Cyclocross is filled with lulls and firestorms, ebb and flow, yin and yang.  Indian Lakes last weekend was a great example….slow, twisty little section that allowed a bit of recovery followed by a power-fest coming out of the corner and onto a long straight.  Each jump burns at least part of a match and so ultimately costs something.

We created these sessions with Criterium racing in mind and they translate very nicely to cyclocross.  They’re pretty wicked and worth the effort because they help create the type of high short-term power that will get you from slow to GO in a hurry.  They also help prepare the body in a way that will limit power losses from the start to finish of a cross race.

Most courses have 5 or 6 sections that fit this description.  If you save just 1 second out of each corner by getting to speed at a faster rate you’re looking at 30 – 60 seconds during a race depending on your category.  That’s a lot of places!

Warm up for at least 20 minutes in zones 1-2

One Set:

As one continuous effort:  50 seconds at FTP (best 60 minute power) right into 10 seconds at the high end of your 1 minute power x 5 with no recovery between efforts 

When you first try these take 6 minutes off between sets.  As you become more accustomed to them decrease the amount of recovery between sets.  3 – 5 sets over a 1:30 – 2 hour ride is a good session.

As with some of the other drills we’ve covered within this forum, the recovery between these efforts is as important as the wattage you push during them.  Be disciplined in relaxing and bringing your heart rate down.

Two….more…..races.  Don’t just hang in there, get faster!

Rob Kelley

TRAINING BIBLE COACH

www.ROKcoaching.com

Starts are huge in cross. Whether you’re on the 1^st row or the 10^th, a good start can be the difference between a great or mediocre day on the bike.  Maintaining your position and/or passing large groups of people while charging down a straight at the beginning is a heck of a lot easier than making up large gaps throughout a cross race for sure.  Plus it’s fun!

First off you need to have a solid warm up in prior to staging, or else the violent effort needed is going to hit you like a ton of bricks half way through the first lap. Grip the bars tightly in the drops or on the hoods.  Most like the hoods but how often do you see roadies sprinting for the line on the hoods?  Make no mistake; this is a series of short and all-out sprints.  Get your weight back a bit, at least over the top of the saddle.  When the whistle blows jam your hips forward and off you go.

BMX is awesome, just wanted to put that out there. Growing up in that sport teaches some pretty wicked skills for sure, including how to go from a standing start to max speed fast.  While you won’t win a cross race because of a great start, you can lose one with a bad start.  You can win a BMX race purely because of a great start so it’s a large part of training and the core principals are the same.  Notice the hip action, pedal position and all-out/dead-lift type effort:  BMX Start

As with every aspect of bike racing, practice is crucial. Do 2 or 3 starts the day before race day to get the feel.  You need to find the starting gear that best suits you, get comfortable getting your cleat engaged quickly and work on shifting up as you spin each gear out.  This is a fantastic video and instruction from one of the best in the US: Cyclocross Start

It’s also a very good idea to incorporate focused and fitness based start reps into your training regimen at least once every other week. One or two sets of these is a solid addition to a skills oriented day and will also help train the body to accept and recover from what is one of the toughest efforts of the race:

Warm up for at least 15 minutes.

1 rep: All out sprint for 200 meters. Settle into FTP +10% and peg it there for 1 minute.  3 minutes off between reps.

1 set: 5 reps. Take 8 minutes off between sets.

Hit up some single track for the last half of your ride to work on skills (and to have lots of fun)

Warm down for at least 15 minutes

Good luck and go fast!

Rob Kelley

TRAINING BIBLE COACH

www.ROKcoaching.com

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

No reps this week, all fun.  See below for a video of our kind of new course for this Sunday, along with a few videos taken over the past 9 years.  Can’t believe it’s been 9 years!:

See you there.

www.ROKcoaching.com

Recovery is a cornerstone of fitness and form. If you are a cyclocross racer you are almost surely training at a level that induces fatigue, while recovery allows your body to repair and increase form and fitness.  Back in the day, pre-Joe Friel periodization model, overtraining was the norm in endurance sports.  It’s pretty easy to do if you have an obsession like we do for cross.

Overtraining can have effects ranging from tired legs on race day in its most common form, to an extreme as severe as the premature retirement of a professional athlete. Per Mr. Friel “overtraining is best described as a decreased work capacity resulting from an imbalance between training and rest”.  If you have a bad race there is at least a decent chance that you have not given yourself the rest needed to recover up to that point.  When many athletes have worse than expected results though they do the opposite of what is necessary to address the issue….they train more.

