It's All About The Base

Climbing Kaloko in Kona, HI. Picture - Paolina Allan

Ounce again, I'm putting the 30-Year-Base to the test. If you have been involved in an endurance sport (running, cycling or triathlon) for less than 5 years, with all due respect, skip right to the end of this post for the final good news.

It's at times like this that I'm thankful that I've been doing what I have for the last 30 plus years. You see, there is a huge advantage to having a massive base of aerobic fitness that you can tap into. You can do things and get away with things that the newer athlete can't.

In a few weeks we are off to Cuba again for some cycling with some pretty serious road cyclists. I'm really looking forward to it, and again, my goal is the same - don't get dropped!

Because of the big base of fitness that I have, over a relatively short period of time, I can elevate my regular fitness to a higher level reasonably "quickly". It's not easy, and it does not come without some genuine, hard and concentrated work, but I always surprise myself, how quickly the fitness does ramp up. I've been using several different sessions on the indoor trainer, coupled with steady state riding on the rollers on the "off-days". I dug into some old training logs, and also read up on "Sweet-Spot" intervals. As a classic "pursuit-style" rider my whole life, these are the kinds of sessions that I both "enjoy", if that's the right word,  have a high impact, and ramp up my fitness quickly. 

The other two sessions I've been doing are NOT so enjoyable (to be honest they are ugly, brutal and painful) - but are also high-impact: T-Max sets, as well as one minute All-Out bursts with almost full recovery - I've always been the, world's worst sprinter on the bike, but these sprint sessions forces me to activate and work this range and the five fast-witch muscle cells I have in my whole body!! Both these sessions have me on the trainer for 60 minutes or less. A painful, 60 minutes - but a productive, 60 minutes!

And it's all coming around - a month in and with just two weeks to go, I can feel the legs and the lungs coming around. I'm looking forward to the trip to Cuba, and fingers-crossed, not getting dropped from the main group.

The good story to end this with and for the newbies just joining back in now, THIS is one of the key up-sides and advantages to hanging in there for the long-haul with endurance sports. Once that serious, long-term aerobic base is established (roughly 5 years or more), you can whip yourself back into some pretty decent form over a relatively short period of time. 

The BIG base is helpful in other ways. When you have some down-time either by choice (vacation, taking a break etc , .) or by force (injury, sickness), the loss of fitness tends to be more minimized the bigger your overall fitness and aerobic base is, and the quicker you will return to good to great form!

Winter Bike Training

If you live where you get real winter you may have to make some changes to your bike training for the winter season. One option is to keep riding. The picture above is of Cervelo sales Manager Rodney Merchant's RS Road bike on a mid winter ride near Toronto. Few are as hardy as Rodney, but a great attitude and the right apparel can go a long way to riding outdoors in less then ideal conditions. However, let's be realistic - most triathletes will be doing their bike training indoors if that's what they are going to be facing outdoors.

So what to do on the indoor trainer? Personally, I have never been a fan of spending a huge amount of time on the indoor trainer. I know that there are people that grind out, 3, 4 and even 5 hour indoor rides. I would suggest shorter more focused and more intense efforts. Done right these workouts can be very effective.

If you have been off the bike for a while it might be good to put in some time just working up to being able to ride at a good pace for 45 minutes to an hour. Once you can do this, then there are three different kinds of workouts I suggest. They revolve around 1, 2 and 5 minute blocks of time. I set my timer on my watch to the count-down-and-return function so that if I set it at 2 minutes, it will run for 2 minutes and then beep and keep repeating the beep every 2 minutes and so on.

I would start with 2 minutes and after a 10 -15 min. warm-up, start to do 2 minutes at hard effort and then 2 minutes easy spinning. Do 4 - 6 of these and see how you feel. Next time play around with things, Maybe do four minutes hard with 4 minutes rest etc . . . One of the best workouts that you can do with these 2 minute units of time is 4 minutes hard with 2 minutes recovery. If you can do 6 of these at close to max effort and fully recover in the 2 minute easy period - you are doing well. Spin down for 10 - 15 minutes and you are done.

The one minute time period is good for working on your power and your sprint. Set the timer for one minute and then go as hard as you can for one minute - really max out. Then rest of 1, 2 or even 3 minutes and repeat the one hard minute. Repeat this cycle until you can't go all out for the one minute hard. This set can be worked in at the end of the previous 2 minute workout, or on it's own in the middle of an easy recovery ride.

Finally the 5 minute time period is good for building up your longer Time-Trial fitness and learning to work and sustain a moderately hard effort right at the edge, without going over - this is key for triathlon cycling. Start off going for 10 minutes at a moderately hard pace. Then take 5 minutes to recover, then go hard again for another 10 minutes. This should be the type of effort that feels easy at first but by the time you reach the last few minutes of the ten minute hard portion, you feel like you are really working hard. The gold standard of what you want to build up to here is 20 minutes hard with 5 - 10 minute rest and then repeat the 20 minutes hard. If you are doing this right, you should be surfing along right at the edge of your Lactate Threshold and not blowing up and going over it.

The other option for indoor riding is rollers. Many triathletes shy away from rollers, but they are one of the best training tools for developing a smooth and efficient pedal stroke. Typically they don't offer much in the way of resistance, so this is usually not as hard as a workout on the indoor trainer.

I have noticed from observing thousands of triathletes, that many don't have very smooth and efficient pedal strokes. Riding rollers really helps smooth things out. They also make you very confidant on your bike by teaching you what the keys to great bike balance are. You know you have a good aero-postion, are well set up on your bike, and have a smooth and efficient pedal stroke, when you can ride in your aero position on the rollers. Many can't do this - but it is worth striving for. If you look at the best triathletes and bike Time-Trialers they have one thing in common - they are all very quiet, still, smooth and efficient on the bike.

If you do have rollers, what I like to do is alternate roller sessions, with sessions on the trainer - so two rollers sessions a week and two trainer sessions a week. None of these sessions need last longer than 45 minutes to an hour. If you do that through the 3 - 4 months of winter, you will definitely maintain your bike fitness, you may even elevate it!

Hope this helps.