Velonews article

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Permalink Reply by Sydney Brown on October 28, 2008 at 10:31am

Probably hard to choose, but going to guess the latter. Joking.

You didn't post a link to the article you read, but any time you are stressing your body to trigger adaptation, you're tearing stuff up on purpose so as to induce your body to build itself back stronger, but in order for it to do so, you have to give it recovery time. Not doing so will result in a plateau, or even weakening.

Case in point.... The Nature Valley Grand Prix about killed me. Enormous training load day after day. By the last day, and for a couple of days afterwards, there was no way to reach normal power levels. However, a week or so later, what a fabulous fitness boost. Hit numbers I'd barely glimpsed to that point in the season. Of course, recovery doesn't have to be a day off the bike. You can just do a light ride to keep your legs loose and practice your spin.

When I'm doubling up on consecutive weekends, my coach has me take M & Tue lite, Wed hard, Th lite, Fri special pre-race ride, then go race. I'm pretty happy with how it's working. Joe Friel has a good post on recovery.

Permalink Reply by Patrick Angell on October 28, 2008 at 10:44am

The article was in print, not sure its on the web.

I am glad that was the first thing you mentioned, my wussiness!

Not on the road but how do you compare your racing from weekend to weekend and will you need to take longer recovery in the middle of the season by making your weeks so packed?

Permalink Reply by David Hutton on October 28, 2008 at 11:25am

Patrick,

your concern is not uncommon. A large part of the impact is how many miles are in your legs also. Do you ride on the road? If so did you take a break after the season?

I do an entire road season take a short break and start building for cross... The importance with the workouts your doing for cross is that they aren't as dependant on such a large base as the road. For me my base period for road needs to be huge because I race pro 1,2 races all season. Without preparing my body for the length of the racing I will be doing, I wouldnt make it. For cross you need to understand that that "typical" training is not what cross is about. The majority of your week will be divided as follows:
Monday: off day/ rest (at most 45 minute spin to loosen the legs after a weekend of racing)
Tuesday: Lengthy ride if possible (2-3 hours for me possibly with some tempo 30 minutes or so)- Maybe do a semi-long ride with a decent run. 30 minutes with some 20 second sprints.
wednesday: 2-2.5 hrs. Tends to be the hardest day (top end work. 10-15 minute zone four threshold intervals normally 2x' whatever time.) It is important you roll your body into these workouts. Dont just jump in with 2 or 3 15 min threshold intervals or you will fry your legs. Start with one ten minute, build to two the following week, then a fifteen, build to two. I am sure you get the picture.
thursday: will eighter be another lengthy ride with tempo (20-30 minutes) or a day of hard standing starts or 30 second high end workouts. 30 seconds max effort 30 seconds recovery, then thirty seconds hard, then recover and repeat. Normally I start at 7-10 minutes of those building weekly until you reach 15 minutes of 30x30's. Again be sure your eating and recovering well after these efforts, they do more dammage than you may think if you dont recover propperly.
friday: hour-1.5. Normally I throw in some 20-30 second sprints, and 5-10 minutes of tempo, then the remainder of the ride is spinnnnnnning. It's good to remind your legs they are about to race in the morning.
Sat/Sun: race.

repeat. This is just what the majority of my weeks look like. Again, you have to assess not only where you are NOW, but where you have BEEN from the season. I am starting to fade and am taking a rest week this week. Little spurts of intensity but for the most part short easy rides. I am just giving you an idea of what my coach and I do for our athletes. This isn't individual like our coaching is but it is a good cookie cutter. Basically you want to round your training for cross by stressing what you will use in a race. Short bursts, 5-15 minute efforts at high end, and strong tempo. Look at any cross race you do, 95.5% of the race is doing one of the three. Either sprinting out of turns, putting in a hard effort to drop the group your in, or to bridge to another group, and then being able to recover from those efforts at tempo so you don't get dropped after you catch on the group..... hope this helps.

I know it's a little vegue but how in depth can you get in a few minutes. It's just a very brief very rough cookie cutter of what a typical week normally looks like. Between Mondays rest day (which i take completely off the bike) and fridays easy day you should get the recovery you need. If you head out on the tuesday longer tempo ride and still feel fried, spin for an 1.5 hours don't do the efforts and make sure your recovered for the wednesday top end efforts. Those are some of the most important for cross... you don't have to have HUGE lengthy power for a half hour or hour long race, but being able to really turn yourself inside out for half of the race will really benefit you.

If you want to chat more in depth about this feel free to contact me. huttondh AT gmail.com or just hit me up a private message on here.

Again I know this is brief. I promise it is doable. Any questions feel free to ask!

Permalink Reply by JB on October 28, 2008 at 12:15pm

H.T.F.U. !!!

Permalink Reply by Albino on October 28, 2008 at 2:21pm

I need an acronym dictionary for dummies. Is there such a book in print?

HTFU??

Permalink Reply by Andrew Coe on October 28, 2008 at 2:35pm

http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/HTFU

Permalink Reply by Albino on October 28, 2008 at 6:38pm

OMG. : )

You've got to be kidding, there actually is one!?

Thanks, BTW. : )