telebianchi

I'll be off work from Friday June 29 through Sunday July 8. Aside from painting some house trim, putting in some Pergo flooring, washing the car & drinking a glass of wine or three, how should I use the time?

More specifically, here are my current goals:

• Lose weight ... shooting for 1.5 lbs a week (have already dropped 8 since getting my food & exercise habits back on line a couple weeks ago.)
• Get better/stronger/faster at climbing hills. This has two parts:
  +: More power. Most of my climbing this year has been seated. I can get up the hills but have no power or pop in my legs when doing so.
  +: I've signed up for Civil War Century in September. These are definitely longer/bigger climbs than I've done in the past.
• Cyclocross season is just around the corner. I've done two races each of the past two years but would like to improve on this. My bike handling skills are passible for my race class but I get crushed trying to keep up that level of speed for 40 minutes.

I feel I'm done with base training this year with about 1600 miles already done. That includes a century and several 70+ mile rides and 150 over two days.

So what would you do with the free time?

gregf83 

Volume. Ride every day and do a long 3+ hrs every third day. Follow the long ride with an easy 1-1.5 hr ride, maybe on the cyclocross bike. Follow the easy ride with a 2 hr ish ride with some intervals. If you haven't been doing any intervals then start with 2 or 3 10-15min at a threshold pace with 5 min rest between intervals. If you have access to hills, do your intervals on the hills.
1 Long 3 hrs endurance pace
2 Easy
3 Intervals 3 x 10min @ threshold
4 Long 3.5 hrs endurance pace
5 Easy
6 Intervals 3 x 12min @ threshold
7 Off - Paint your house
8 Intervals 3 x 15min @ threshold
9 Long 4 hrs endurance pace
10 Easy
11 Intervals 2 x 20min @ threshold