Hike a few miles up a glacier. It's great cross-training!
Last Sunday I finished my first week of my winter training program. I got 9 hours in! A great start to a winter that hopefully has me ripping by April for my first races (training criteriums in Saco). There is NO way I could have completed 9 hours a year or two ago without completely having my body cave in, but with three years of good mileage (I snuck in over 5,300 miles in 08, 3500 in 07 and 2500 in 06. These miles do not include the running, Nordic skiing, snowshoeing that I include in my lifestyle. Cross training is the key to keeping fresh for me) and training with structure has my legs feeling great and my heart rate in the 40's (waking HR, first thing in the morning).
I rode six days last week with minimum rides of 60 minutes and max of 2 hours a pop. All training rides were completed in Zone 2 Heart Rate (HR) overall with some bouts of intensity that got the HR up to zone 3 and 4. Zone 2 for me is about 140-150 beats per minute (bpm) and zone 3 is about 150-160 bpm. To put it in perspective, my time trial (TT) HR is about 176-179 bpm. This is the intensity I can hold with consistent power for the duration of a 15-18 mile race. It is intense, challenging and quite painful and yet fun. I know, I'm sick. Anyway, Most of the 9 hours was completed at about 140-145 bpm and I did a few minutes of high speed pedaling, getting my cadence (rpms) up around 110-120 rpms for about 3 minutes at a time. This is done in an easy gear so my HR doesn’t get up over 155bpm. Also I did a few "power stomps" where I get to a standstill and then push as hard as I can in the biggest gear I have for 10 seconds to build some strength and power. I get out of the seat (hence forth known as the "saddle") stomp hard for a few revolutions and then sit down for the last few seconds. It’s not really a sprint because the first few rpm's are so slow. It's a meant to be a power builder. Sunday was a 2 hour ride with 45 minutes of "tempo" work. I completed this with 45 minutes of continues riding in zone 3 and my average HR for this was 155bpm. For the 2 hours it was 143bpm. The tempo work will hopefully increase my "cruising" speed where I can go fast without putting much pressure on the peddles.
As long as I keep the easy spin days REALLY easy and get plenty of rest and fuel before and eat well during recovery, I think I can keep up the hours. Week 2 two will be 9.5 to 10 total hours, again in zone 2. The higher intensities will came in late Feb. and March when I have a super strong aerobic engine (cycle speak for “wicked fit"). I'll get some pictures of me on the trainer so you can see just how nutty it looks.
I rode six days last week with minimum rides of 60 minutes and max of 2 hours a pop. All training rides were completed in Zone 2 Heart Rate (HR) overall with some bouts of intensity that got the HR up to zone 3 and 4. Zone 2 for me is about 140-150 beats per minute (bpm) and zone 3 is about 150-160 bpm. To put it in perspective, my time trial (TT) HR is about 176-179 bpm. This is the intensity I can hold with consistent power for the duration of a 15-18 mile race. It is intense, challenging and quite painful and yet fun. I know, I'm sick. Anyway, Most of the 9 hours was completed at about 140-145 bpm and I did a few minutes of high speed pedaling, getting my cadence (rpms) up around 110-120 rpms for about 3 minutes at a time. This is done in an easy gear so my HR doesn’t get up over 155bpm. Also I did a few "power stomps" where I get to a standstill and then push as hard as I can in the biggest gear I have for 10 seconds to build some strength and power. I get out of the seat (hence forth known as the "saddle") stomp hard for a few revolutions and then sit down for the last few seconds. It’s not really a sprint because the first few rpm's are so slow. It's a meant to be a power builder. Sunday was a 2 hour ride with 45 minutes of "tempo" work. I completed this with 45 minutes of continues riding in zone 3 and my average HR for this was 155bpm. For the 2 hours it was 143bpm. The tempo work will hopefully increase my "cruising" speed where I can go fast without putting much pressure on the peddles.
As long as I keep the easy spin days REALLY easy and get plenty of rest and fuel before and eat well during recovery, I think I can keep up the hours. Week 2 two will be 9.5 to 10 total hours, again in zone 2. The higher intensities will came in late Feb. and March when I have a super strong aerobic engine (cycle speak for “wicked fit"). I'll get some pictures of me on the trainer so you can see just how nutty it looks.
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