Let’s face it; there are days that call for a ride that serves no purpose other than to relieve built-up stress. Regardless of the workout you had planned for the day or what you’re your schedule says, the best ride for you that day is to simply ride yourself into the ground.You may have had a bad day at the office with your boss or coworker, a stressful day at home or for some other reason.
And there’s no better way to do this than to ride your bike – hard.Lungs screaming for oxygen and legs that feel like lead is just the cleansing you need.If you’ve ever had a day like this, take out your frustrations on your bike.
The criteria I look for in a great stress-busting workout include:
The intervals require 100% concentration.You want to be forced to focus on the ride and not whatever has produced the stress.
They need to be all-out or nearly all-out efforts.Riding at less than all-out defeats #1 above and won’t produce the desired physiological effects noted above.
The intervals should be short, but not too short.I consider 30 seconds - 5 minutes the ideal duration.Longer intervals tend to allow your mind to wander, and shorter than 30 seconds are simply too short to both fry the legs AND force you to gasp for air.
Recovery should be short between intervals.The only thing on your mind should be recovering quickly for the next interval.
Using these criteria, there are an infinite number of possibilities for short, yet intense rides.Here’s a fantastic example, and a ride that can be done in a small window of time:
WARMUP:
5 minutes easy, including 30 second spin-up’s each minute.
3 x 1 minute increased tempo intervals.These are similar to the spin-ups, but are in a slightly bigger gear and are longer.
This isn’t the ideal warmup, and you can extend it if you have more time.However, this will prepare your legs well enough for the stress-busting intervals.
MAIN SET:
Ride these intervals AS HARD AS YOU CAN!I’m not giving specific heart rate or power guidelines.These are all-out efforts.Period.
1 x 3 minutes “on”
1 minute recovery
1 x 2 minutes “on”
1 minute recovery
4 x 1 minute “on”
1 minute recovery between each
4 x 30 seconds “on”
30 second recovery between each
Perform 2 sets of the above — or more if you have more time or have more stress to relieve.J
COOLDOWN:
10 minutes easy spinning
There you go.Short, sweet and very, very hard.You can get all this work done in about 1 hour.You’ll feel wiped out, refreshed and cleansed at the same time.
Give this a try next time you need to blow off some steam, and tell me how it goes and whether it helped you accomplish your goal.Add your comments below, and include other ideas that have worked for you.Then GET OUT AND RIDE!!
10 minutes warm up with two one-minute sprints
30 minute time trial
10 minutes cool down
First ten minutes
I was feeling good and highly motivated. Every time I looked down, I saw power outputs in the 180ies and 190ies, which was very encouraging. Five minutes in and I started hurting. My legs were fresh and firing but my heart felt like it was jumping out of my chest and my breathing was heavy. Eight minutes and I felt like puking. I just concentrated on the ten minute marker so I wouldn’t miss pressing those buttons. I tried not to think beyond.
The next twenty minutes
Once I had hit those two buttons to mark the first ten minutes, I knew it was going to be a long painful stretch to get to 30 minutes. Twenty insanely long minutes and my head instantly went into uncooperative mode: “It’s ok to have a low power output. You’ve been sick. Nobody will know that you didn’t give it your all.” I was hurting badly. My head was spinning and I felt like throwing up. My legs were still feeling fine but my fitness wasn’t allowing them do give more. I was dripping sweat and a puddle started appearing underneath the bike. The 13 minute mark (23 on the graph since it includes the warm up) and I was thinking of giving up. “Shit, not even half way, yet! I can’t do this. Why am I hurting myself like this? Just climb off the bike and forget about it. It’s not that important.” I was riding with a fricking handbrake pulled in my head. I tried not to listen, covered the Powertap with my towel and started concentrating on my pedal stroke. Pushing down the pedal stroke, pulling up the pedal stroke - making as even circles as possible - listening to Ministry of Music on my iPod - an agonising eternity. The last two minutes were the longest and when I hit the 30 minute marker, my head was spinning and I had to swallow hard not to vomit. I had left it all there, not on the road but right there on our back terrace, just like Buttsy would have wanted me to do.
Power (yellow bars) and heart rate (red bars) distribution over the entire 50 minutes.
Average power stats:
Entire 30 min time trail: 174 Watts
First ten minutes: 182 Watts
Last twenty minutes: 170 Watts
To put this in perspective: When I did the same test last June, my average power output was 161 Watts. My friend Debs told me, that, to win a state or national title at elite level, I would need to put out between 250 and 300 Watts in a time trial.
I was mindful of not starting out to hard but I still did. Correct pacing in time trials will have to be a focus point in my training. And if I could just learn to take that mental handbrake off and - if not enjoy - but at least mentally support what I’m doing instead of sabotaging myself.
It wasn’t fun and I am not looking forward to do this again anytime soon. Oh, there is another equally painful test scheduled for Saturday! Well … I better start worrying about that one when it’s time to hurt.
Most athletes hit a plateau at some point during the season, and it’s frustrating.A typical season begins with enthusiasm high and an eagerness for training and goal achievement.Improvement comes quickly as the athlete trains hard in anticipation of early-season events.
These events come and go, the training gets harder and improvement isn’t as noticeable.Fatigue often sets in as the athlete trains longer and harder and performances suffer.
