Apart from eating too much prior to riding, I reckon most people don't warm up hard enough before doing intervals or sprints. The only times I've felt sick was when I didn't warm up properly, and/or ate too much. "Plodding" along with a HR at about 75% of maximum isn't enough of a warm-up; ya've gotta build up to it, with an effort or two around 80%, then 85%, etc. In fact, I like doing some sort of TT effort for at least 5 mins before doing any maximum intervals. Pros warm up for ages on an ergo before a TT or a prologue, building up to very hard efforts.


This may have been a less-than-ideal workout, coz I didn't really know what I was doing when I was 20, but when I was a young gung-ho track rider, I used to drive to the Carnegie Velodrome, do a 20 to 30 minute time-trial, followed by a couple of 3 to 5min intervals, and end with as many sprints as i could handle. I always felt fine doing this, but one day, for some reason, I decided to reverse the order, starting with some sprints after a short warm-up. Doing this make me feel like I was gunna chuck, just because I did the sprints after a shabby warm-up. It happened another couple of times before I realized I needed a hard warm-up before maximum efforts. I've never felt sick during intervals or sprints ever since.

Also, what course were you on? There's a massive difference between some slow-corner crits and doing The Hell Ride, especially if you're yo-yoing off the back