With a lot of early season half ironmans are already starting to pop up, it won’t be long until many of us are going to start to be back at a start line.
If you are starting to think about racing this spring, adding good quality work to your long rides is key.
A common mistake athletes make is not having enough difference between their fast efforts and their easy efforts. Make your quality work fast and your easy very easy. You want to see a big difference between the two in speed and power.
When you start to add work within your long rides allow yourself enough rest to really hit the quality. This time of year as you just start to add the quality allowing ample recovery between intervals is important.
In a 3 to 4.5 hour ride:
- Warm up with at least an hour of riding, including some efforts to prepare you for the main set.
- TT Session (effort is time trial pace) – 3-5 x 10 minute maximum individual time trial efforts at 85-95 rpm/cadence, with a minimum of 20-30 minutes recovery between each repetition to enable full recovery.
- Always allow for a 20-30 minute cool down.
Plan to do these efforts on your race bike, in your race position, on terrain that matches your upcoming races. This is also a good time to start to practice your race nutrition.
Focus on the efforts being high quality to really improve your speed and power for the new year.
See you at the races.