Classic symptoms are lower power numbers, higher heart rate, general fatigue, irritability and a disinterest in training and racing. You don’t want to get to this point!  We know that most people can handle 3 – 4 weeks of hard training and racing before needing a “week off” for recovery.  So your best bet for success is to look at your season ahead of time and plan those recovery weeks into your schedule so that you feel good when it counts.  If you’re racing cross every weekend you may have a less than stellar race directly following a recovery week.  This varies from person to person and can be disconcerting if you’re not used to plugging rest into your program but, trust me, it’ll pay off in the weeks to come.  Assuming that you are racing every weekend during the ChiCrossCup series, a typical recovery week looks like this:

Monday – off or strength training (strength maintenance phase this time of year)

Tuesday – off

Wednesday – 1 – 1.5 hour zone 1-2 ride

Thursday – 1 – 1.5 hour zone 1-2 ride

Friday – off

Saturday – opener

Sunday – race

Likewise, you need to include recovery days within each week. These can be easy zone 1-2 workouts (“workouts” because strength training and running count) or completely off.  2 – 4 rides with high intensity and/or long duration per week, including race day, are about all a human being can handle.  Take easy recovery rides in between them.

Thanks for reading!

Rob Kelley

TRAINING BIBLE COACH

www.ROKcoaching.com

Race day can be a little stressful. Certain stressors; pre- hot date, pre-roller coaster ride and certainly pre-race jitters, can be a good thing.  These are referred to as “eustress”.  They’ll hone your senses via hormonal and heart rate changes.  After racing bicycles of many forms for a long darned time, along with looking at heart rate files from many people competing in all disciplines of cyclosport, I’ve found that a lack of nervousness on the line normally translates to a lackluster performance.

As mentioned in this article though, even too much of this positive stress can take away from performance. A good speech teacher will tell you that the best way to combat the fear of public speaking is to show up completely prepared.  Racing a bike is the same, so have your routine down.

An important part of this, especially for the violent effort right out of the gate that cyclocross requires, is the pre-race warm up.  Arrive with enough time to be able to casually ride the course when officials allow it, and do this 37 minute session on a stationary trainer leading up to staging:

15 minutes in zones 1-2 heart rate/power, nice casual spin with increased cadence as you progress.

Do two 30 second intervals at maximum effort with 5 minutes recovery between them

Take 3 minutes recovery after the last 30 second interval

Begin an 8 minute interval at 30 – 35% below FTP. Slowly increase power so that you are at FTP by the fifth minute.  Hold that pace for the final 3 minutes of the 8 minute interval.  As example; if your FTP is 300 watts start at 200 and slowly bring it up to 300 over the first 5 minutes.  Peg it at 300 for the final 3.

Spin in zone 1-2 for 5 minutes and then go to staging.

Give this a try during training on a day when you’re planning to do some hard work on the bike. You may want to tweak it a bit to suit you and best to try new things prior to race day. A good warm up before a crazy interval session will also improve your results.

Thanks for reading!

Rob Kelley

TRAINING BIBLE COACH

www.ROKcoaching.com

Recovery between efforts in a sport like cyclocross is huge.  You have to go in with the confidence of knowing that your body can recover quickly and re-set after hard core efforts.  Just as you train yourself to produce as much power as possible for specified periods of time, you also must train to be able to bring the heart rate down over and over again.  Even as little time as it takes to go through a series of turns can be enough to bring it down a few beats, and in cross every little bit helps.

Pyramid Intervals are a great way to develop this.  Go all out for each interval.  Focus on relaxing and bringing your heart rate down at the end of each interval.  It does help to consciously remind yourself as that type of mental repetition will help make the concept stick even during the most stressful race situation.  Giving yourself the opportunity to recover now and then can be the difference between being able to hang on or POP!:

Warm up for at least 15 minutes in zones 1-2

One Set:

30 seconds at your max/30 seconds recovery

1 minute at your max/1 minute recovery

1 minute 30 seconds at your max/1 minute recovery

2 minutes at your max/1 minute 30 seconds recovery

1 minute 30 seconds at your max/1 minute recovery

1 minute at your max/1 minute recovery

30 seconds at your max/30 seconds recovery

Take at least 6 minutes off between sets if you decide to do more than one of these.  You can manipulate them anyway you want by adding or subtracting to or from the duration of each effort.  More importantly, reduce the recovery time between efforts.  Power and heart rate are not only important for the hard part.  Look at how quickly your heart rates goes down after a hard effort and work to reduce that over time and adjust recovery between these intervals accordingly.

As example, you’ll probably need the full 30 seconds to recover after an all-out 30 second interval the first time you do these.  After a few sessions of focused work that may begin to creep down toward the 15 second mark.  Take note when this happens and shorten the recovery for the next pyramid session and you’ve just increased your capacity to recover.

Good luck and go fast!

Rob Kelley

TRAINING BIBLE COACH

www.ROKcoaching.com

It’s pure pleasure to be able to read, formulate, calculate, create and track the numbers generated by the folks that I work with. From casual cyclist to pro, it is as rewarding to hear about their success as it is to have a fun ride myself.  The mind does wander though, and every once in a while you discover little nuggets like this one….

My guy, let’s call him “Willie”, had the unfortunate experience of having to take a pee right in the middle of the ABR state road race championship. Willie had a good day with a strong 2^nd place finish.  I got to thinking, “what does pulling over and taking a leak really look like within a power file?”  It looks like this:

“Your heart rate up to that point was averaging 133 – 137 the entire time you were racing before that (the bathroom break on the side of the road).  It was 158 average for the 1min and 18 sec pee stop and maxed to 163!  Your highest HR average for 1 minute during the whole race was 163.  This means that the stress of stopping, coupled with effort of trying to push it out fast, was almost the most taxing thing that you did on the bike all day!  Fascinating stuff and sorry to say that you’re looking at a feature in an upcoming blog post.  Do you have any pictures you want included?”