The athlete then questions the training method and either changes it or works harder, thinking they need to train more in order to reverse the slide.This then creates a downward spiral of training harder and harder with results getting worse and worse.
All of a sudden, training isn’t fun any more:the eagerness from the beginning of the season is gone, and is replaced by frustration.Not only is training not fun any more, it’s become a drudgery.
This stage often occurs right about now.How are you feeling?Are you still looking forward to training, racing and achieving your goals?If not, it’s time to step back and get re-focused.
Motivation is one of the most important factors necessary to long-term improvement.So if you’re experiencing a lack of enthusiasm, a lack a motivation, you need to get it back.
This is easy to say, but how does one actually get motivated?
First of all, we have to determine what’s caused our motivation to wane.This typically comes from one of a couple sources:
Lack of specific goals – if we are targeting very specific goals, whether these be races, events, a specific body weight, etc, it’s easier to keep on track.So if you’re lacking a key long-term goal, which is then supported by shorter term goals, this could very well be your source of frustration.Contact me if you need help setting your goals.
Too much work/not enough recovery – Improvement is the result of the body’s adaptation to stress placed on it through training.This adaptation occurs during rest, so no rest = no improvement.Everyone requires a different amount of recovery, but each week should include some easy days and complete recovery days.These days should be planned for and scheduled into each week.
In addition, recovery “weeks” should be planned as well.You might need several days of recovery every 3 weeks, 4 weeks or some other time period, but you DO need recovery weeks.These recovery weeks are not completely “off,” but instead are comprised of fewer training hours and reduced intensity level.
Keeping fresh and rested helps keep the motivation level high.So if you’re not building in enough recovery, this might be an area for you to look at.
Poor nutritional habits – We can’t “out-exercise” poor eating habits.An active lifestyle requires quality nutrition.If your weight hasn’t dropped to where you feel it should be, considering activity level, or if you feel sluggish or don’t have then energy level you should, look into your eating habits.Keeping a food journal for 3-7 days is the first step.
Back off!If all else fails, simply take a few days off the bike.Continue to exercise, but do so at a lower level and do something else.It’s easy to get stale when you do the same thing day after day after day.
Have you experienced a mid-season slump?How have you gotten yourself out of it?Share your insights below, then GET OUT AND RIDE!
A few days ago I was asked by a friend, who is giving me a hand with coaching, if my body is ready for more intensity. I didn’t answer his email. He called me a couple of days later. I told him that I honestly didn’t know but that I was keen to give it a go because we won’t really know until we try, will we?
He has done a marvellous job so far … of holding me back. If it would have been up to me I would have jumped into big training sessions about a month ago. Looking through my training log just now, I realised that I did on average 150 km per week for the past ten weeks, with one week as high as 235 km and some weeks only 80-90 km. I thought I was ready in May and then I was told: “I need you to do the same low intensity thing for one more week.” and then another week, and another.
So I was very glad when I finally received the email with the subject: “It IS time to get started”. Test week for me this week and I am very excited and also a bit nervous.
I promised to give an account of my “I will just put a few less of the well known and scientifically proven toxins and processed food into my body for a while” diet. So this post is for Lisa, Lily on the Road and Bluenoser (Blue, sorry, I haven’t emailed it through, yet. I’ll do so as soon as I finish this post).
The suggested length for this diet was seven days. By day six gut feeling told me to extend for another three days to make it a ten day diet. Don’t ask me why? Maybe I just enjoyed it so much that I wanted to keep going. Therefore today is the last day and I’m all giddy about the prospect of having a cup of coffee tomorrow morning. Should I get up half an hour earlier and make it a big thing? I probably won’t be able to sleep tonight, just like a child before Christmas … or I might stay up till midnight and have a little espresso then?
Even though I’m looking forward to having coffee again, I can’t say I missed it while I couldn’t have it. Caffeine seems just a habit but not an addiction because after the initial withdrawal headache I was not craving it.
It was the same with bread and sugar and I have to report that the most interesting sensation was the lack of hunger and cravings from day three onwards. I normally munch all day and always feel hungry or at least peckish but this diet seems to have restored my natural appetite.
One of the unexpected tough things turned out to be salt. Food just doesn’t taste without salt and after realising that vegetable stock has heaps of artificial flavour enhancers and salt, I used lots of parsley and spring onion and herbs but nothing really tasted that good without salt. I’m looking forward to put salt back into my life, almost more than coffee.
The other interesting thing was my first ride. I was about to grab my usual bar for the mid-ride snack but, hold on, bars have sugar. The only food item suitable for the back pocket turned out to be a banana. And nothing but pure water in the bottle … I wouldn’t be able to sustain this aspect if I had to train at high intensity.
All in all I had to be more organised and take lunch to work. Food preparation took a bit longer and shopping because of all of the label reading: try to find dried fruit that are just fruit and not sulphates or find fruit juice that is 100% pure fruit juice and not all sugar or canned corn that has no added salt or sugar. It also cost a little more as I went shopping at Mrs Flannery’s (an organic food store) but that was off-set by not spending any money on lunches and coffees.
It wasn’t part of my goal, and in my case I would rather count this as a negative, but I lost about a kilo and a half of weight in ten days, and that’s without trying. As mentioned above, I wasn’t hungry once and ate heaps.
