Monday, September 10, 2012
How to set or beat a personal record on the Roarito-Ensenada fun ride
Have you just gotten into cycling? Are you preparing for your first organized 50 mile fun ride? Maybe you want to beat or set a new Personal Record on the Rosarita Ensenada Fun Ride.
Here it comes; the local 50 mile fun ride. Maybe its your first time or maybe you've done it before. But this year you are serious. You want to do the ride in two and a half hours or less. With some focused work and using the same techniques as elite riders, you can meet your goal.
The idea is to train your body to do the workload that it is going to take to complete your ride. What you need to do in training is to ride multiple efforts at or above your Rosarito- Ensenada pace. You will also include rest periods during those efforts. Each one of these efforts is called an “ interval” . When you hear cyclists and runners talk about doing interval workouts, they just mean going hard and then recovering. There are many different types of interval workouts, but they are all just different variations of hard work and recovery.
One type of interval you may hear about is a “tempo” interval. A tempo interval is hard enough so that you aren’t just cruising around easily, but you also aren’t going hard enough to cause difficult or labored breathing. I like to describe tempo as “ on the gas, but not really going that hard” It isn’t hard to hold for a few minutes, but try holding it for an hour and you’ll feel it! An example of tempo workout would be riding for 90 minutes total, but during the ride doing three 15 minute tempo efforts at 20 mph with 10 minute rest pedaling at 10 mph or so between each effort. The first week you will do this work out twice, with some rest days in between. Rest days can mean one of two things depending on the time you have to train. Either you will take the day completely of the bike or you will go ride for 30-60 minutes easy to loosen up your legs.
If you are specifically training for Rosarito-Ensenada You'll also want to throw in a day with climbing to mimic the El Tigre climb that starts at mile 18. The El Tigre climb is a mesa that towers 800 feet above the valley floor. The climb is two miles long and a 7.5% grade. This workout would be a one hour ride with two miles of hard climbing. If you live in San Diego the Torrey Pines climb on the hwy 101 is a great climb to do these efforts on. Any hill that takes you between 6-12 minutes to climb is going to be just fine. When you hit the hill you are going to want to go up it at the fastest speed you can without running out of steam before the top. This is going to mean holding back just a little bit at the start. Ideally, you’ll do “ hill repeats” or multiple climbs up this hill as part of your training. Typically 3 or 4 times is good. You should time yourself up each time, and compare your times to the next workout.
Finally, as part of your weekly training plan, you will want to have a three+ hour ride on the same day and around the same time as your event. This is going to teach your body that you will be doing work on that day and time of the week. If this sounds like too much for you, you’ll have to start out at 2 hours and then build up to 3 over the next few weeks. If you are unable to fit both the hill climbing ride and the long ride into your schedule, then you can make the hill climbing ride your long ride. We are also going to want to add to your tempo intervals each week. Every week you will add five minutes to each 15 minute tempo interval in both your tempo workouts. In your fourth week comes the big finally of your training plan; a two and a half hour ride at your tempo pace which is 20mph.
So each week should look something like this:
Monday: Rest day
Tuesday: Tempo Intervals
Wed: short and easy or day off
Thursday: Tempo Intervals
Friday: short and easy or day off
Saturday: Hill climbs or Long ride with hill Climbs
Sunday: Long ride
Week I Week II Week III
Tempo ride Tempo ride Tempo ride
15 minute spin to warmup 15 minute spin to warmup 15 minute spin to warmup
15 min tempo at 18-21 mph 20 min tempo at 19-21 mph 25 min tempo at 20-22 mph
10 minute rest at 10 mph easy 10 minute rest at 10 mph easy 10 minute rest at 10 mph easy
Repeat Tempo interval 2 X Repeat Tempo interval 2 X Repeat Tempo interval 2 X
Week IV
Tempo ride
15 minute spin to warmup
30 min tempo at 19-22 mph
10 minute rest at 10 mph easy
Repeat Tempo interval 2 X
Climbing ride
15 minute spin to warmup
6-12 minutes of climbing
2-4 recover on downhill
6-16 minutes of climbing 2-4 recover on downhill
15 minute spin to warm-down
Repeat up to twice more if you can.
Do you need help preparing for you first 50 mile ride contact us we would like to help you get ready.
See you on the road,
Coach Eisner
Monday, February 6, 2012
You Should Be Going Hard!
Recently, on a ride, I was told that “it is hard to mimic race efforts in training”. When it comes to mimicking speed-work , many find this to be true. However, there are ways produce speed-work training but you need to have the resources. The easiest way to practice going fast without racing is motor-pacing, or just the right kind of group ride. . Motor-pacing is drafting behind a motorcycle or scooter to mimic racing speeds, its hard, and its fun, but it frequently requires a velodrome to do it safely and may be difficult to do on open roads.
