Tuesday, May 20, 2008

I thought you might be interested?


I had a friend send me a message asking about my bike speed these days and what specific training I was doing to get my speed to where it is today. I thought it might be helpful for everyone to have an idea of what I have done.

My bike speed has gone from 12.9 mph in 2005 to over 22 mph today. Even earlier this year when I was only 30 lbs heavier than I am today I was still only averaging about 18.5 to 19 mph on the bike in races.

HERE IS WHAT I WROTE TO MY FRIEND SCOTT IN RESPONSE TO HIS QUESTION:


I do several things, or should say, I have done several things. I am sure the weight loss is the number n help, but as for training on the bike . . .

I would enjoy grabbing some chow at some point and covering it with you and then a ride, but that may be a couple weeks since the doctor is cutting me wide open tomorrow! Therefore, here goes . . .

1. build time in the saddle at VERY LOW HR. At the advice and direction of Rocko my coach, I spent October till January riding loops around River Road at Heart Rate no higher than 125, BUT BUT BUT!!! You need to find out your Max HR. I will help you do that too if you don't know it. Once you know it, then we can figure out your "green" zone or low HR and you ride at that HR for about 8 weeks 4 days a week at about 3 hours a ride, which was about 4 loops on RR for me. I saw my speed go from 13 mph to 17 mph ALL THE WHILE my HR was still no higher than 125.

2. Once I built the base I began adding once a week intervals. I would do one loop (about 10 miles) at my 125 to 135 HR. Then the second loop I would do, 3 minutes at "green" zone, then 2 minutes at max HR (which is about 171 for me) over and over for the next loop and then a third loop at "green" zone HR. I began doing this on one of my four days of riding, the other three days I continued LOW HR riding, not always below 135, sometimes I would get it up to 140, but never higher. I did this through Jan, so about 4 weeks.

3. I reduced my road training to 3 days (2 low HR days, one interval day) and ADDED a trainer day inside at the house. I did 30 minutes non-stop one foot drills which was - 5 min warm up regular cycling then, UN CLIP right foot and ride with ONLY left foot clipped for 1 minute HARD, re clip right foot and un clip left foot cycle with ONLY Right foot for one minute HARD, re clip left foot and ride easy for 3 minutes, REPAEAT one foot 3 more times (4 total) and cool down 5 minutes. It is hard at first to find balance with only one foot doing the work. I find it easiest to put the UN Clipped foot back on the actual trainer for balance, other people simply let their foot hang or dangle . . .

This is what I did through April and mid April have reduced my cycling to 3 days TOTAL, two on road - One day low HR, One day intervals and then one day on trainer doing one legged drills.

Recently, I have begun racking the miles at a LOW HR on my runs and in July I will begin interval work on my run.

I have surgery tomorrow to remove my gallbladder. I hope I don't lose too much of what I built over the last few months. Once I have recouped I am going to hit the bike hard for two to three weeks than back to building my run.

I hope this helps.

Being that you are in the middle of the season, you may want to move into the last phase of what I am doing now which is three days a week, two on road and one on a trainer (if you don't have a trainer go to the YMCA if you re a member and get on a stationary bike and do it) BUT I would suggest that when the season is over, take a few weeks to relax and don't do much of anything, then around Dec, begin from scratch as I did. I am going to do the same regiments this off season as well, but LONGER base building for my first Half IM in April.

Keep on truck'n brother and if I can do anything to help you, let me know!

Chris

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