Now, how did I feel? Apart from the initial headache I felt great. No major discomforts and I had plenty of energy. During the spin sessions on the rollers on day five and six of the diet I felt strong. The good feeling off the bike continued but I can’t claim the same for on the bike. The past three days, every little incline I could feel lactic acid building up in my legs straight away, even though my heart rate was only in the 140ies. The legs were missing spring and felt sluggish and heavy. I was still able to put out power but it just didn’t feel good.
Only a nutritionist can probably explain what is happening but maybe I did not get enough carbohydrates from just brown rice, potatoes and vegetables and my glycogen stores are depleted and the heavy legs are due to lack of fuel in form of sugars? I’m not sure how to explain the sensation exactly and whether sugars have anything to do with it. It’s all just my very subjective and unscientific observation.
Oh and one last thing: I don’t know if you remember my hair loss problem that started sometime late March and went on and on for weeks? Well, it slowed down a little just before I started my diet and I’m happy to report that it has completely disappeared now. I take this as an equally unscientific proof that the diet has worked and I’m just glad that I’ve got some hair left.
My favourite breakfast: Fruit salad with natural yoghurt, cashew nuts, goji berries and honey. Usually I had (and will continue to have) flaked brown race porridge with fresh fruit (usually rock melon, strawberries or banana)
This was the highlight of my week: Quinoa, broccoli and salmon for lunch.
What do you use to gauge your progress and your fitness level throughout the season?Racing provides great and immediate feedback.What if you don’t race, though?What do you use to measure your improvement and whether you’re on track with your goals?
Is your average power increasing?Is your threshold heart rate increasing?Is your speed on your favorite climb or loop improving?
How about your group rides?Are you improving relative to other riders?
What about your weight?Is it where you want it to be, or at least heading in the right direction?
Take a look at the goals you wrote out at the beginning of the season.You should be working toward these goals in some way, whether this is addressing your weaknesses or building certain areas in anticipation of your key events.
It can be easy to lose sight of these goals and to get off track as the season moves along.Take a brief step back by reviewing your goals, what steps you’re taking to achieve them and what changes you need to make.
Tell me below what you use to measure your progress.Email me with any questions you have or if I can help you in any way, then GET OUT AND RIDE!
Anonymous suggested in a comment on my detox diet post that I’m detoxing because I feel guilty about eating the muffin so I want to make myself suffer. Now this is an interesting thought and felt like exploring.
Guilt - yes! I do feel guilty. I feel guilt about not riding last Sunday because it was raining and I couldn’t muster the motivation to get on the rollers. I also feel guilty - still - that almost thirty years ago I took a baby sparrow from its nest and took it home. I lied to my parents that it must have fallen out of its nest and that I had found it in the grass, abandoned. I so wanted a pet and little I knew that I wouldn’t be able to keep up collecting little worms to keep it alive. I cried a lot when the little bird died. There are some hearts I carelessly broke in my student days and I feel guilty about that (a little … maybe) and guilt is definitely a constant feeling when I think of my parents some 17,000 km away…
It is correct that I do make myself suffer quite a bit (when I’m well enough) and if you are a competitive cyclist you’ll be with me on this one. If I wouldn’t make myself suffer in intensive training sessions than others will make me suffer in races (more often than they do already anyway). Since I prefer dishing out the suffering, and I’m sure I’m not alone on this one, I do things that mean suffering and sacrifice.
So for the record: Those who know me, will confirm that I rarely feel guilty about eating, and I eat a lot. I didn’t feel guilty about eating the muffin, in fact, I ate six and a half muffins that weekend because Alberto shared his last muffin with me and - nope - no guilty feelings there. I also don’t do the detox to loose weight. Hell not, I’m at race weight since Christmas and I’m not even racing!
There is a lot of information, non-information and misinformation out there about Glandular Fever, cycling training principles, detox diets and any other topic under the sky. I figured that I can only try and experiment and do what feels right with the little reliable knowledge available. I read a lot about detox diets, the pros and cons and risks. This is not about ridding my body of toxins. My goal is to give my liver a helping hand to do what livers do best: act as natural detoxifiers for a healthy body. Now, my body hasn’t been very healthy for the past six months, fighting this Eppstein-Barr-Virus, and my liver had it’s fair share of extra toxins to deal with as a result. Reducing the amount of additional toxins I throw at it, if even only for one week, can surely do no harm and it might help me get better quicker so I can start those guilt-free high intensity training sessions on my bike that will make me suffer.
Last weekend, over coffee and those Pineapple-Ginger-Muffins, I decided to start a detox diet.
It had been on my mind for a long time now, basically since I realised what a strain this Glandular Fever is on the liver. My naturopath had advised against one back in February because the liver was busy as it was dealing with the onslaught of toxins from fighting the virus. Now, that the worst seems over, the time is right to give my liver a helping hand to get rid of some of the toxins that accumulated because I’m good enough to risk having more toxins released in the blood stream during the cleansing. Additionally, my training load is not that high, yet, that a restricted diet could jeopardise proper carbohydrate fuelling.
I researched and found the diet that I wanted to do and set the start date for Friday (yesterday).
Wanted to do? Who am I kidding? I didn’t find the detox diet that I wanted to do because none of these diets allow coffee! AARGH! There is possibly no human being on earth more addicted to coffee. Ask Alberto! Giving up coffee - for seven days - me? No way!
