I’m taking tomorrow off the bike, and if you’re feeling like you were standing where this camera was placed, maybe you should too!
If you’re feeling spry, though?
Today you get to do some work on your leg speed.
This time of the season, not only are people starting to come apart at the seams from fatigue, even those who aren’t are starting to get a bit wooden-legged…
…from all the big gear slogging out on the courses and in practice.
The antidote?
Spin Ups –
Get on your bike and warm your legs up, 10-20 minutes.
After you’re warm, find a nice, long, flat or slightly downhill section of road with little or no traffic.
Begin each interval by rolling into it at a moderate speed, in a gear that’s smaller than you would typically use to sprint.
Get out of the saddle and sprint.
Not a power sprint, though. The idea here is to move your legs quickly, not to make the bike go fast.
Still out of the saddle, spin that gear up until…
…your leg speed gets to the point where it’s hard to maintain.
Sit down and keep it going until you are totally spun-out.
We’re talking fast legs.Can’t turn ‘em over any faster fast.
Think Road-Runner fast…
– Repeat x3-5
Recover for 5 minutes, rolling around at a leisurely pace.
– Go again, same thing.
Recover, then repeat as time and fitness allow.
Shoot for 3-5 sets of 3-5.
Recover on the bike for another 10-20 minutes, then go home, and get ready for the weekend.
Right off the bat, if you feel like you haven’t gotten the basic skills we’ve been working on lately wired?
Don’t sweat it.
You aren’t alone.
Keep at it.
Try not to get discouraged, and try not to get ahead of yourself.
What the heck do I mean by that? “Not get ahead?!”
You need to get smooth before you get fast.
Trying to do things like dismounts & remounts fast before you do them well is counterproductive.
You need to learn to crawl before you can walk, and if you practice sloppy skills at speeds that are too high, you reinforce bad habits that take forever to unlearn.
…and eventually come back to bite you in the ass.
If you watch your local races, I guarantee that you will see plenty of fast folks making fundamental errors in some of their technical skills.
When you’re gifted, you can get away with this kinda’ stuff most of the time.
Most of the time.
Sooner or later, even the lucky genetic freaks will pay the price for crappy technique, and you’ll see it if you watch closely.
A second lost here, a little slip there, a dropped chain, a dab…. whoops, how the heck did they hit the deck there?
Eventually it all catches up with ‘ya, no matter who you are.
It catches up faster when you aren’t a genetic freak.
If you’re normal folk, and have to work hard to simply not suck, you can’t get away with all the sloppy nonsense the elite folk do.
Soooo…
Keep things as simple as you can, and work on getting faster by getting better. Smoother. Smarter, even.
OK?
Onwards…
Here’s how tonight is going to go…
– Warm up on the bike.
As long as it takes to get loose, you should have a light sweat on when you…
– Stretch.
Active stretching, focus on all the muscles you use getting on & off the bike, but don’t when you’re riding. Go as long as it takes to work everything and get loose.
– Mount & Remount skills. 10-15 minutes.
Accelerate coming out of barrier sections. Coast in to them.
Get to the point where you cancome out of a barrier section faster than you went into it.
Come into a dismount section under control, and traveling at a speed that you can comfortably dismount at.
Brake early so that you can come into the barriers coasting, not braking.
Run over the barrier smoothly, in control.
The barriers aren’t 6 feet tall. Run over them with just enough clearance to keep from falling down. You don’t need to jump straight up in the air to go over a CX barrier, ok?
Don’t be afraid to take a few steps to get back up to speed before you get back on your bike.
Remember, it’s not how fast you get on your bike, it’s how fast you get going on your bike.
So many people are so overly concerned with getting back on the bike quickly that they totally forget about being fast.
Yes, you want to be able to dismount & remount quickly, and run over the planks like a gazelle.
But just about everyone seems to think that this means getting back on the bike as quickly as they can after a dismount section.
The second the bike clears the barriers, it’s back on the ground, and you see folks trying to remount.
