Wednesday Nighters

 

Things can begin to get a little less motivating in the race department this time of year. Between the training and racing you’ve put in a lot of time going all out, it’s cold/ish and we’ve just had the time change.  The couch/beer combo looks pretty awesome.

So rather than lay down a specifically timed and focused effort it’s nice to just go out and have fun. It’s also important to maintain the mojo and if you can do that it’s worth at least a few places at the line.  I just started testing these out this season with some folks and the results have been solid!  Pick any one to rip off on a Wednesday or Thursday night’s training session on any course that suits you.  Choose one and, while fairly mindless, they’ll keep you going in the right direction:

10/40:

Do all of this on a cyclocross course. Warm up for at least 15 minutes. Peg power and/or heart rate at zone 3 (tempo) for 10 minutes. At the end of that 10 minutes ramp it up to race pace for 40 minutes. This is one 50 minute continuous effort. Warm down for at least 10 minutes.

20/30:

Do all of this on a cyclocross course. Warm up for at least 15 minutes. Peg power and/or heart rate at zone 3 (tempo) for 20 minutes. At the end of that 20 minutes ramp it up to race pace for 30 minutes. This is one 50 minute continuous effort. Warm down for at least 10 minutes.

30/20:

Do all of this on a cyclocross course. Warm up for at least 15 minutes. Peg power and/or heart rate at zone 3 (tempo) for 30 minutes. At the end of that 30 minutes ramp it up to race pace for 20 minutes. This is one 50 minute continuous effort. Warm down for at least 10 minutes.

Another benefit is that these are a great gauge for current fitness.  look at average power and heart rate for the “race pace” portions of these and they should be close to your FTP.  Hopefully that is still increasing a bit and make note for future intervals.

Thanks for reading.

Rob Kelley

TRAINING BIBLE COACH

www.ROKcoaching.com