All articles I had read warned me of the caffeine withdrawal symptoms and advised to reduce coffee slowly over several days leading up to the detox diet in order to reduce discomfort. I didn’t! I couldn’t! Every time I tried to just eliminate the second cup I had a minor panic attack.
Yes, I paid dearly.
Discomfort? They call this discomfort? It was just about lunch time of day one of my detox, maybe five hours after my usual caffeine fix, when the headaches started. And let me tell you: They were the worst headache in my life - for 24 hours! The only time it was bearable was actually when I was riding my bike but I just couldn’t keep riding for 24 hours straight.
So here I am, two days in and I questioned myself more than once why the hell I’m doing this. I was close to giving up twice, once for coffee, the other time for bread.
And yes, I did warn all my friends, too, and Alberto scheduled some volunteer overtime.
The headaches eased up this afternoon (day two) and are gone now. I take the headaches as a good sign, though, that the detox is actually working but I’m glad the worst seems over.
So the detox I’m following eliminates, besides the obvious coffee, tea and alcohol, all lactose, gluten, processed stuff, artificial stuff, sugar and salt etc.
I’m eating all fruit, vegetables, legumes, tofu, potatoes, brown rice, nuts & seeds and fish. Crossed off the shopping list for this week are: meat (I’m a vegetarian anyway so no change here), milk, cheese, eggs, cream, butter, margarine, wheat (bread, croissants, cereals, cakes, biscuits, pies, pasties etc), chocolate, sweets, jam, any processed food, fizzy drinks etc.
Snack: fresh apple, beetroot, celery, carrot and ginger juice
Lunch: salad with rice crackers, avocado and smoked salmon and a glass of rice milk
Rollercoaster rides are supposed to be fun. This one is not.
Earlier this week I put together a strength workout that I was able to do at home with just a Swiss ball and a Yoga mat. I’ve always been a fan of using my own body weight for strength exercises rather than sophisticated machines. It just feels more natural and holistic.
I was highly motivated to get back into strength work because I had to burn off these beauties that I had baked last weekend (Kate would have been so proud of me):
So this is what I did:
I warmed up for ten minutes on the rollers, followed by ten push ups and twenty squads.
Then I went swiftly through the following exercises, resting no longer than a minute between sets.
1. One legged squads: 3 x 12 each leg
2. Hamstring curls: 15 repetitions with both legs, than 3 x 8 single leg curls
3. Push ups: 5 x 10
4. Bridge holds and bridge twists: 20 seconds hold and immediately 10 twists x 2
5. Swiss ball crunches: 3 x 30
6. Single leg calf rises: 3 x 15 each leg
I finished it off with 20 minutes on the rollers and felt great. You wouldn’t think that a basic strength session like this would cause severe muscle soreness, would you? I was mindful of starting out easy after over six weeks without the gym and did not expect to be as sore as I was yesterday and today.
The big advantage of training at home is that I can jump straight on the rollers afterwards so the muscles might recognise why they are asked to do all those squats and crunches and translate this into circular motions.
All I need now is the discipline to repeat this next week, and the week after, and the week after…
Yesterday, I got glandular feverish, the all too familiar tiredness that sits right behind your eyes, and gave the scheduled roller session a miss. AGAIN! Small setbacks, I know … Today, I decided to rest as hard as possible to increase my chances to be able to ride tomorrow. Fingers crossed…
The Nature Valley Grand Prix wrapped up its 6-race/5-day run yesterday with the grand finale criterium at Stillwater.This stage was comprised of 20 laps of climbing (including the famous Chilikoot Hill and its 18% average grade) and screaming descents.The power these riders exhibited as they climbed this brutal hill and the bike handling skills they showed as they navigated the corners at 40+ miles per hour was incredible.
While most of us will never reach their level, we should still aim to achieve the best of our abilities within the limitations of our busy lives.So what can we learn from these top riders?
Push through our barriers, and beyond the levels of speed/power/workload we think we have.We all train within our own comfort zone.In order to reach the next level of fitness, we must find a way to smash our way through what we currently think is do-able.Many of the riders didn’t even finish this race because it was so hard, and the ones that did finish were totally spent.When is the last time you felt that way?
Recover fully.Many of these racers will go to another race next weekend and do it all again.In order to be at the top of their game, they know they must be fresh going into the race.So the next couple days for them will be off or very, very easy.They might then do a quality workout mid-week, and then recover again going into the weekend.We rarely recover enough, believing that we’ll “get out of shape” by taking time off or doing very easy workouts.This is wrong.If the pros can take a recovery day or two, so can we.
Refuel with quality nutrition.Food is fuel, and we put way too much junk food into our systems.Rather than loading up on sugary, fatty and otherwise poor quality calories, eat several small meals throughout the day.Each one of these meals should consist of protein and quality carbohydrates, as well as a small amount of quality fats.
While these rules might be simple, they aren’t always easy to follow.However, they are much easier to live by if we set a long term plan so we have definite goals to aim for.Each of these goals should be challenging yet achievable and should include a specific timetable.
If you don’t have your goals written down, do so right away, then GET OUT AND RIDE!