Don’t do this, ok?
Work on accelerating through the barriers, and running into your remount.
Run up to speed before you get back on your bike.
Make sense?
Remember, smooth = fast. Don’t over cook these. Hitting the ground is always slow.
– Technical skills on the bike. 10-15 minutes
Tight turns and off-cambers. As always, work on your entrances and exits from all the technical sections. Pedal, pedal, pedal. Try to pedal througheverything. Keep the gas on, power going through the rear wheel, and you maintain traction.
Work on it. Lots more on the bike handling topic in earlier posts, enter “Wednesday” in the search box, and you will likely get bored out of your skull with my verbosity…
– Starts. Go as long as it takes to get 5 perfect, full gas sprints.
Make it feel like a race start. Get off the mark fast, sit down, shift, go again. Remember, it’s the second effort that gets you the early gap most of the time…
– Race simulation. 3 ten minute efforts, 2 minutes recovery between them.
No big complications here. Go really f-ing fast. Try and make these efforts faster and harder than you go in the races. You want to get to the point where your efforts in practice and training are as hard or harder than anything you see in a race.
Yeah, I know… good luck with that, right?
– Warm down.
Spin out your legs. Take enough time doing this that you feel them unspool and loosen up.
I try, I do, but sometimes I just can’t manage to squeeze the blog time in at the end of the day.
Yuck.
Anyhow, here we are, and here we go…
While it is in fact Tuesday, we’re not doing 2×20’s today.
What we’re going to do instead is a repeat of what we did last week.
Why?
Well, oddly enough, it’s not ’cause I needed to jam something up on here in a timely fashion and didn’t want to write something new (Seriously. Really. Honest. It’s not) it’s because it takes a couple of go’s at these to get them down, and because they’re pretty dead-nuts on in terms of the type of training most folks need right about now.
That’s a pretty good set of reasons, eh?
So, hey… onwards.
It’s…
The Mi15
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 would be great.
Three sets, 5 minutes between sets.
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 at least that hard.
Harder would be good.
Ideally, you’ll hit these on periods at right about 150% of your FTP, if you’re down with FTP…
That’s about 1/2 again as hard as your 2×20 level.
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.
Seriously, Ouch.
Maybe not today though, eh? 3 or 4 sets is pretty darn good.
Time to put the bike racing thing aside and get back to the grind.
Or, for a lot of us, time to grind away while thinking about bike racing instead of whatever it is we’re actually supposed to be doing.
Funny how that works.
It was another hard weekend of racing for most folks, so as you might imagine, on the schedule today is 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.
– 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.
Relax.
After you’re done spinning around today, take some time to give your bike(s) and tire(s) an extra thorough going over.
It’s the time of the season where stuff starts to fall apart, blow up, s**t the bed… things go wrong.
So, do what you can to forestall the inevitable.
Make sure all your bearings are actually turning, check for rotten patches in your tires, make sure your glue is still holding strong, look for cracks in seatposts and bars… give everything a solid inspection.
The time you take today will be time you won’t spend running to the pits with a broken ride.
Well, heck… many of you are probably out racing today.
Nice.
Go race! Enjoy yourselves!
If you’re not racing today, you’re probably racing tomorrow, eh?
Got just the thing to get you pumped, primed, and ready to go.
Been around here for awhile?
You might just have seen this one coming, it’s…
Ignition!
You’re going to do a series of short, hard sprints midway through a 1 – 1 1/2 hour ride. Before you head out the door, give some thought to where you can do that effectively.
A flat, straight, low-traffic section of road is what you’re looking for.
It would be great if it’s about a :45 minute ride away; that would make things nice and simple.
Hop on your bike and roll out the door.
Ride steady, at a moderate pace for 1/2 hour – 45 minutes, eventually winding up at the aforementioned stretch of road.
You’re now going to do a series of Hard out of the saddle sprints.
How hard?