Luckily for all of us Willie didn’t offer up any pics.

Good luck and go fast!

Rob Kelley

TRAINING BIBLE COACH

www.ROKcoaching.com

VO2max is defined by Joe Friel as (in bold because he’s the MAN when it come to cycling coaching):

It is essentially the maximum output that you are able to sustain for 5 – 6 minutes.  When developed it is one of the most lethal weapons in your arsenal.  Bridging up to someone, attacking, hucking up to the group when things are cooking and the general lungs in the mouth feeling we all experience during certain portions of a cross race are all situations that require a stout VO2max type effort.

Once you have laid down the foundation for your ftp, and some time toward the end of that period in your annual training program, you’ll do well to spend time building power at this rate.  Because not everyone has access to a proper VO2max test (but most with a power meter have a good idea of their ftp) we took athletes with varying strengths over the period of a racing season and analyzed the percentage of difference between ftp and VO2max.  This variance was normally between 25 and 15%.  While equated to road race specialties these designations will help you find a place to start relative to power output.  Sprinters were in the 25% range, all-arounders (roulliers) had about a 20% difference and good time trialists were closer to 15%:

Sprinter: ftp /.75

All Arounder: ftp/.8

Time Trialist: ftp/.85

So, as example, if your ftp is 300 watts and you are a sprinter then simply take 300/.75 to arrive at a goal of 400 watts.  It can be a little daunting at first because pegging that kind of power for 6 minutes will be out of your reach at that point in the season.  As with every phase though it is a progression beginning with shorter duration so hang in there, you can do this!

You should have some good legs and a strong mental outlook for these very taxing efforts.  That will require you to schedule these after an easy day.  Doing these after a tough day is like a punch in the stomach!

Take 5 minutes off between sets for each of these different durations.  2-3 sets in a ride is challenging enough to push your limits without wiping you out so completely that you can’t complete the intervals at the power level that we’re looking for:

VO2max2: warm up for 20 minutes.  Then a 2 minute interval at prescribed wattage, followed by 1.5 minutes of recovery x 3 is 1 set.

VO2max3: warm up for 20 minutes.  Then a 3 minute interval at prescribed wattage, followed by 2 minutes of recovery x 3 is 1 set.

VO2max4: warm up for 20 minutes.  Then a 4 minute interval at prescribed wattage, followed by 2.5 minutes of recovery x 2 is 1 set.

VO2max: warm up for 20 minutes.  Then a 6 minute interval at your max, followed 3 minutes recovery x 1 is 1 set.  (You’ll have a good idea of what kind of power you can push by the time you get to this point.  Settle in at that power and push yourself to your limit for the duration of the interval).

Your heart rate will not react fast enough to use as any type of a gauge for the 2 and 3 minute efforts.  It can be a guide for the 4 and 6 minute intervals though.  If you know your heart rate zones and see that you can go with a higher heart rate then adjust the power to suit and you’ve just gotten stronger!

Good luck and go fast!

Rob Kelley

TRAINING BIBLE COACH

www.ROKcoaching.com

After you’ve conquered a 45 minute tempo interval it’s time to take on the phase of training that requires you to develop your muscular endurance.  Muscular endurance is gained by working to increase your power at your lactate threshold (AKA functional threshold and anaerobic threshold) as well as the duration of that effort.

These intervals are meant to build that lactate threshold (LT) power.  Once completed, you will have a 45 minute to 1 hour killer effort in your arsenal.  You’ll also use this very important number to re-set all of your power zones because, from the standpoint of information, LT is ground zero for an endurance athlete.

Do these on a stationary trainer or outside on a flat/false flat course.  Grass is fantastic as it provides some good resistance:

LT10: 3×10 minute intervals at lactate threshold with 3 minutes off between them

LT15: 3×15 minute intervals at lactate threshold with 3 minutes off between them

LT20: 2×20 minute intervals at lactate threshold with 8 minutes off between them

LT25: 2×25 minute intervals at lactate threshold with 8 minutes off between them

LT30: 2×30 minute intervals at lactate threshold with 8 minutes off between them

LT45: One 45 minute interval at lactate threshold

As with the AT and tempo intervals, once you know your heart rate and wattage at LT you can keep an eye on your monitor and adjust up or down to suit.  As an example; if your LT is 165 BPM’s/300 watts and you see that on a particular day your heart rate is less than 165BPM’s at 300 watts then increase the wattage.  When that happens you’ve just increased your LT power!  Note these changes and feed them into your program going forward.

Make sure to complete the duration properly before moving to the next.  Slowly and methodically building to your objectives will help prevent burn-out and injury.  It’ll also make you faster!

Thanks for reading, and send an e-mail to [email protected] with any questions.

Rob Kelley

TRAINING BIBLE COACH

http://www.rokcoaching.com/