Alberto had asked me to come for a drive with him, out to Somerset Dam for the Hamilton Pine River Wheeler club handicap race, just a short hour from Brisbane on the other side of Mt Glorious. Even though I don’t like going to races when I’m not racing myself, I agreed and packed my bike. I would lie if I said it was easy NOT to race, especially when some club officials tried coaxing me into racing. I almost signed up and I have to thank Alberto, who chained me to the car with a very short leash until the race had started. It was a sensible thing to do, the easy 40 km ride along the race course. It gave me the chance to catch some of the race action on camera:
The Nature Valley Grand Prix professional bike race is in MN this week. It’s 6 stages in the 5 day event includes 3 criteriums, 2 road races and 1 individual time trial. You can see more about the race and the events at http://www.minnbikefestival.com/. Take a look.
The state of MN rolls out the red carpet for the racers, and they respond with fantastic and exciting racing. The event grows each year with some of the top pro teams in the country participating. It’s considered to be one of the top men’s events in the country, and is generally regarded as THE BEST women’s race in the country.
I’m fortunate enough to be hosting at my home one of the titans of the sport. Steve Tilford and his teammates (Trade Wind Energy/Trek Stores) are spending the week with us, and it’s been great. At 47 years old, Steve is still racing at the highest level and has placed well so far this week. He’s a great ambassador for the sport, and sets an outstanding example for any athlete that age is only a number.
You can learn more about Steve, his background and accomplishments at http://stevetilford.com/. He’s also posting blogs each day about the race, so it’s fun to see his perspective on the races.
The race includes 3 more stages; a crit this evening, a road race tomorrow and the climactic final criterium stage in Stillwater, in what is called the most difficult criterium race in the country.
That’s it for now. Check out the race website and Steve’s. Then GET OUT AND RIDE!
Credit goes to Cyclingnews and VeloNews for these!
This is probably 100m before the TT finish, on a very long and painful small-ring climb. OUCH!!
It was definitely worth it, though! Snagged both the top amateur and the top under 23 jerseys with a time of 13:09, good enough for 14th place overall.
Getting called up to the front for these NVGP criteriums is crucial–they’re only 60 minutes and all-out from the gun, so staying up front is both safer and easier. It’s also awesome to be up there with guys who fight for stage wins at Tour of California!
Standing next to my good friend and former teammate Tom Soladay in the orange Wheaties sprint jersey (AND the red Most Aggressive jersey, to boot!).
Here is our super-fast climber Rolf Eisinger putting in a monster effort to set up our other climber, Ian Grey, for the first King of the Hill–they went 1-3! Awesome team effort and way to stick with our plan: attack from the gun on the tough initial climb out of town.
This part was a blast–the entrance to the hectic, technical finishing circuits was a deep gravel road followed by a FAST minefield of a downhill. WOW. I knew it well from last year and followed a nice little breakaway about 1 mile before the entrance, then dropped the guys in the break to just barely stay in first going into the gravel. The entire OUCH train basically absorbed me and, like in Tour of the Battenkill, I simply followed master ‘cross racer Tim Johnson–always a safe bet in conditions such as these.
I think Rory Sutherland (in the black/green King of the Hill jersey) found the only guy he can actually draft that isn’t already a teammate!
Awesome company on the podium after Stage 3!
Tonight is going to be a FAST, technical run through uptown Minneapolis. I’ve heard that it’s the trendy, hipster part of town and the Friday night crowd should be going insane! The race doesn’t start until 7:45 PM, and Dad is driving up to watch! My plan is to stay at the front and be safe while conserving as many matches as I can for tomorrow’s queen stage in Mankato.
Thanks for reading, and follow our team’s awesome Twitter account for live during-race updates!!
The Assos Roubaix was a very good investment. They are my favourite piece of cycling clothing, now that the mornings are chilly. The fleecy material inside makes them super comfortable and perfect for temperatures of 10-15 degrees Celsius. The chamois feels a little bit big and crunches up when sitting in the coffee shop but it feels fine when on the saddle.
Last Sunday, when I rode to Mt Coot-tha in the afternoon, I wore knee warmers that came in handy because I needed to take them off mid-ride for temperature control - yes, I did take them off while riding - but when the mornings are so cold that I want to keep every piece of equipment, nothing beats the Roubaix.
Unfortunately, this week the Assos Roubaix will stay in the wardrobe because the mornings are even too cold for them! Winter has finally arrived in Brisbane with temperatures said to drop to 5C tonight. Right now it’s 11C … inside (!) the house. Brrrrr! I wish Queensland houses had central heating!
Out here at Nature Valley . . . more photos, reports, and power files to come, but here’s a little something to wet your appetite: http://www.velonews.com/photo/93149
By the way, we came in 4th overall on the teams competition as well! Tonight’s crit went well, we stayed safe and a couple of us got used to going 30mph for an hour after not having a FAST race all season. Tomorrow is going to be an awesome day with a fast and short and windy road stage in Cannon Falls.
Time for bed . . . more to come tomorrow afternoon!
Your training should now focus on the specific demands of your key event.I’ve discussed this quite a bit recently, so today let me give you an example.
It’s 7.6 miles long, all of it uphill with an average grade of 12%, extended sections of 18%, with the final section being 22%!Yikes.The winning time last year was about 55 minutes, with the last finisher coming across the line in well over 3 hours.So this is quite a wide gap.
The winner in my age group last year was 1:06, with the average time being about 1:40.The point is that I’m going to be riding my bike up a steep hill for a long time.My cadence will likely be relatively low and I’ll be pushing a big gear the entire time.So my muscular strength and endurance will have to be high.
