Finding the drive to continue training

So it is the end of your season and it has been a long one. You just finished the Everest Challenge which has 30,000 feet of climbing. Or maybe you just did a five day UCI stage race in the Caribbean. For some of the riders I coach, this is the way their season ended. When your season has ended with such lofty goals, you can be left with a lack of drive to continue training.

Some riders force themselves through periods where they lack motivation. This can, and usually does, lead to overreaching and eventually burnout or over training.

It is important to give ourselves time to relax from the rigors of training and racing even if you have come off a stellar season, accomplished your goals, and have a new level of fitness. It is important to remember that even if you are not physically overreaching or over trained, that you may be mentally tired. Our minds need just as much care as our bodies when it comes to recovery.

There are always alternative training methods to maintain and rebuild a high level of fitness. These alternatives can give us a break from a rigorous training schedule and still be fun. One method that some cyclists use is Cyclo-cross. Cyclo-Cross is like mountain biking and running mixed into the same workout on road style bicycles. Cylco-cross race courses are run on single track trails with minimal technical sections, but have areas where the rider must dismount and carry his or her bike while hurdling barriers.

Mountain biking is also another good alternative of riding. At the end of a long season, our training and competing can become only a means to an end. Sometimes this leads us to forget about the fun aspects of riding bicycles. Most of us started riding bicycles because it was fun and our competitive natures pushed us to compete on our bikes. Mountain biking leads us back to trails, keeps our brains engaged picking good lines on technical sections of these trails, and usually leads us to mud; and everyone knows that getting muddy is fun.

If you want to be as functional as possible in your off season, lifting weights is also a good thing to take up at the end of your season. Weight lifting is something you should talk with your coach or trainer about as you can very easily injure yourself lifting. Lifting weights should also incorporate the same movements that your cycling discipline does.

When starting to rebuild your overall fitness and transitioning into the off season, it is important to break up the rhythm of your training to include cross training and conditioning in a fun environment. Allowing your body to rest and recover from anaerobic efforts is important. Allowing your mind to rest from pushing yourself to accomplish your workouts is also very important. Training comes in building cycles. All building cycles whether weekly, monthly, or yearly should include rest periods.

Our long term goals as athletes should include rest, recovery, and relaxation at the end of a long season and taking that time will renew our inner drive. I am writing this blog post from Monterey, California, where I just took a few days off to relax, read books, and ride a mountain bike on beautiful Fort Ord, and believe me, I got muddy.

If you want to take your training to the next level, let the coaches at Crank Cycling know. We can help you meet whatever training goals you have!
See you on the road,
Coach Jesse Eisner

Podcast interview with Team Type 1's James Stout

I just recently sat down with one of Crank Cycling's coached athletes, James Stout, for an interview about his 2010 season. We talked about RAAM, Superweek, Belgium, soft boiled eggs and Marmite.


We did a little ride before our interview,



and then poured a home-brew only to find that my microphone wasn't working. However we did some planning for the coming 2011 season and had a great photo shoot in the process. We recorded our interview over Skype phone 2 days later.


Home-brew Pour


Planning for 2011


Soft boiled eggs and vegimite yum!

You can check out the Pod Cast here: http://www.crankcycling.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/James-Stout-Interview.m4a

It's time for Speed

June and July are the peak months for most racing seasons throughout the US. Most championship races are held in these months, including Junior, under 23, elite senior, and masters nationals. Some state championships also take place at this time of year. This means peaking, tapering, and speed leading into these months are key. All of these are accomplished by lessening time and duration in your workouts, while increasing intensity and effort.

These changes in your workout can be as simple as removing a long ride and adding more sprints, or by pacing with a motor and incrementally increasing the speed until your peak.

An important component to these efforts is having rest days so your legs recover, as well as phasing in new exercises gradually so as not to incur injury.

One of the efforts I have my athletes do are 30 second speed intervals. These 30-second bursts are followed by a 2-5 minute rest and repeated.

Efforts in races at the height of the season are usually shorter and repeated often. By this time in the season, most riders are fit from training and racing and want to show off that fitness by attacking over and over again.

Riding in this aggressive manner splits the race fields in half, thins out the weaker riders, and helps us drop our friends on the Saturday club ride.

If you need help designing a training program that can increase your speed, we at Crank Cycling can help you. Shoot us an email. Let’s see what we can accomplish together.


Cheers,
Coach Jesse

1st Annual Blue Trolley Criterium July 3rd

Come join us for the first annual Blue Trolley Criterium. It should be a great day of racing.





You can register at: http://www.socalreg.com/

Teaching at the San Diego Velodrome

I have an affinity for cycling. I started riding when I was 19 and was hooked on speed, long miles, cornering, and the freedom of escaping up a mountain on my bike. It is an amazing feeling to tip your bike over in a corner, leaning in to the asphalt. Pushing the pace, pushing the speed, every corner a little faster, a little further. Cycling has helped me to focus my mind at important times in my life. It has been a reprieve from stress and a confidence booster. Cycling even brings me joy and exhilaration.

It is an amazing feeling to help other riders, young and old, to find that same joy and focus in cycling. I have been an instructor as part of the adult program at the San Diego Velodrome for 3 years now. I have recently started teaching the junior track program for the velodrome. It is amazing to see the small faces accomplish new skills and feel rewarded by their efforts. I am happy to encourage new and young riders to join the ranks of cyclists who are seeking a challenge and pushing themselves towards excellence. If you want to learn more about the programs that the San Diego Velodrome offers for adults or children www.sdvelodrome.com

Cheers
Coach Jesse