Racer Ex 

The spectrum goes from gun-toting meth lab cooks to new age crystal pot farming hippies. Blowing past a "No Trespassing" sign could get you shot and buried or rolph'd and enlightened.

waterrockets 

Tempo this morning on the trainer, watched Fargo, so like 100 minutes.

mattm

i started a break, I think someone in the field called the cop to shut it down..

revchuck 

Talk about massive fail - .223 for boar? Gotta love folks with no muzzle awareness...

shovelhd

Wheel sucking sprinter starts a break? I'd call the cops too and have 'em alert USADA.

jmikami

Intervals for me vary by length. 2 x 20 min or 4 x 8 to 10 min or 6 x 2 to 5 min; longer breaks in the middle of each. With 1m and under I usually work them into other hard days and don't do many repeats with the exception of 30/30s. Those I typically only do as madisons and they are a great workout, anywhere from 10 minutes up to an hour of them. Likely the reason my sprint was off last year was the lack of sub 30 second intervals on my schedule, something I am starting to work into my schedule now.

I try and work 3 hard days in a week; 2 to 3 weeks a month. Hard days have a target IF of > 0.90 and are races, intervals or hard hill/speed work.

TexMac

Was late for team ride and by the time I got at meet point, saw them disappear in the horizon taking a different route.. I latched on another group, 20 miles in my seat post started sinking, had to stop and fix it. Got passed by another group, finished fixing the seat post and chased down the last group. Caught up with the group, recovered then started pulling till the first break. Got an emergency text, u- turn towards home. Got in 35 hard miles and not 65 I wanted.

spectastic

wild

grolby

Openers on the cross bike today. Wells Ave tomorrow, assuming it doesn't get called due to weather. I've got that restless feeling in my legs. Not sure if that means I'm going to be fast or just that I really want to race.

shovelhd

Have fun. I should be there next weekend.

grolby

Bah. Between when I woke up and when I went out the door, the race went from "It's on!" to "No police available, canceled." Lesson learned: make a final check before leaving. Maybe I'll do a long ride later today. Guess I'll see you there next weekend!

On the plus side, I got home in time to catch the last 40km or so of Liege-Bastogne-Liege.

furiousferret

For the most part yes. Where I live is at the tail end of the Los Angeles sprawl. We still have 2.1 million people within 25 miles of here but there's not much east of here. Actually just barren desert filled with meth labs and Indian Reservations.

People forget though that most of the state is farmland and wilderness, so yeah, a lot of rednecks.

mollusk

Different types of intervals exercise different "systems" that you need to race.

Here is my "Training for Dummies" version.

You didn't pay anything for this, so don't complain. I am not a coach. I have just been riding a LONG time.

2x20's (above FTP) and ZeCannon Intervals (also called ZCI intervals) are part of a scheme to increase functional threshold. 2x20's below FTP are designed as time crunched base training and I don't call them intervals. Others do and that is their right. Bread and butter stuff to get you to the end of the race, but not enough to win. Except for guys that are TT oriented in which case this is where they train forever to win TTs or you are so fit you can just ride away from everyone and stay away for a long time. Good luck with the later.

1 minute intervals (usually in sets of 10) are designed for building that ability to cover attacks and bridge small gaps without dragging the field behind you. If you are really good at this you can attack early (about 1 km from the finish) and catch everyone off guard toward the end of a race. If you know that you can't sprint no matter what you do you might want to do a lot of these to get good at it. Do them anyways because it can make you a valuable team mate that can cover attack after attack. Or attack multiple times yourself until you get one that sticks.

10 second intervals. Big gear and start slow. Do ten with 50 seconds between. You had better be certain your chain is in good shape before attempting these. And make sure that you are close to home when finishing the last one as it is a slow ride afterwards. It is like weight lifting on your bike. Concentrate on being able to turn the gear over quickly and getting a "jump" and not easing into it.

mollusk

Forgot that I came here to post my training status. Doh!

Finished with 6 days in a row for the first time in months. Started with my team, but it sounded like they were just going to be screwing around today. Instead I peeled off and led some cross continent riders through town and chatted with them. Then chased one of them down who was riding a "bent" with full fairings (that was not easy!), before wishing them well and headed home.

Rest day tomorrow.

spectastic

isn't anything below ftp considered spinning?

also what's 2x20, 20 on 20 off?

revchuck 

Nope. Working at different percentages of your FTP yields different benefits.

2x20s are usually two intervals of twenty minutes at FTP, separated by 5-10 minutes of recovery. There are variations of this as well.

furiousferret

More 1m intervals, more hurting.

Gramercy

10 mile commute to frisbee games - keeping my heart rate as close to 125-130bpm as possible, 3 hours of ultimate frisbee, then 10 mile ride home keeping my heart rate as close to 135bpm, but going up inclines made it rise to upper 140's. Guess I was trying to do recovery rides and recover first from my hard ride yesterday, then spinning home to keep myself from getting too sore this week.

shovelhd

That was not recovery.

Gramercy

It's pretty hard to go slower than I was unless I'm on completely flat ground. Are you suggesting I just do recovery rides on flat ground to keep my heart rate even lower? My average speed was 12mph, average cadence of 80

waterrockets 

3 hours of ultimate frisbee...

spectastic

mmmm I miss that game so much, played in college... but nearest place to find pickup is like 100 miles away


pretty sure all this cycling has done my vertical some good. hehe

shovelhd

Plus 20 miles of anything on the bike. Not recovery.

gsteinb

shakes head. face palms. shakes head again.

globecanvas

I do recovery races. 80 mile RRs typically, I try to just sit in the pack and coast as much as possible. Occasionally I have to climb a hill or sprint or something but I can usually keep average power in the low tempo range. That's OK, right?








[note: sarcasm]