Road Cycling - Cheyenne Canyon Road

Man..we hit Cheyenne Canyon Road last wednesday and my legs are still barkin' at me. 3.2 miles, 1140 ft climb, avg 7% grade with one 12% stretch. I did, however, score my best time that day (21:04...Lance rides it in 14 min and Mari Holmes in 17:30...crazy!)...and finally crushed my buddy who has been spankin' me for years :-)

Can you spot where the climb begins ;-/

Impressive!!! I was also impressed with your time in the century at the Elephant Rock Ride. What type of training do you do?

djpluv: What program / HRM / bike computer combo did you use to create that graph?

Zack
(who thought his cateye MSC-3DX charts were cool, until now)

Training - I have a training package with CTS - been with them for 3 months now and have seen major improvements all around. I typically ride anywhere from 150-200 miles a week. Lots of steady state and tempo intervals...I live close to Black Forest, too, so all those hills really help with the training, too!

HRM - I use a Polar S720i (w/ the speed sensor hooked up) and use the polar software to generate the graphs for my workouts.

Perhaps, if I'm good, Santa will bring me a 720 with all of the goodies this Christmas :)

Which of the CTS training packages do you have?

Zack

Originally posted by ZackJones
Which of the CTS training packages do you have?

I have the Expert package - I was on Perform, but my coach moved up to Expert and I needed to upgrade to keep him. I wasn't interested in making any changes to my training with a new coach, so I figured the additional cost was worth it, as he has really helped me along over the last few months. He lives in town, too...so we get together for some rides every now and then - which is pretty cool.

What kinds of things are they having you do for CTS? (tries to get something for nothing haha)

Without giving too much away - it's more or less a pretty regular schedule of long rides, good recovery, and lots of different types of intervals - aimed to increase the aerobic engine and strengthen your legs. Thet got me riding 6 days/week with Monday's off. With a mix of road and mountain biking.

To be honest with you...if you checkout the "The Lance Armstrong Performance Program: Seven Weeks to the Perfect Ride" book...the workouts are pretty darn similar - hmmmm ;-)

With CTS, though, they customize the riding times and intensities to coincide with your fitness level. Every couple of months they got you running some TT's to gauge fitness level and stuff. Plus it is pretty cool to have someone calling you or emailing you to make sure you are doing what you need to be doing.

I'm tellin' ya, though...my cycling has exploded over the last 3 months alone from having a strict scheduled plan. Oh, and a good diet is key - I have lost about 20 pounds since March and now only have 148 pound to carry up Cheyenne Canyon. I'm spankin' my buddies now who have been punishing me for years now :-)

djpluv: I decided to take advantage of my Performance Bike club membership and signed up for a free month of training under the Excel program. I also get discounts after the first month is over if I continue the program.

I'm not sure if I'm going to try the fitness today or wait until next Monday when I get back into town.

Zack

ZackJones: Awesome! Let us now how your program works out!

I'm gonna resurrect this thread, disappointed with my time in the collegiate hill climb at the Oredigger classic this weekend i decided to head out to cheyenne canyon road today, just a hard effort, not quite all out and road my best time of 21:00, very excited, yet confused on what went wrong yesterday on lookout. Then a little plus, ran into Mike Creed of Team Discovery on my recovery spin