Raceplan Coaching & Racing: Getting ready for racing season

As we approach the racing season...wait...what am I saying, people are already peaking in Southern California as my friends are just beginning to think about plowing themselves from under a bunch of snow in Colorado!

Well, either way, if you are getting ready for racing, one of my favorite workouts this time of year is one that really overloads your physiology without putting too much tax on your cardiovascular system. This is not at all saying that this is an easy workout. As a matter of fact, it's one of the hardest workouts you'll ever do. But it's also one of the workouts that helps you gain the most.

Here's the quick and dirty on it. The workout builds on an initial macro interval of 5 to 10 minutes of work, broken into micro-interval of 15 seconds of work followed by 15 seconds of rest. The goal is to gradually build up to 30, 45 or 60 continuous minutes of this workout depending on your racing goals, fitness and competitive category. For example, a pro cyclist will want to build up to 60 continuous minutes of this workout while a category 5 cyclist will want to max out at about 45 minutes of this workout.

So, the next trick is to know your LT power, mine happens to be right about 290-300 watts and my work effort will be at about 150% of this level or about 400 watts. My rest intervals will be at about 75% of my LT power or about 200 watts.

For yesterday, my goal was two 5min sets of these 15sec intervals with a 5min rest in between after a standard group ride I do at noon on Tuesdays. One thing left to another and I had to take a call which threw things off so I ended up with a 6min effort and a 10min effort at these wattage goals. Here are the files and graphs for the workout:

Entire workout (192 watts):

Duration: 1:54:37

Work: 1306 kJ

TSS: 188.5 (intensity factor 0.999)

Norm Power: 273

VI: 1.42

Distance: 29.797 mi

Min Max Avg

Power: 0 971 192 watts

Heart rate: 65 180 138 bpm

Cadence: 21 141 80 rpm

Speed: 2.2 40.9 15.7 mph

Pace 1:28 26:49 3:49 min/mi

Hub Torque: 0 520 89 lb-in

Crank Torque: 0 1236 199 lb-in

The horizontal line you see is an estimate of my LT power. The peaks are the 15sec on intervals at about 400 watts and the valleys are the rest intervals at just about 200 watts. the broken line at about 1:50:30 is when the call came in!

I cooled down with easy spinning for 10min to finish this great workout. On today's ride, I could already feel the benefits of this workout, which helps build snap in your legs. The reason we choose 15 seconds is because it's just short enough to discourage your cardiovascular system to engage more than your muscular system. So, in effect, you are getting a hell of a muscular over load without taxing your cardiovascular system too much. Think of it another way. If we were to average out the wattages for this workout, I spent 16 minutes, 1/2 of it at 400 watts and 1/2 at 200 watts. Average it out and that's 8 minutes each at each of these zones and an average of 16min at 300 watts. This is a heck of a workout and will continue to be as I build up into the 30-45-60min ranges!!!

Now go get fast!

Kam