Originally Posted by
GhostRider62
I wanted to share some feedback that I got from a well known ultra endurance coach. I am not sure if it is proper to mention his name but he is very well known.
He said that I have sufficient base from hiking and from many years of riding long distance. He also does a lot of hiking and XC skiing and that aerobic base translates into a cycling base.
Where I need to focus is regaining the neuro or biomechanics of pedaling and surprisingly, he recommended sprints right away which is how I was thinking to tease out the legs. Surprising because I do not recall ever reading one of his articles recommending sprints for a Rando. It actually makes a lot of sense. If my legs are not able to take full advantage of the O2 my lungs and heart can deliver, there are three reasons I can think of. One being some muscles are not being engage fully or not timed properly. Sprinting would fix that. Another is insufficiency in leg enzymes for the specific cycling motions and high intensity is the fastest way to remedy that one. The third relates to bents.
I did a short 30 minute workout on the trainer today. warmup. 2 x10 minutes at HR 130. The legs screamed like it was threshold but I wasn't even breathing hard, I could have held a rando conversation.
In any case, thought that might be of interest to all the kind responders to my inquiry.
Yeah, that's a wake-up call, isn't it? For sure long steady state rides don't stress the legs enough. My favorite loop near home has a 30 second steep hill on it. I ride that loop maybe every other week and every time I try to match my 28" PR. I'm down to 32" now and every time I do it my legs scream at me for a couple days. This last time I was finally strong enough to spin the rear tire a little, but still a long way to go. My standard workout program has me starting to do hill sprints about 8 weeks out from my A ride. Basically 30" to 1', 4-6 repeats, 5' easy pedaling between. I'm nowhere near ready to do repeats! I'm older than you but also haven't been riding due to Covid and a horrible saddle sore. I don't rando anymore, but it's all the same training once you know how to do it.
A gym in my town has finally opened. All the others went out of business. I've just started doing sets of 30, 9 exercises circuit style. That's helping for similar reasons sprint training was suggested. My leg strength sucks now and strong legs always seemed to be a very good rando attribute, at least for me. I'm doing sets of 30 because I don't have the time to get injured and rehabbed. I need to be strong by the end of June. When I'm doing those circuit sets, I try to keep my HR up into the bottom of Z2 and I usually do an hour of pedaling drills on my rollers before I hit the gym. Many folks say it's BS, but I find that trying to hold 115-120 cadence at a Z1 power and HR for 30' or so fixes that neuro stuff right up. I do a good bit of that. Hurts pretty good until it doesn't anymore, then I go on to other stuff.
I also do 50-55 cadence tempo work on a long even maybe 4% climb, just shallow enough to have some momentum, maybe 4 reps of 10', no upper body movement. My legs hurt now, and I didn't even work out today..