Monday, November 30, 2009

Think "specificity" when a weather advisory cancels your workout.















So, I was planning on doing the River Ride on Saturday, and was really looking forward to being aggressive and mixing it up, but the weather did not cooperate. 20-30 mph wind with gusts over 40. Now, I like riding in the wind as much as the next bruiser, but I do not go out training when there is a weather advisory in effect.

Period.

End of discussion.

Whaaaah! Booooohoohoo!!!

Now what?

Well, after another near perfect week of training, adding sets and weight in the gym, getting out on the road for some solid threshold work and completing a power profile and MAP test, I decided some race specific work on the rollers would be the ticket. I am considered an endurance racer at the track so I want to work on some race specific endurance. And what do we do in a mass start track endurance race? We go 28-32 mph for 10-30 minutes and sprint at 40 mph. There are many variations on this theme but that is the base we need to have.

So I get on the rollers and crank it up to 30 mph with my watts just below threshold and hold it for ten minutes accelerating to 40 mph at the end. With the low resistance of the rollers it feels like motorpacing or drafting in the pack and even though the sprint wattage numbers are not nearly as big as a live sprint, the effort to bear down and squeeze out that 140 rpm at the end is the same. And to do it repeatedly in my garage with that kind of focus is priceless!

I also cranked out 5 sets of alternative dumbbell exercises to mix it up, including one set of dead lifts. And oooooh, my hammies are barking! Alright, enough trade secrets for one night. Ride fast and swerve!

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