R5Ciclismo Club Ride - La Pata

This is our climbing ride.

We’ll be using the RnR ride to focus on breakaway jumps on both short climbs and the roundabout circuit.

Riding with Canyon Velo as a team. The emphasis is on visibility and being good ambassadors for the team and for the sport. We should keep tabs on each other and ride together whenever possible

Using the four corner loop at Great Park, the focus will be on paceline drills and smooth transitioning and pull through efforts. Intensity should replicate and Over/Under type of workout, with perhaps one or two 20/40 drills.

We’ll try to cover about 80 miles, focusing on keeping the pace for each individual around the upper end of zone 2 for those on the front. We’ll cover nutrition strategies, proper group riding etiquette and practice smooth paceline transitions.

This is our final exam before we conclude for our Christmas holiday break. What we'll do is conduct another 20 min FTP test to see how we've improved.  Already, I've had to change cue cards for some of us who have simply outgrown our old fitness levels and are metamorphosing into leaner, more powerful athletes.  

I've been coerced into doing a little chaperoning and making, by request, my beet quinoa salad.  

It's pretty typical to have what we can describe as training anxiety.  Sometimes it's psychologically difficult to NOT train.  You put into some consistent efforts and establish the frequency that is the hallmark of training, and there's reluctance to take a break.  We feel like we're cheating ourselves in some way, as if the momentum and improvement we've so diligently scraped together through suffering and persistence will all unravel if we take time off.  Don't worry.  Let me disabuse you of that notion.  Taking and extra day off on Tuesday, especially if you're legs are still a little heavy from the weekend, is not only acceptable....forgivable...understandable, it's essential. 

• 10 min W/U
• 20 min L2
• 20 min Paceline Drills @ L2/Tempo
• 10 min Cool Down 

Someone recently asked me about Chris Carmichael's book, the Time Crunched Cyclist, and what I thought of it.  Years ago I worked with a coach who was an advocate of what we now refer to as High Intensity Training.  It's effective.  It's proven.  It has scientific foundation for its efficacy.  It's also very hard, physically and psychologically.  It's unrealistic to make it the foundation of a year round training program.  It should be a component of a solid training plan, not the sole feature, which was the gist of my opinion of Carmichael and the book.  He identified and targeted a very specific marketing message.  But like a lot of trends that make their way into popular culture and are popularized by those who become identified with them, they tend to lose sight of the big picture.  A training plan that works seamlessly with a person's lifestyle, goals and schedule and directs long term improvement should have structure, but also balance and flexibility.  In other words, don't neglect the longer, steady state intervals, both at your threshold power and also sub-threshold/tempo. 

• 10 min W/U
• 20 min Tempo/L3
• 3x3 lap (6:30 min) L5 / 1 lap recovery
• 3x1/4 lap Seated Max / 3/4 lap L2/Tempo

I had to look it up, but I typically associate it with those slow days that come on the back half of summer, where there's that underlying anxiety about summer coming to an end.  For most of us, the racing season is over, we're salvaging the rest of our vacation time and dreading the shortening of days.  Look at it a different way.  Now's when you need to be training in earnest for those fall events and goals you really ought to be planning for.  It could be racing cyclocross.  Maybe it's that century ride you've been been wanting to do and invariably putting off.  Don't think.  Do.  What better way to begin to build that momentum than by doing something short and hard that, perhaps, you'd rather not do.  Nothing like accomplishing a short term act of self discipline to direct on the larger path of accomplishment. 

• 10 min W/U
• 20 min Tempo - last five minutes Threshold
• 5x1/2 lap (1:05-1:10) @ L6 / 1/2 lap recovery pace
• 20 min Paceline Drills
• 3x1/4 lap Seated Max

One of the things I truly enjoy about fitting cyclist to their bikes is the opportunity to talk at length with them.  Everyone has a story, and in the process spending three hours with someone, you do get to know them and their story pretty intimately.  When I find myself in the company of a fitting subject who is bright, worldly and has a lot to say, that's even better.  The ability of engage in good conversation is one of the prerequisites of the job....and a side benefit. 

I was working with this gentleman yesterday was really sharp and insightful, about a variety of things:  how the prevalence of doping in cycling...or baseball as another example...is subject to the ebbs and flows of its own internal culture and peer group,  how young athletes peak early because of overtraining and eventually burn out, and multitude of other things.  He displayed what I thought was a skilled bit of laterally agile thinking when he described the bicycle culture and experience to its own kind of crucible.  I delighted in the reference because I actually got it.

 Having taught English in what now seems like another lifetime to high school kids, I do remember my Arthur Miller, and can understand how social pressure, the pressure of of peers, culture and circumstance force us to show our true nature and true character - good and bad.  He went on to describe this as one of the attractions of cycling, and cycling long distances and pushing himself both physically and psychologically.  In a group ride we can see how different personalities emerge and how each person responds to stress and the competitive impulse.

I would take the analogy a step further.  Our excellence and achievement is formed in a crucible of discomfort, one we willingly choose.  Raw materials enter, and through the process of heat and pressure, something stronger emerges.  Welcome to the crucible.

• 10 min W/U
• 20 min Tempo/Threshold
• 5x1/2 lap (1:05 min) L6 / 1/2 lap L1
• 20 min Over/Under Paceline Drills
• 3x1/4 lap Seated Max @ 90-100 RPM

I don't mean to keep touting high intensity intervals as gospel.  Yes, they're effective - very effective.  The downside is:  they're not necessarily enjoyable, which is putting it mildly.  Let's put it frankly:  they're hard.  Perhaps short interval training needs better a better PR image.  Another term for them is Low Volume Interval Training - let's say LoVIT for short.  That's more catchy. 