I’ve spent a fair amount of time climbing, but here in the flatlands of MN, we don’t have any options for long, steep climbs.
We have steep climbs, but short.The one hill I have that has a similar grade to Mt Washington is only .4 miles long, taking me 3-4 minutes to climb.And the longest climb I have access to is about 1.25 miles long.This takes me 5-6 minutes to climb, but the grade is only 4-5%.
So while my climbing practice has been good, it hasn’t been as specific as it could be.Mt Washington is August 15, so I only have a couple months to fine tune my training in preparation.I made a slight change to my training today.
Instead of riding repeats up the 5-6 minute hill, I rode long intervals on my trainer with the front wheel elevated.In addition, I pushed a big gear (cadence of about 60-70) to mimic the steep climb.And finally, I rode the intervals at threshold power level.
Well, it didn’t go all that well.Here are some numbers as an example.My threshold power is about 270, and my cadence when riding a TT on flat ground is about 90-95.
I rode 2 x 20 minute intervals, then 1 x 10.My average power on the first interval was 265.Average power dropped a bit on the second to 255.The average power for my third and final (and shorter) interval dropped way off to 244.
So today was a nice change of pace in my training and was a real eye-opener.I’ve got a lot of work to do to prepare for this long climb at a high power level in a big gear.But 8-9 weeks will give me enough time to do so.I’ll keep you informed.
The important leave-behind is this:what are the specific demands of your key race?And what are you doing to prepare?And finally, how much time to you have to do so?
Add your comments below, then GET OUT AND RIDE!When you get home, start planning for your key race TODAY.And contact me for assistance.
It never occurred to me until this morning. After being quite wasted yesterday, heavy legs, teary eyes, not much energy to get up from the couch to ravage the fridge even though there was this insatiable hunger, paranoid and completely convinced that I was well and truly back on Glandular Fever road, I woke up grumpy this morning but otherwise perfectly fine. It dawned on me.
This is how it feels when you train! Perfectly normal! I just had forgotten that last year, when I was training for Bright, I felt like this ALL THE TIME. It was the most normal thing on earth to be tired, wasted and completely spent and since I trained almost every day I never completely recovered.
That’s why I probably didn’t realise that I had Glandular Fever at first. The feeling is so similar and I was so used to being tired all the time.
So, yeah, I’m really happy to let you know that I’m all good. Ahem, and yeah, I didn’t get back on my bike this morning to train some more. The fear of getting sick again stuck deep, scared me enough to promise myself (and others) to stick to my training schedule for the next few weeks and to keep taking it easy. Lesson learnt? I hope so.
And beware of cyclists. You are most likely dealing with a zombie. It’s probably true for most other competitive athletes, too.
There are two possible outcomes here: I either grow stronger or I end up back in the sick bed! Bloody impatience! I clocked up 70 km today and I only realised it when I got home. That makes it about 220 km in four days and I hardly dare to admit, it involved some uphill kilometers and a few faster kilometers along the Brisbane Corso, too. I loved every single kilometer I rode but since I got home a few hours ago, I’m struggling to recover. I’m cold and tired.
There have been some signs that I chose to ignore. Puffy eyes, high rest heart rate and sore throat in the mornings, slow recovery, tiredness … I just hope I won’t have to pay the price.
The new smooth surface on the Lakeside race circuit might be old news for most. For me it was the first opportunity yesterday to check it out after the official races had finished. This time I felt more at peace with the fact that I can’t race just yet. I was content to watch and enjoy the scenery. With all the rain we had this year I finally realised why Lakeside is called Lakeside. There is now a huge lake where last year there was only a grassy swamp.
Daniel, John and I (Unfit, Invalid and Sick - we are a very cool trio!) had ridden the 22 km to Lakeside at a leisurely pace. The return trip was fast as we tagged on to a group of fit riders. I loved the fact that I had no trouble with the pace but I was worried about Daniel, who hadn’t ridden in a year. When I noticed him dropping off the back with pain written all over his face, I dropped back to keep him company. It would have been cruel to leave him for dead and I felt responsible because I had invited him along. Alberto also started hanging back for us. I couldn’t help myself. I had to attack on the very last hill before home and fly pass him just to proof that it wasn’t me who was that slow. It’s slightly embarrassing what a show off I am?!
I’ve long been a huge believer in fish oil.Many scientific studies have shown this to be a supplement (one of the few) that TRULY WORKS.Fish oil provides many benefits, including cardiovascular and anti-inflammatory, among others.
I came across the following article which again lends credence to the value of supplementing with Omega-3’s (fish oil).Take a look……
Omega Fatty Acid Balance Can Alter
Immunity And Gene Expression
ScienceDaily (June 2, 2009) — For the past century, changes in the Western diet have altered the consumption of omega-6 fatty acids (w6, found in meat and vegetable oils) compared with omega-3 fatty acids (w3, found in flax and fish oil). Many studies seem to indicate this shift has brought about an increased risk of inflammation (associated with autoimmunity and allergy), and now using a controlled diet study with human volunteers, researchers may have teased out a biological basis for these reported changes.
Anthropological evidence suggests that human ancestors maintained a 2:1 w6/w3 ratio for much of history, but in Western countries today the ratio has spiked to as high as 10:1. Since these omega fatty acids can be converted into inflammatory molecules, this dietary change is believed to also disrupt the proper balance of pro- and anti- inflammatory agents, resulting in increased systemic inflammation and a higher incidence of problems including asthma, allergies, diabetes, and arthritis.
