Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Pre-Reg for Open CX Clinic on September 6th. Ends August 29th!
Pre-registration for the Happy Toes Coaching Cross Skills Clinic on September 6th. This will update to the regular registration price ($40) on Saturday September 30th.
Pre-Reg for Sept 27th Women's CX Clinic
This is the link to reg for the Women's CX clinic on September 27th.
Saturday, July 26, 2014
August 16th Women's CX clinic.
It's over. You missed out on all the fun. But you can still sign up for another clinic!
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
"I can't do that groupride, I'm putting in base."
I mentioned base miles a few posts ago. So every racer has an idea as to what base miles look like. People talk about LSD (long, slow, distance) riding, putting in huge miles without ever seeing the big ring. Just, as it is said, ride lots. More is better, but not necessarily harder at this time of year.
But how long should you really ride? How many miles? At what intensity? The answers to those questions are, unfortunately, highly individual based on your racing level, goals, and available time. A good guideline is to consider annual training hours, as described by Joe Friel (he literally wrote the book on this). When you do this, consider the annual and weekly training hours you put in last year, then look at what you're goals are this year. Are you trying to upgrade? From 4 to 3? 3 to 2? Each of those will require a different level of minimum commitment, can you fit in the 12 hours per week minimum average that a cat 2 racer should be putting in? If the answer is no, you may have some troubles making that upgrade.
But I digress. Let's talk about base.
Aerobic base is built early in the season with longer efforts, most typically in the 20 minute range. Hunter and Allen are all about those. When done right these efforts will stimulate slow twitch muscles to increase mitochondria count, be more responsive to neural stimulation, and increase intracellular glycogen stores. Sounds pretty awesome, right? What will this do for you? It will lay the foundation for your peak season pedal smashing.
So what's the downside? It takes a long time to properly build base fitness, and you have to do long efforts to get there. For those of you who are already time trialists and climbers, this will be your favorite part of the training progression. For those of you who are sprinters or crit specialists, this may be your least favorite. To you I say, convince yourself that you love these efforts. If you can use power when doing them, all the better. At least then you can track any gains you make, no matter how minute. I found it incredibly rewarding when I could squeak out an extra 4 watts for a 20 minute average, something you can't tell with heart rate alone.
Now, if you live in California, like me, you have three options this time of year: focus on cross (I recommend this, if only because my annual training plan is built around the CX season), chill out and have a single peak road season when you start putting in base miles in February like most of the country does, or start getting it in now so you can have a marvelous two peak season and get to smash pedals twice times in 2014.
Happy riding.
But how long should you really ride? How many miles? At what intensity? The answers to those questions are, unfortunately, highly individual based on your racing level, goals, and available time. A good guideline is to consider annual training hours, as described by Joe Friel (he literally wrote the book on this). When you do this, consider the annual and weekly training hours you put in last year, then look at what you're goals are this year. Are you trying to upgrade? From 4 to 3? 3 to 2? Each of those will require a different level of minimum commitment, can you fit in the 12 hours per week minimum average that a cat 2 racer should be putting in? If the answer is no, you may have some troubles making that upgrade.
But I digress. Let's talk about base.
Aerobic base is built early in the season with longer efforts, most typically in the 20 minute range. Hunter and Allen are all about those. When done right these efforts will stimulate slow twitch muscles to increase mitochondria count, be more responsive to neural stimulation, and increase intracellular glycogen stores. Sounds pretty awesome, right? What will this do for you? It will lay the foundation for your peak season pedal smashing.
So what's the downside? It takes a long time to properly build base fitness, and you have to do long efforts to get there. For those of you who are already time trialists and climbers, this will be your favorite part of the training progression. For those of you who are sprinters or crit specialists, this may be your least favorite. To you I say, convince yourself that you love these efforts. If you can use power when doing them, all the better. At least then you can track any gains you make, no matter how minute. I found it incredibly rewarding when I could squeak out an extra 4 watts for a 20 minute average, something you can't tell with heart rate alone.
Now, if you live in California, like me, you have three options this time of year: focus on cross (I recommend this, if only because my annual training plan is built around the CX season), chill out and have a single peak road season when you start putting in base miles in February like most of the country does, or start getting it in now so you can have a marvelous two peak season and get to smash pedals twice times in 2014.
Happy riding.
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