O
Off The Back
Guest
Ryan Cousineau wrote:
>I have two goals right now:
>
> -Lose a huge amount of weight
> -up the wattage
The good news is that by doing the former the right way, you will
undoubtedly also get the latter for free.
And by the right way, I simply mean keep a good diet. "Eat food, not too
much, mostly plants" -- Ben Franlin. (Don't forget that hops are plants!)
And with your additional riding, you'll run a small calorie deficit, so that
by CX season you'll have shed most of that extra weight.
> I'm mostly interested in sprint bursts of power, since every race I ever
> won, I won from a sprint, and this Fall I'll probably start riding track.
More good news... training your sprint is fast and easy (relative to upping
your aerobic power or anaerobic capacity). Despite what Robert says, do one
sprint work-out a week with 10-15 full-out bursts of 10-15 seconds each with
adequate recovery in-between. Takes less than an hour. As long as you still
have at least 5-10 hours a week for your high-aerobic-zone work, then work
on your sprint also, if for no other reason than it will be fun when you go
around Burnaby really fast.
> Here's a typical training, er, plan:
>
> -multi-modal commute halfway across town, 25ish km in multiple sections.
> Because of the hills and the timing, I have to ride faster than slow to
> get to the crit on time.
> -yes, crit: ride Cat 4 crit until I explode spectacularly, and then keep
> riding until I get lapped or show signs of endangering the sprint.
> -ride home in a very screwed-up state, probably have to stop for a
> drink. This ride reverses the commute, but the hills are more favorable.
>
> The goal is to do a fairly long ride that will burn fat, but to throw
> enough high-HR riding in that I build power. Is it dumb to combine these
> activities? Is it dumber than not doing one or the other at all?
I don't know what you mean by fairly long, but as Ben Franklin also once
said, "Fat burns best in a hot flame", meaning you actually burn more fat at
higher power output. You'll have to experiement to find your own... ,err,
sweet spot, where you do the most work (in the physics sense) for your
entire training session, ...if the goal is to burn fat.
> I'm certainly in such a state, physically, right now that any serious
> riding is likely to help, but I don't want to be doing some sort of
> ridiculous physiological suicide that will be totally counterproductive
> (as, for example, I suspect long rides at 25 km/h would be. Junk miles
> ho!)
If you have limited time, 25 kph rides are indeed junk, unless you need them
for recovery. Koach K is korrect that you need easy recovery rides, but only
after you've really taxed yourself with your hard rides.
> I will also try to pack in a few dedicated sessions of riding hard,
> 60-90s intervals uphill (3 sets of 3 to start), since that has
> historically made me strong fast.
Personally, I wouldn't do those until your threshold W/kg has started to
level off. If you do these 60-90 sec intervals all-out, they can really
compromise your training for several days afterward. On the other hand, if
you actually enjoy these kind of intervals, then you either aren't doing
them hard enough, or you are sick in the head.
> Finally, are my training goals ridiculous?
No.
> Am I sabotaging the CX season with my devotion to intervals,
> when I should just work on hour-power or something?
No. Whether you do those 60-90 second intervals, or aerobic-threshold work
(e.g., sweet-spot training), you will improve substantially.
> Is training for both CX and sprinting purely hopeless?
Unless you are training your sprint to beat Andrew Randell or Zach Bell,
then it shouldn't consume much of your time or energy, so it won't interfere
with CX.
> I don't see a lot of peloton-ing happening at the front end of local "B"
> CX races, but then I don't see a lot of the front of those races, period.
....which is precisely why improving your threshold W/kg will get you to the
front of those races.
BTW, I'm NOT saying that you can't fine-tune your fitness toward one kind of
event versus another; you can, as I suggested here:
http://marcofanelli.blogspot.com/2008/01/designing-bike-racer.html
....but as I wrote in the follow-up, until you've dropped the extra weight,
it doesn't really matter:
http://marcofanelli.blogspot.com/2008/01/continuing-discussion.html
...which I got a lot of flack for, and some emails both nasty and
supportive, the best comment was from Ben Franklin: "Bike racing is not
healthy. But if you want to go fast, here's what to do."
Good luck Ryan!