Floyd Chilton and colleagues wanted to examine whether theses fatty acids might have other effects, and developed a dietary intervention strategy in which 27 healthy humans were fed a controlled diet mimicking the w6/w3 ratios of early humans over 5 weeks. They then looked at the gene levels of immune signals and cytokines (protein immune messengers), that impact autoimmunity and allergy in blood cells and found that many key signaling genes that promote inflammation were markedly reduced compared to a normal diet, including a signaling gene for a protein called PI3K, a critical early step in autoimmune and allergic inflammation responses.
This study demonstrates, for the first time in humans, that large changes in gene expression are likely an important mechanism by which these omega fatty acids exert their potent clinical effects.
So……what does this mean?SUPPLEMENT WITH ESSENTIAL FATTY ACIDS (EFA)!But not just any fish oil.I recommend a product called “Krill Oil,” which is “supercharged fish oil.Krill oil provides all the benefits of fish oil, but is more readily absorbed and provides more antioxidant power. Click on this link (or cut and paste into your browser) to learn more:
As I mentioned in my Sunday post, continuing the gym sessions throughout the Glandular Fever episode had been good advice. Unfortunately I haven’t been back to the gym since our holiday one month ago. Sometimes life gets in the way of the important things and it can be hard to get back into a routine once it’s broken. The first week after our return, I was still a bit jet-lagged; the week after, John broke his toe; then this important workshop I had to prepare … and on goes the list.
John and I* have been discussing our gym options over the past couple of weeks. We decided to finish at Race Elements, now that our ten session pack has been used up, at least for now. Lack of discipline and convenience might drive me back there eventually. I have been training at Race Elements on and off for the past two, maybe even three years and I always loved it and found it very effective. Bec, our amazingly motivating and inventive Personal Trainer, has been great but Race Elements is also the most expensive option around. A 45 minute training session costs $40, and that’s when you train two-on-one. One-on-one training would come in at $80 per session! So I will check out the “normal” gym prices down the road and see what they have on offer. Since I’m working only four days per week I should be mindful to choose a less expensive gym.
Not being organised enough, I - of course - had no weight training lined up for last night. Therefore I decided to spin my legs. I wasn’t keen on the wind trainer but did want to watch a training DVD that Alberto had received in the mail recently. So I dragged the rollers in front of the TV, where there is no railing to hang on to and no wall nearby. I was able to glance at the TV now and then and only towards the end of the 40 minutes. My arms and neck appreciated some Ashtanga Yoga afterwards. My upper arms were actually sore today from holding to on the handlebars rather tightly. How’s that for a home grown strength workout?
Oh, and before I forget: Does anyone know where I can get Clif and Luna bars here in Australia? The samples we brought from California are almost gone and I’m quite hooked on these now. Please help feeding my addiction!
*sidenote: It’s not Me and John! That’s just how some Australians would say this!
You’ve trained diligently all winter.You’ve done long rides in your aerobic zones to build your aerobic engine.You’ve done some rides with long, steady tempo intervals.You’ve ridden some long threshold intervals.So you think you’re ready for your first race or group ride with the “fast” group.
You roll out and the attacks begin immediately.The accelerations are relentless, and you have very little time to recover between each one.You push hard to keep up, but eventually you simply don’t have the power to accelerate.So what happens?You blow up, you shoot off the back and you’re done for the day.You’re totally cooked.
What happened?You put in the hours and trained hard, and you think you should have been better.
Well, what happened is that you spent all your time with a steady diet of long, steady work.This is great for building your various systems, but you didn’t do anything to prepare you for the specific demands of racing.
Road or MTB races (or fast group rides) are marked by constant power changes.You accelerate with everything you have for several seconds, then you soft pedal for a few seconds.Accelerate/soft pedal.Accelerate/soft pedal.This routine never ends.So until your body is trained to perform under these circumstances, you’ll continue to get dropped.
Change that starting TODAY.You can be a rider that can not only stick with these accelerations, but can actually be one to continually push the pace and drop others.
Today’s workout will focus on speed/power changes, coupled with short recovery periods.Many of these short, explosive accelerations are 15-90 seconds in duration, so today’s interval ride will include exactly these.
A workout like this can be created an infinite number of ways.The variables that can be changed include interval duration, recovery duration, number of interval repetitions and number of sets.Here’s one example:
WARMUP:
5 minutes easy spin. Heart rate should come up gradually.
5 x 1 minute “fast pedal” drills (110+ rpm), each followed by 1 minute easy spin recovery
5 minute sub-threshold effort. This is warm-up only, so don’t overdo the effort. The purpose is to warm up your muscles, open blood vessels and raise your heart rate, not to have you tired out for the main part of the ride.