Well, hard to say. You’ll start to get the hang of it pretty quickly, but figure that you’re shooting for an output level that will allow you to crank out all the sprints in the set at about the same level, but not easily.
You aren’t sprinting to failure here, and you aren’t doing a max power test.
Don’t overdo it, you’re trying to open your legs, not destroy them.
Make sense?
6 -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.
Sorry this post is going up so darn late. I was just flat hammered, beat down to dust when I got home from Cross Practice last night, and literally fell asleep sitting in front of the computer.
yup.
Asleep at the wheel again…
I have got to stop doing that!
Anyhoo, onward.
We’ve been doing a bunch of slogging around at the races and in the workouts over the last few weeks. Lots of low-cadence, high output work.
You could definitely see this in the way folks rode at the last race up here in Seattle. Roadie-fast course, and some folks who have been collecting scalps all season just couldn’t get the legs to go fast enough to match the pace when the groups formed on the high-speed sections.
OK.
Got it.
Need more speed work.
Maybe some…
Downhill Sprints…
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?
ANYways, That’s one rep. You’re doing sets of 5.
Ouch.
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.
If you’ve been playing along with us, you probably knew that, eh?
What we’re going to do today is a slight modification of the workout we did two Wednesday’s ago. (Hey… look at that… I hyperlinked to the workout I was talking about! You could can just click on the bold-ed text if you happened to want to read the article in question! Neat-o!)
On that day, we focused on improving your worst skill and on honing your best skill.
Yay, dichotomy!
Today we’re going to do basically the same thing, but even more specific.
We’re going to work on your worst skill and your best skill from your last race.
Whatever you were best at this past weekend, and whatever you were worst at this past weekend.
One of each, your high water mark and your subterranean blues from the the last race.
But “hey, ” you ask.
“What if I was great at everything this past weekend.”
“What if I sucked at everything this past weekend?”
I don’t believe you.
Be honest with yourself.
There was something in that last race you could stand to improve on.
There was something in that same race that you did better than your competition, and that you can shine up as your diamond in the rough, right?
Good.
OK, here we go. TIme to…
Turd polish & diamond shine –
– warm up for 10 minutes on the bike, then run for 5-10 minutes easy.
– Stretch out.
– 10-15 minutes drilling your best skill from your last race, whatever that is.*
You’re looking to transform a skill that you’re good at to one that’s an absolute killer, a race winner.
Good at barriers?
Stop being good, make ‘em perfect.
Become so darn good that the opposition can’t ever let you come into a barrier section first.
Good at starts?
Get great at starts.
Work it ’till you know that you’re coming off the line with a 5 bike-length lead in your next race.
You get the idea, right?
Whatever skill you choose, sharpen the heck out of it until it’s an even better weapon than it already was.
– spin for 5 minutes.
– 10-15 minutes drilling your worst technical skill from the last race, whatever that is.*
You’re looking to transform a skill that’s a liability to one that – if not a strength – is at least no longer a weakness.
Stink at barriers?
Stop that. Figure ‘em out.
Become good enough that the opposition can’t ever assume they’re going to drop you going over the planks.
Terrible at starts?
Not anymore, ok?
Work it ’till you know that you’re coming off the line right next to that guy that’s been dropping you all season.
You get the idea, right?
Whatever skill you choose, figure it the heck out. No more avoiding the painful reality of a liability.
– spin for 5 minutes.
– immediately, spend another 5 minutes drilling your best skill again. Really nail it.
– Recover for a few minutes, then Finish the night with two 5- 10 minute race-level interval efforts on relatively easy terrain.
Include a feature that will force you to use both of the skills you worked on tonight.
Spin out when you’re done, and call it a night.
Have fun,
M
* Lots of info on this here page on various ways to hone your skills, with specific drills & suggestions for the various skill elements. Best way to find ‘em is to type “Wednesday” into the search box below the Facebook plugin on the right side of the page, and read through the posts that come up. Feel free to drop me a line if you can’t find a workout for the skill you want to work on…
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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