourself.
When that happens, you stop running, and you walk home. Ideally you stop before that happens.
That’s it.
Put your running shoes on, walk out the door, and go for a run, stopping before you get sore.
Don’t run hard, don’t run fast, just run.
And stop when it’s smart to do so.
Which is probably going to be way before you think it should be.
Keep it under control. Keep it ridiculously short. We’re going to build up the time slowly, and we’ll do something running-wise that feels more like an actual workout soon, but for now the sole idea is to get something that’s a little bit like running into your legs without messing yourself up.
Make sense?
Have fun!
M
Some notes:
– if you don’t have good running shoes, and if you’re going to train your running (you don’t have to, OK? You.Don’t.Have.To.) go get some. Buy them at a specialty running store that will spend time with you to make sure you get the right ones. Don’t listen to your CultFit friends who tell you to get some kind of barefoot foot glove monstrosity to run in. They’re the biggest gift to the Physical Therapy trade in the history of ever. Just say no. Unless they work for you. Then, whatever. Enjoy.
– Try to run on grass or on trails, if you can, and while you can. Cross races don’t have you running on pavement, and there isn’t much reason to train on a surface that’s just going to increase the pounding on your body if you don’t need to. So don’t.
– 99.9% of you are going to ignore almost everything you just read, except for the “Go Run” part. Have some Ibuprofen and a hot bath waiting for your return from your ill-advised marathon.
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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