As far as mimicking non speed-work efforts, you just have to fin the right terrain. The right hill can help you accomplish most if not all of your training goals. In a race, you should only be pedaling, working hard, or going hard when the time is right. Working in the correct break, working for a teammate, jockeying for position before the field sprin, or making sure you arr int he right spot before the big climb so that you don't get caught out when the field splits. The rest of the time you should not be pedaling or going hard. You should be drafting, sucking wheel, hiding in the field, and conserving energy.
In training, it is frequently the opposite. You should be going hard! This is not to say you shouldn't have rest days. But if it's not a rest day, then HTFU and do the workout. If you are training for a race with 10,000 feet of climbing, you'd better get your butt up some hills. If you need to hit 400 watts repeatedly over a 30 minute period, you'd better find a way to make it happen!
Personally, I'm trying to race more competitively this season. This means on days when “I'm just not feeling it”, I need to suck it up, and make it happen. Cycling is a hard sport and on the days I decide not to do my training, there are 80 peers of mine that chose more wisely. Like coach Chris Daggs always says, “There is no try, only do”.
Below is a video of my repeat climbs.
If you need help to get motivated contact us
See you on the road,
Coach Jesse Eisner
As far as mimicking non speed-work efforts, you just have to fin the right terrain. The right hill can help you accomplish most if not all of your training goals. In a race, you should only be pedaling, working hard, or going hard when the time is right. Working in the correct break, working for a teammate, jockeying for position before the field sprin, or making sure you arr int he right spot before the big climb so that you don't get caught out when the field splits. The rest of the time you should not be pedaling or going hard. You should be drafting, sucking wheel, hiding in the field, and conserving energy.
In training, it is frequently the opposite. You should be going hard! This is not to say you shouldn't have rest days. But if it's not a rest day, then HTFU and do the workout. If you are training for a race with 10,000 feet of climbing, you'd better get your butt up some hills. If you need to hit 400 watts repeatedly over a 30 minute period, you'd better find a way to make it happen!
Personally, I'm trying to race more competitively this season. This means on days when “I'm just not feeling it”, I need to suck it up, and make it happen. Cycling is a hard sport and on the days I decide not to do my training, there are 80 peers of mine that chose more wisely. Like coach Chris Daggs always says, “There is no try, only do”.
Below is a video of my repeat climbs.
If you need help to get motivated contact us
See you on the road,
Coach Jesse Eisner
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Training Stress
What is TSS? TSS stands for training stress score. If you use Training Peaks or own a copy of WKO for your PC you will see a the TSS acronym with a correlating number in the summery of your workout TSS:239.04
“While exercise intensity is clearly an important factor in determining the type and magnitude of physiological adaptations to training, exercise frequency and duration – which together determine the overall training volume – are important factors as well. However, there is obviously an interaction between training intensity and volume-that is, at some point as intensity goes up volume must come down, and vice-versa, or else you will become over-trained. To quantify the overall training load and hopefully help avoid such a situation, The authors developed training stress score (TSS) for every workout, that provides a graphical summary of your recent TSS” Training with a Power Meter ~Hunter Alan and Andrew Coggen~
Physical exertion leads to training stress. The quote above talks about training stress and how it is accounted for when using a power meter. Power meters are one of the easiest ways to quantify training load and the stress that comes from said training.
Although Stress from training becomes more easily quantifiable because we can measure power, (intensity, volume, and workload) these metrics do not take into account all factors of stress, physical and mental fatigue.
When you lift weights you create physical training stress. If I lift 450 lbs 40 times I have lifted the equivalent of 18000 lbs or 9 tons. This type of workout done 2 to 3 times a week can end up averaging out to 27 tons of weight lifted in a week. This adds obvious training stress to our overall workload as an athlete. These conclusions can apply to all of the differing workouts that you do i.e. running, kettlebell, swimming, or even yoga.
It is also important to remember that there are other forms of physical exertion that would not be categorized as working out, but will cause stress. For example, have you recently done a home improvement project that involved manual labor? From 2005 to 2009, I spent part of my time working in the construction industry. On some days, I used a Jack hammer for four or more hours at a time. I would say that those days were as hard or harder than a 40k time trial or 90 minute criterium.
The final type of stress (I’ll talk about) to account for is mental fatigue. It is easy to forget the stress that is created by our minds or by what are minds are working on. Especially, when correlating those mental efforts to working out.
As athletes it takes quite a bit of mental discipline to train our body’s day in and day out to achieve goals that are beyond our immediate abilities.
If you receive a promotion at your job, work on a big project, or have a deadline to meet, stress will be increased. Having a child, becoming the head of an estate, or other life change also will increase your stress. Changes like these will most likely have added and new responsibilities that can even effect sleep patterns.