5 minute easy spin recovery
MAIN SET:
90 seconds at “race pace” or VO2 Max level
90 second soft pedal recovery
75 seconds at “race pace” or VO2 Max level
75 second soft pedal recovery
60 seconds at “race pace” or VO2 Max level
60 second soft pedal recovery
45 seconds at “race pace” or VO2 Max level
45 second soft pedal recovery
30 seconds at “race pace” or VO2 Max level
30 second soft pedal recovery
5 minute recovery interval, then:
30 seconds at “race pace” or VO2 Max level
30 second soft pedal recovery
45 seconds at “race pace” or VO2 Max level
45 second soft pedal recovery
60 seconds at “race pace” or VO2 Max level
60 second soft pedal recovery
75 seconds at “race pace” or VO2 Max level
75 second soft pedal recovery
90 seconds at “race pace” or VO2 Max level
90 second soft pedal recovery
5 minute recovery interval, then repeat if you’re able.
If this is a new type of interval workout for you, longer recovery intervals initially will help you get through it.For example, you could recover 2 minutes between each interval.As you get stronger, reduce the recovery time between each.For example, rather than recovering equal time to the interval, reduce recovery time to ½ the interval duration.
You can also perform additional sets, depending on your specific level of fitness and race requirements.
COOLDOWN:
Ride easy for 5-10 minutes or more. Spin in a small gear with low pressure to flush your legs.This was a tough ride, especially if you’re note used to it.Your legs should be pretty well fried.If so, finish up and take a recovery drink immediately.But you can add some additional z1-3 endurance time if you’re up to it.
As noted, there are an infinite number of possibilities to an interval ride like this.Think of what you need to excel in your events, and then create your own workout to mimic these demands.Add your favorites in the “Comment” section below, then GET OUT AND RIDE!
While Alberto set off to race the Metropolitan (!) Championships somewhere out bush … and I’m talking way out bush here, somewhere in the distance of this photograph, where the land is dry and the roads are rough and narrow …
… I was preparing to get out on the bike myself. I had planned it to perfection, had left nothing to chance, had my riding buddy lined up, had timed the start of my ride to coincide with Alberto’s departure, had even taken the ten to fifteen minutes into account that Alberto would leave later than he had actually said he would, had carbo-loaded - American style,
and when I was just ready to hit the road, bike leaning against the open front door, tyres pumped, the text message arrived: “Sorry for the late notice but my back is still out.”
Phhhhhheeeeewwwww! Like a balloon swivelling through the air and dropping to the ground, lifeless, deflated, that was me … and then I took procrastination to a whole new level. And it wasn’t even raining, just a bit windy and cloudy, my bike leaning against the open (!) front door for another three hours.
It wasn’t until 2nd Chances’ Mel’s tweet that I realised how pathetic I was. Month after month of whinging, whining, moaning and feeling sorry for myself, and then missing the first best training opportunity just because I got stood up?
So I headed to Mt Coot-tha for some strength work. Seated climbing, low heart rate, constant cadence, just concentrating on an even pedal stroke and grinding all the way to the top … and I felt pretty good. Later the stats confirmed that to my great surprise the numbers are not too far off from back in September, when I trained for Bright. The biggest surprise was an average power output of 207 Watts for the 2.3 km climb with an average gradient of about 7%. So should you get ever Glandular Fever, make sure you continue the gym work. It’s paying off now, I think.
I even added twenty minutes on the rollers when I got home.
In reply to yesterday’s post I got twittered (Alberto’s terminology!):
“Some data missing? What about graphs for words spoken per minute…” was Colin’s take on yesterday’s ride, which suggests that my perceived physical exertion rating was spot on.
I would like to thank Maryka for her very informative comment. I never thought of normative power and intensity factor being different to average power. Following her suggestion I downloaded the WKO+ software. Then I realised that I had downloaded it already sometime last year when I first got the Powertap but couldn’t get it to work back then. It wouldn’t download the data from the Powertap into the WKO+ software. I’m now not able to trial it again since the trial version has expired and I don’t want to buy it, in case I don’t get it to work. I guess I’ll give the SportTracks software a trial.
I went to bed at 9:30ish last night. I calculated that I had nine hours of sleep available if I wanted to go for a ride with John at 8 AM (it takes me about 25 minutes to ride over to John’s place) and therefore did not set the alarm, assuming that I would be awake before I had to get up. There was this documentary on SBS earlier this week about “Sleep” and the impact of sleep deprivation on your hormonal and cognitive functions. After watching the program I concluded that most cyclists I know would be chronically sleep deprived from getting at 4:30 AM, which robs us of the most important part of sleep: the REM phase. Scary stuff!
To my surprise it was 7:45 AM when I opened my eyes to a most gorgeous blue sky morning and couldn’t believe that it had taken my body ten and a quarter hours to recover completely. I take it that it was extremely important to let my body sleep as much as needed and wake up naturally.
The good rest might also explain that today’s 50 km ride felt great and the heart rate graph, after downloading the power meter data, showed that I had spent most of the two hours in the recovery and endurance zones.
I was really worried that the lower power output and higher heart rate yesterday could mean that the lurgy is flaring up again. I never before had to return from injury or illness so I’m edgy, especially now that I have set myself a training goal: the Individual Time Trial State Championship on 6th September. Advise from a good friend?
“The Qld ITT champs – it is very important to set a goal to strive for – in saying that, you will need to be prepared as to what the body can give back in the lead up to the race. You could be surprised how slow it takes to get back to form … trust me on this one! Its a great goal to have, but I wouldn’t pour my heart into jumping on the podium on the 6th Sept…. if you know what I mean? It will be interesting to see how your body reacts.”
Naturally, I appreciate the advice. I hear what you’re saying, Shane, but I don’t like it! Let’s see…
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