Mark
http://marcofanelli.blogspot.com
>I have two goals right now:
>
> -Lose a huge amount of weight
> -up the wattage
The good news is that by doing the former the right way, you will
undoubtedly also get the latter for free.
And by the right way, I simply mean keep a good diet. "Eat food, not too
much, mostly plants" -- Ben Franlin. (Don't forget that hops are plants!)
And with your additional riding, you'll run a small calorie deficit, so that
by CX season you'll have shed most of that extra weight.
> I'm mostly interested in sprint bursts of power, since every race I ever
> won, I won from a sprint, and this Fall I'll probably start riding track.
More good news... training your sprint is fast and easy (relative to upping
your aerobic power or anaerobic capacity). Despite what Robert says, do one
sprint work-out a week with 10-15 full-out bursts of 10-15 seconds each with
adequate recovery in-between. Takes less than an hour. As long as you still
have at least 5-10 hours a week for your high-aerobic-zone work, then work
on your sprint also, if for no other reason than it will be fun when you go
around Burnaby really fast.
> Here's a typical training, er, plan:
>
> -multi-modal commute halfway across town, 25ish km in multiple sections.
> Because of the hills and the timing, I have to ride faster than slow to
> get to the crit on time.
> -yes, crit: ride Cat 4 crit until I explode spectacularly, and then keep
> riding until I get lapped or show signs of endangering the sprint.
> -ride home in a very screwed-up state, probably have to stop for a
> drink. This ride reverses the commute, but the hills are more favorable.
>
> The goal is to do a fairly long ride that will burn fat, but to throw
> enough high-HR riding in that I build power. Is it dumb to combine these
> activities? Is it dumber than not doing one or the other at all?
I don't know what you mean by fairly long, but as Ben Franklin also once
said, "Fat burns best in a hot flame", meaning you actually burn more fat at
higher power output. You'll have to experiement to find your own... ,err,
sweet spot, where you do the most work (in the physics sense) for your
entire training session, ...if the goal is to burn fat.
> I'm certainly in such a state, physically, right now that any serious
> riding is likely to help, but I don't want to be doing some sort of
> ridiculous physiological suicide that will be totally counterproductive
> (as, for example, I suspect long rides at 25 km/h would be. Junk miles
> ho!)
If you have limited time, 25 kph rides are indeed junk, unless you need them
for recovery. Koach K is korrect that you need easy recovery rides, but only
after you've really taxed yourself with your hard rides.
> I will also try to pack in a few dedicated sessions of riding hard,
> 60-90s intervals uphill (3 sets of 3 to start), since that has
> historically made me strong fast.
Personally, I wouldn't do those until your threshold W/kg has started to
level off. If you do these 60-90 sec intervals all-out, they can really
compromise your training for several days afterward. On the other hand, if
you actually enjoy these kind of intervals, then you either aren't doing
them hard enough, or you are sick in the head.
> Finally, are my training goals ridiculous?
No.
> Am I sabotaging the CX season with my devotion to intervals,
> when I should just work on hour-power or something?
No. Whether you do those 60-90 second intervals, or aerobic-threshold work
(e.g., sweet-spot training), you will improve substantially.
> Is training for both CX and sprinting purely hopeless?
Unless you are training your sprint to beat Andrew Randell or Zach Bell,
then it shouldn't consume much of your time or energy, so it won't interfere
with CX.
> I don't see a lot of peloton-ing happening at the front end of local "B"
> CX races, but then I don't see a lot of the front of those races, period.
....which is precisely why improving your threshold W/kg will get you to the
front of those races.
BTW, I'm NOT saying that you can't fine-tune your fitness toward one kind of
event versus another; you can, as I suggested here:
http://marcofanelli.blogspot.com/2008/01/designing-bike-racer.html
....but as I wrote in the follow-up, until you've dropped the extra weight,
it doesn't really matter:
http://marcofanelli.blogspot.com/2008/01/continuing-discussion.html
...which I got a lot of flack for, and some emails both nasty and
supportive, the best comment was from Ben Franklin: "Bike racing is not
healthy. But if you want to go fast, here's what to do."
Good luck Ryan!
Mark
http://marcofanelli.blogspot.com
