Real Workouts. Real Gains. Real Prospective.

Real Workouts? Isn't every workout "real"?! In pure existence...yes, every workout is real. In practice...a real workout is that miserable thing that makes racing seem like a pleasant daydream. Many athletes do 10+ workouts per week (myself for example, I have completed 12-14 workouts the past 3 weeks). Of these workouts, few are taxing, and even less are taxing to the point that proper completion of the workout is a bigger question mark than if the cat is alive or dead. The cat I am referring to is Mr. Schrödinger's cat. If you don't get that reference, study some Quantum Mechanics...or just click that link in the previous sentence (it's interesting stuff!).


What exactly are these workouts? They are the workouts you can wake up dreading (which was me this morning) or you approach with a courage and valor of a professional jouster. Either way, you suffer...deeply. Today, I woke up completely exhausted despite sleeping very, very hard but only for 5.5 hours. I've been trying to reduce caffeine some, so I avoided having a coffee to kick-start my system. I actually left the house thinking I would just do a 2 hour base ride on the CompuTrainer. I figuratively slapped myself and said, "The work must be done, pleasure or pain" (I didn't actually say this - internalized profanity may have been utilized, but what I stated is a fair paraphrase). Big gains are defined by the latter, and become (over time) the former. Such is life, and notably one of the beauties of life.


So, what was this super badass workout? It was a criterium preparation workout that Jeff Dixon (The Man of Base36) sent to me. We will be taking Wells Ave crit head-on beginning on March 11th - two short weeks from yesterday! He is an absolute beast when it comes to digging deep, putting in work, and sprinting. The man is also brilliant on the road and has a fluidity/skill in the pack/finish sprint that I someday hope to possess. If he and I were in a crit together, I can tell you for sure that he will conserve 10-15% more energy than I will on my finest showing. No wonder when he sprints he demoralizes people, huh?


The workout involved a set of 7x2min max power intervals on only 1 minute spinning. Then a set of fluctuating 8min power intervals, then a tempo. I got through the 7x2min part by telling myself that I would definitely be done at #4...then #5...all the way until I completed the 7th interval. I have never done such anaerobic/max effort work before, and it showed massively. My Anaerobic (Lactic Acid) System is insanely underdeveloped, given my aerobic/functional threshold. I have never seriously trained this energy system, and thus my ability to replenish fuel is pitiful at best. Thus, I drained my fuel stores with the first few intervals, and then blew out any remaining fuel and replaced it with large deposits of lactic acid. Yeah, it hurt. I have a good tolerance for self-inflicted suffering - it's not great...but is fairly good. Yet, this 7x2min section of the workout completely 'blew me up'. Prospective: I have a lot of work to do.

Never forget this name:

Jens Voigt. THE King of self-suffering. Every cyclist only dreams to go this hard.

So much so, that the 8min intervals were pointless as I could not even hold my Steady State power for 2 minutes (which was the easy part of the 8min intervals). With that much of diminishing returns, the high intensity of the workout was deemed complete. Once you are missing a prescribed power/pace/time in a workout, you call it quits. If your form breaks down, the workout is over. As physically hard/deep as I like going, these are the only things for which I call a workout off. Okay, if there is pain that is of a damaging nature and that will negatively effect future workouts then I will also stop. But not much else.


In the words of my college XC/TF Coach: 'That being said' I need to get to work on increasing the capacity for work and recovery of my anaerobic energy system. Only way to do that: Go deeper. And do it more often.

Now that I am putting my body into seriously hard workouts, it is time to take recovery as seriously as the hard work. Off to bed before 10PM, then up at 5AM for core - followed by a super easy recovery ride. Hopefully I can emotionally let myself ride at recovery power, something I have never really done before. Since I have a VO2 Max test on Wednesday...I damn well better take that ride as recovery!