When a new client signs up for coaching with Cycle-Smart it almost never fails that they're shocked and concerned with the lack of anaerobic and other high-intensity intervals in their training program. Other than sprint workouts, for the first 4-12 weeks of the season the hardest interval they're asked to do is just below threshold. It takes a large amount of trust as it seems counter-intuitive; if you want to get faster, you have to train as long, hard, and often as possible, right? Trying to get them to take a new approach can be difficult.Many of my articles revolve around the importance of base training, rest, and recovery. These are the foundations and framework of deep, solid ...
A Case for Base
"Base training" is a phrase that gets tossed around quite a bit, but it's important to pinpoint and understand what base training actually is, and what your goals and intentions are with it. The old school says lots of long, easy miles in the winter. "Ride lots," as Merckx is often credited as saying. But what good is being able to finish a 6-hour ride if you get dropped on the first climb of your first race, or if your longest race is only 3 hours, and most are an hour or less? Some riders will take the opposite approach. In their haste to be race-ready, and perhaps limited to the trainer in winter weather and limited daylight, they will flog themselves with high-intensity interval ...
The Cycles of Cycling
Athletic training of any kind is a process of stressing a system, letting it recover and adapt to the stress, and then stressing it again at a higher level. This cycle of training exists at every level; from intervals and recovery in a single workout to a hard season of racing followed by a rest in the fall or winter. Even on the largest scale, you often see riders who miss a season due to injury and come back the following year stronger than they were before they stopped. Can you imagine taking a rest season?Seeing your training in this pattern of repetitive components can help you plan from top to bottom and find a rhythm as you execute it. It's no different than those fractal art ...
Choosing a Coach
Hey, I know how this looks. Here I am, a professional coach, telling you all the reasons why I think you should hire one. It's not exactly disinterested science on my part. The benefit of having a coach is only part of what I want to focus on here, though. Primarily, I'd like to discuss what you should look for if you choose to hire a coach, and further, whether you need on in the first place. As a coach, I'll put my biases and self-interest upfront for you so you don't have to read between the lines.Before you consider coaching, the first step is to define who you are as rider and what you're trying to get out of the sport. What are your goals, if you've set any in the first place? ...
Jersey, Shoes, Shorts, Helmet, License
Before I travel to a race, I have a mantra that I've been repeating to myself since I was a junior: "jersey shoes shorts helmet license; jersey shoes shorts helmet license." I say it a few times as I load up my bag, put everything in the car, and again as I'm driving away from home or where ever I’m staying. It's a basic list of all the things I really can't be without at the race. Everything that's not on this list I can likely borrow without difficulty or without negatively affecting my performance, (though the last thing I might want to wear is someone else's shorts.) And while technology means you might carry your phone to registration rather than a paper license, it's still good ...
Surviving the Trainer
For most of us, the enjoyment in cycling isn't just the essence of training. It's about being outside, seeing different roads and landscapes, and the actual racing. For those who prefer playing sports to "working out," riding the trainer in the winter can be the pinnacle of drudgery. It may be more fun to ride outside in 33 degrees and rain than strap yourself to a machine indoors.At the same time, if you work long hours or live in a winter climate with cold, short days and dangerous, difficult road conditions, riding the trainer is a necessary part of your early season preparation, and one you'll need to make the best of. It doesn't have to be all pain and misery, though, if you take ...
How Much Warm-Up
One thing many working-class racers are looking for is to simplify their training. They want straightforward, direct answers to their training questions and concrete solutions to their challenges. In line with that, one of the most common requests I get as a coach is for a set, simple warm-up routine that will work every time. The problem of course is that there are no easy answers and concrete solutions, and there is no magic warm up routine that will work for everyone. That said, it is still possible through trial, error, and science, to develop a routine that will work for you based on an evaluation of situational conditions.How you warm up for an event will depend on a number of ...
Mountain Bike Race Pre-Riding: Inspecting and Opening for Race Day
Author: Serena Bishop GordonThere is a lot of talk these days about marginal gains; incremental improvements that over time add up to more significant increases in performance. These can come from changes in training, diet, equipment, or race preparation, for example. Gains from training and diet can take time to play out, while gains from equipment choices can be expensive. But gains from race preparation are quick to realize, cost nothing, and are often overlooked. If you are a mountain bike racer, part of race preparation is previewing the course. Pre-riding when done effectively and efficiently will give you confidence, leave you fresh, and set you up for a great race.The ...
Why Do You Race?
A few years ago a client came to me with a difficult but common question. She was having some challenges in her life outside of cycling, and it was making it difficult for her to maintain her focus and motivation for another season of racing. At the same time, her racing goals were important to her and she did not want to give them up. The advice she sought had nothing to do with how to train or what intervals to do because her problems were existential, not physiological. So, she asked me, why do I race? What is it that keeps me in the sport year after year? And what could she do to keep that spark? It's not an easy thing to explain. Much like being in love with a person, you ...
Evaluating your Year
The Roman god Janus was often depicted with two faces because he could look forward and backward at the same time. His role in Roman society was as a household deity who presided over gates, openings, and doorways, was able to see the future and the past, and has lived on in our culture as a symbol of new beginnings. The month of January is thought to be named in his honor.Janus is an important image here because many of us are about to embark or perhaps have just started our training for the upcoming season. I've written articles here before about how to periodize and plan for the new year. What Janus reminds us is that while we're looking ahead and making a new start, we also have to ...