bobbycorno

My 2010 rando season is now offically over, and it's been a year to forget. 2 months off in the middle of the season with Achilles tendinits will do that... I did, however, finish a hilly (7300') 200k this past saturday with absolutely zero Achilles trouble. My slowest 200 EVER, but it was a good end for the season, considering.

Looking forward to 2011 and PBP (I hope), I started playing with the perfomance calculators at bikecalculator dot com. According to their speed-to-watts calculator, I typically cruise at about 150 watts and climb at 175. If I can bump that to 185 and drop 10 lb, their watts-to-speed calculator says I'd save 4 minutes (!) on a 5-mile, 5% climb. FOUR MINUTES! WIthout changing anything else. That'd add up to quite a bit over a hilly 1200 (like, say, PBP...)

So, the $64,000 question is: would dropping 10 lb and adding 10 watts be a reasonable training goal for this winter? Or would I have to live like a monk and train like a madman? And does anybody have suggestions for a training program to increase my crusing and climbing power output?

Geez... Training for rando... I never thought I'd come to this.

SP
Bend, OR

Carbonfiberboy 

Friel's book, of course. Not as bible, but for ideas.

I'm a weirdo, but this has worked for me. In the strength training section, Friel lists 7-9 lifting exercises and says to start with an adaptation phase where you do sets of 20-30. (at least my old edition does!). So do that. Start with 1 set of 30 and over a period of a few weeks, increase it to 3 sets of 30, all same weight, all circuit. Wear an HRM. Don't let HR drop out of zone 1 between lifts. 3 sets of circuits should take less than 30 minutes. Twice a week, after riding, or spin class, or using the cross trainer. Do that from now until February. Don't progress to the other lifting schedules.

Once a week, from now until February, do a recovery ride consisting of 1/2 plain zone 1 on the rollers, and half FastPedal at 115-120 cadence, but not over zone 2, so very low gears. Start with 10 minutes of each, progress to 40 minutes of each. The FastPedal must be done without a break. From February to June, same thing, but for the FastPedal, substitute 2 minute intervals of OLP, each leg, then zone 2 with legs together. Alternate OLP at 50 and 85 cadence. They should hurt. But don't do it if it hurts knees or tendons.

In March or April, once/week, start riding 2 X 20-30 minute intervals of zone 3 at a steady cadence of 100 or more. Only 5 minutes between intervals.

Some time of your choice, do 3 weeks of 10 minute climbing repeats, sub-LT, at 50 cadence, no upper body movement. Again, not if it hurts knees or tendons.

Some time of your choice, do 3 weeks of 15-20 minute zone 4 intervals, once/week.

""""", substitute 4 minute zone 5 intervals for the zone 4. 3 weeks.

""""", go back to zone 4, but on another day add 45 second all out hill sprints repeats, 5 minutes between. This last starting 3 weeks before PBP.

Besides the above, from now to brevet season, do one hard group ride of 50-100 miles/week, gradually increasing distance and intensity.
Besides the above, of course you'll do a normal calendar of zone 2 rides, hill rides, etc.
Besides the above, you can try doing 30' of zone 1, 6 days/week on the rollers, before breakfast.

You'll have to also do a brevet series. The week after a 300+ brevet, just do 30 minutes of zone 1 every day on the rollers, or do what you can.

Easy to overreach on this schedule. Monitor your morning resting HR, every morning. Keep a log. Every 4th week, back everything off.

If you are using a Polar recording HRM, limit total time/intensity to 500-600 units/week. Limit total LT and above time to 1 hour/week.

This schedule kept me leading a local A ride until I was 63. It works.

Richard Cranium

Do the weight thing. Think of power training as a maintenance tool. (at least if you want ride 1200s)