These new responsibilities will take more of your mental discipline and focus. These responsibilities should be considered when thinking about your training and stress.
Knowing that there are other factors of stress is important, but what do we do with that information?
One of the major things you can do is account for all your stress. If you lift weights, cross-train, or don’t ride with your power meter on a specific day, add your own TSS Score to your workout.
In Training Peaks Software, for your TSS score to be accurate your threshold power must be input correctly into the software . A TSS Score of 100 is considered to be one hour of all out effort or equivalent to a 40k time trial. If your threshold power is input accurately Training Peaks will tell you what your TSS is on any given ride.
One way to calculate your own TSS is to use similar duration, terrain, and fatigue as a model. When it comes to weight lifting or cross training you can judge/estimate by how you feel. For example, how did your effort without a power meter (non cycling) compare to workouts with a power meter? Are you less, equally, or more fatigued? When building an annual training program, more information is better. Your best guess, even if it is subjective, is good enough.
In conclusion, share with your coach any life changes that are effecting your training, sleep patterns, or performance. Coaches are here to help you objectively balance your training so you can accomplish peak performance.
See you on the road
Coach Jesse Eisner
Would you like to rent a power meter? Do you need coach? Contact us at www.crankcycling.com We can help.
“While exercise intensity is clearly an important factor in determining the type and magnitude of physiological adaptations to training, exercise frequency and duration – which together determine the overall training volume – are important factors as well. However, there is obviously an interaction between training intensity and volume-that is, at some point as intensity goes up volume must come down, and vice-versa, or else you will become over-trained. To quantify the overall training load and hopefully help avoid such a situation, The authors developed training stress score (TSS) for every workout, that provides a graphical summary of your recent TSS” Training with a Power Meter ~Hunter Alan and Andrew Coggen~
Physical exertion leads to training stress. The quote above talks about training stress and how it is accounted for when using a power meter. Power meters are one of the easiest ways to quantify training load and the stress that comes from said training.
Although Stress from training becomes more easily quantifiable because we can measure power, (intensity, volume, and workload) these metrics do not take into account all factors of stress, physical and mental fatigue.
When you lift weights you create physical training stress. If I lift 450 lbs 40 times I have lifted the equivalent of 18000 lbs or 9 tons. This type of workout done 2 to 3 times a week can end up averaging out to 27 tons of weight lifted in a week. This adds obvious training stress to our overall workload as an athlete. These conclusions can apply to all of the differing workouts that you do i.e. running, kettlebell, swimming, or even yoga.
It is also important to remember that there are other forms of physical exertion that would not be categorized as working out, but will cause stress. For example, have you recently done a home improvement project that involved manual labor? From 2005 to 2009, I spent part of my time working in the construction industry. On some days, I used a Jack hammer for four or more hours at a time. I would say that those days were as hard or harder than a 40k time trial or 90 minute criterium.
The final type of stress (I’ll talk about) to account for is mental fatigue. It is easy to forget the stress that is created by our minds or by what are minds are working on. Especially, when correlating those mental efforts to working out.
As athletes it takes quite a bit of mental discipline to train our body’s day in and day out to achieve goals that are beyond our immediate abilities.
If you receive a promotion at your job, work on a big project, or have a deadline to meet, stress will be increased. Having a child, becoming the head of an estate, or other life change also will increase your stress. Changes like these will most likely have added and new responsibilities that can even effect sleep patterns.
These new responsibilities will take more of your mental discipline and focus. These responsibilities should be considered when thinking about your training and stress.
Knowing that there are other factors of stress is important, but what do we do with that information?
One of the major things you can do is account for all your stress. If you lift weights, cross-train, or don’t ride with your power meter on a specific day, add your own TSS Score to your workout.
In Training Peaks Software, for your TSS score to be accurate your threshold power must be input correctly into the software . A TSS Score of 100 is considered to be one hour of all out effort or equivalent to a 40k time trial. If your threshold power is input accurately Training Peaks will tell you what your TSS is on any given ride.
One way to calculate your own TSS is to use similar duration, terrain, and fatigue as a model. When it comes to weight lifting or cross training you can judge/estimate by how you feel. For example, how did your effort without a power meter (non cycling) compare to workouts with a power meter? Are you less, equally, or more fatigued? When building an annual training program, more information is better. Your best guess, even if it is subjective, is good enough.
In conclusion, share with your coach any life changes that are effecting your training, sleep patterns, or performance. Coaches are here to help you objectively balance your training so you can accomplish peak performance.
See you on the road
Coach Jesse Eisner
Would you like to rent a power meter? Do you need coach? Contact us at www.crankcycling.com We can help.
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