winter

Things got a bit...snowy on my ride today. But at 6,000 feet the snow was still dry despite the almost 40 degree temp!! Today was good I am finally feeling better and am finally able to get in some good quality miles. Today I did a little sharp shooting, killing 2 birds with one stone. I was able to get in a very solid strength workout while still getting in a good 4 hours of endurance riding. and best of all it kept me warm!
below is an article on this "one workout, two effects" issue. being able to identify and produce high quality workouts like this is vital for the time restricted athlete. which is every one, unless your a pro, and even they get busy. Monitoring my recovery I was able to do 25ish (lost count) stomps or over geared sprints. If any of my old rowing buddies are reading this they are probably laughing there butt off right now and my counting handicap is an old one! Improving my strength and A.E. is a something I simply HAVE to do this year. I was able to do all of these around 80-90% of my max wattage. While still putting out a good avg. wattage for the day. 189. by making sure I tock enough rest 10+ minutes I was able to get max power out of each effort with out fatiguing my self to much and sacrificing the endurance part or my endurance ride.

One work out two effects.
With busy schedules, many athletes just don’t have enough time to work on all the aspects necessary to reach their full potential. Let alone the Triathlete who needs to be effective in “all four sports”, see that article here www.performancetrainingsystems.com/newstips/article_ek_foursports.html .
Because of this, it is of great value if one can combine workouts. I am not talking about a brick workout or double sessions either. I’m talking about maximizing your time. Even pro’s whom train for a living need to be effective with there time and training. Do you think lance logged any junk miles while training for the Tour? Don’t think so. A great way to do this is by focusing on more than one aspect of your training in one workout. By placing workouts within workouts one can get a double whammy effect out of his or her training. Consult your coach before concocting your own “double whammy” workouts. One of the best ways to do one of these is to place tech. drills or hard intervals into a longer endurance workout. For example: In your 3 hr. ride, focus on your technique while riding up hills. Keep pedal cadence high and concentrate on pedaling “perfectly”. Talk to your coach about that too. Alternate standing and sitting. Stand up on one hill; for the whole hill, sit on the next. Hone your skills. Do fast pedal drills in your long ride or strides in your long run. Another option is to do intervals or some kind of harder effort in your work out. If you are looking to increase your power or speed, do your intervals after a solid warm up. Cool down easily, hydrate and fuel up appropriately, then continue with a low intensity endurance workout.
Bike example: 20’ warm up. 3x10’ level 3-4. (rest 3’). 10’ cool down, continue cool down at level 2 for 2 hours.
Looking to focus on more endurance for that IM. Do the intervals after 2 hours of riding at level 2. BAMB! Two birds with one stone! Please consult your coach or a coach before doing any of these as they are a bit more taxing than your normal single aspect workouts that mere mortals do. There are some “double whammy” workouts that are a bad idea. Example: working two different maximal effort zones in the same work out. Working long tempo, cooling down then doing 1minute intervals. Not effective training here. With proper planning there is no reason that anyone can’t finish that IM, be a contender in there age group, or win the big one.

Happy training!