• 10 min W/U
• 20 mim L3
• 5x1/2 Lap (1:05 min) @ L6
• 20 min L3/L4
• 3x1/4 lap Seated Max

What is "Meh?"  Oh, we've been there.  If there isn't an actual word, "meh," in the English dictionary,  then perhaps, to mirror the overall slangification trend (another made up word),  there ought to be.  Although it would seem to be the antithesis of clear language used to convey meaning, it is actually quite powerful.  You could say it means ambivalence, a lack of enthusiasm; a certain ennui towards things or experiences that would otherwise command a more descriptive string of adjectives.  Although all could be considered synonymous,  they're too narrow and precise.  The importance of "Meh" is in what it doesn't say.  "How do you feel today?"   "Meh."  "Are you riding today?"  "Meh."  

We're getting into that Meh time of year.  Racing season might be over or winding down.  Your enthusiasm for getting fit in the Spring has waned.  It's hot.  Your legs are tired.  You lack clear direction and focus for applying your limited energy.  Now's one of those times where the resolve to face down Meh, to confront Meh is tested.  That doesn't mean you have to keep training at certain level.  You can make a conscious decision to reduce intensity or take a day off. You just have to make sure it is a decisive decision, not one made by Meh.  Training is a long process.  Look towards your larger goals. For example, are you thinking of doing some cross racing?   Well, now's the time to start training.  Are you a little run down?  Plan a midsummer taper before you begin to ramp up the training. Think long term, and decide how what you do today will impact those long term objectives.

• 10 min W/U
• 20 min Tempo Steady State
• 20 min Over/Under Paceline Drills
• 3x 1/4 lap Seated Max Efforts

Life is governed by an extent to a constant realtionship of checks and balances, homeostasis, equilibrium.  As it pertains to this thing we do on two wheels, improving our cycling fitness through endurance training, let's use the Hans Selye General Adaptation Theory:  you are exposed to an external environmental stressor, your body goes through an alarm response; your body eventually adapts to those stressors to make them less stressful.  At some point you experience exhaustion if the continued stressors exceed your ability to adapt.  Yes.  Yes, and recovery are an important part of the this cycle, too.  Going with a planned recovery week helps, such as the three week on, one week off pattern.  Or....if you just feel spent and fatigued, your heart rate is higher, your power is lower, simply take it easier; take an extra day off from the weekend.   High intensity intervals are hard.  They take a lot out of you.  You need to recover with lower intensity training.   

• 10 min W/U
• 20 min L2/L3
  • 1 lap L1
• 20 min L3/Tempo
• 1x:30 (1/4 lap) Hard Seated
•  

We should all be a little more tolerant.  But, for the moment, let's separate social issues from training issues.  By tolerance, what I'm referring to is lactate tolerance....although the notion that lactate is the cause of aerobic fatigue is outdated.  It's more complex than that, but we'll save that for later.  You know the feeling though - you're legs start to burn and ache, breathing shoots through the roof, you slow down...and you feel ruined for subsequent efforts.  We have have to go anaerobic in the course of our riding and racing.  It's the ability to tolerate those efforts and come back for more that define fitness as much as that steady state because, after all, no actual ride is truly steady state.  Oh, and short hard efforts have a whole host of additional aerobic benefits.  

So:

• 10 Min W/U
• 20 min Tempo
• 5x1 lap (2:05)  / 1/2 lap recovery
• 5x1/2 lap / 1/2 lap recovery
• 20 min Paceline Practice

It's been three weeks of doing these, and I've started out conservatively with relatively fewer reps, and I'm definitely noticing a difference.  I feel stronger, like I can hold higher power, get up Live Oak Canyon Road a little faster and not fade completely going over The Wall.  These help!  One thing I think I've noticed as I've - and I'm loath to say it - gotten a little older, is that I don't quite have that short term power, that punchiness that allows a rider to bridge that gap and recover or get over those rollers with the same emphatic cadence.   These definitely help.  Tempo and Steady State are still part of the menu, which today is:

• 10 min W/U
• 8 laps Tempo/L4 Steady State
• 1 lap L1 Recovery
• 5x1 lap (2:05) @ L5/L6 / 1/2 lap Recovery
• 3x1/2 lap (1:03) @ L6 / 1/2 lap Recovery
• 10 laps (20 min) L4 Paceline Drills

Time to get started.  Maybe you're training up to this point has been adequate, but ...let's just say, "unstructured."  For the next three months, I'll be instituting some structure.  We all need it. 

The specific intervals and drills will focus primarily on developing increased lactate tolerance, strength endurance and increasing your steady state threshold power. 

Additionally, I will divide the session into two parts:  high intensity or short intevals and paceline drills.  The short intervals can be divided into different combinations of work and rest durations based on the course.  For example, there are lines that divide Skypark Circle, which is a one mile loop, into 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 length segments.  This roughly corresponds to time durations of around 35 seconds to 1 minute to 2+ minutes...depending how fast you are.  With these, I tell you what to do and you go.  Staying together as a group is, at least for these, isn't required.  In fact, you need to be doing your own best effort, which means you're on your own...at least for a while. 

However, the second part of these session IS cooperative.  It's a skill building endeavor.  Do you want to master the technique of staying in a paceline?  This is where we stay together and work together as a collective team - regardless of your relative ability.  

Our Sample workout today:

1. 1. 10 min Paceline W/U @ 22 MPH
2. 3x 1/2 lap Front Side to Back Side / 1/2 lap recovery
3. 10 min Paceline @ 23 MPH
4. 10 min Paceline @ 24 MPH
5. 3x1/4 lap Seated Max efforts (Front or Wind Side)

With more of a focus on steady state efforts, these are designed to raise your threshold power and the ability to focus on maintaining a hard effort.  Interval duration usually last upwards of 10-60 minutes at a prescribed intensity.