FasCat Cycling Training Tips Podcast

 Switching from Base to Race Part 2: a continuation from our 2019 podcast on moving onto an interval phase of training after building a sweet spot base 61785Gravel Training Plan to help you practice what’s described in this podcast! In this podcast, Coach Frank goes thru 10 instances Dave Letterman style of when you should switch from aerobic endurance training to high intensity interval training. This is the sweet spot and polarized methodologies referenced in last week’s podcast! Thanks to everyone for tuning in, subscribing and reviewing on Apple Podcasts, and for engaging in our forum! Save 25% on your next training plan with code 25podcast SHOW NOTES: 2019 Switch from Base to Race Podcast Timing is Everything Let’s talk about the criteria for knowing when to stop doing aerobic endurance work and start doing high intensity interval training because as we’ve podcasted  before timing is everything. How to Know when to Switch from Base to Race – gonna do my best Dave Letterman top 10 list impression: 10. When you are racing* in 3-6 weeks or less 9. When your base is ‘good’ and the returns from doing interval training going forward are going to net greater power increase than if you kept trudging along with base 8. When you’ve been doing base for more than 18 weeks 7. When your Coach tells you to (this would be for the one on one coached athletes) 6. When you’ve been doing some base but want to raise your power even more 5. When you want to do some harder training 4.When your CTL is higher than ever before or within 10-20% of 3.When you can’t ride any more – as in you’ve maxed out 12 hours of riding per week (cant do 13) 2. When you are dog tired from all the sweet spot training and your legs are begging for a break 1. And the #1 reason to switch from base to race is because you are going to be racing soon!  Switch to “Race” Alright – let’s unpack each one of those.  I don’t have any reasons not to switch to intervals unless your base is under developed. Ie. you have NOT been doing any sweet spot base and aren’t racing soon or if you are those are B races. In this case, doing a 6 or 12 week block of sweet spot training before you switch to interval training.  Build the aerobic foundation of the pyramid an stack the intervals on top of afterwards. You may hear some old skool racers talk about racing into shape – but they are building base during the week.  And per our long ride podcast last week – if you’ve been racing on Zwift or similar riding hard – that is not base and now that the weather is improving for outside rides you will benefit from back up and doing a block of sweet spot base training.  Resist the temptation to keep riding hard outside – this is the group ride hero we talk about and also a one way ticket to Burn Out Ville. You don’t want to go there when the world is going to come back to life once everyone gets vaccinated and racing + group rides return. But I digress….. Back to unpacking the Dave LetterMan top ten list to switch from base to race: 10. When you are racing* in 3-6 weeks or less If you’ve done some base say a 6 – 12 week block but your CTL isn’t quite where you want it to be because of life’s limitations, still switch from base to race. Remember races are generally one from your peak power output – not the size of your CTL. I feel like that line could be in the Movie SpaceBalls – anyone remember the light saber spoof scene? Its better to work on your power output 3-6 weeks out than your base.  That’s the coaching advice – that’s what I was talking about last week when the coaches are ahead of the science. Experience! AI generated workouts are going to miss that. 9. When your base is ‘good’ and the returns from doing interval training going forward are going to net greater power increase than if you kept trudging along with base This goes along with #10 I just mentioned – you’ll increase your FTP more than from trying to keep building your base.  Watts win races not CTL. 8. When you’ve been doing base for more than 18 weeks 18 weeks is the point of diminishing returns – you need/want to move on from here to keep progress – your training and progress will plateau out should you keep sweet spot base build. See we advocate both! 7. When your Coach tells you to (this would be for the one on one coached athletes) For coaches athletes, this is the value of having a coach – an expert with the experience to know when to switch – using the 3 criteria above but also the nuances of your training. This is someone who’s got your back and has the experience to give you this advice. Again AI ain’t gonna do that for you. 6. When you’ve been doing some base but want to raise your power even more Naturally what’s better than one thing to help you ride faster? Two! In last week’s podcast we articulated tht we advocate both sweet spot training combine with polarized training – I prefer to call it race specific interval training. And future pod on intervals I’ll described the FasCat Way. We’ve touched on it before if you want to go back and listen to our previous episodes on intervals.  But combine base training with interval training and whammo! Lotta watts coming to ya. 5. When you want to do some harder training If you are like a caged tiger frothing at the mouth to ride fast and ride harder, you should switch from base to race and do some intervals! This would go toward motivation – when you are motivated to do the hard work, do the intervals and make the switch – just make sure you’ve built your base up first. As in for your whacko’s that like to do VO2 Max Intervals all year long.  I jest but I know you are out there…. This is what I call the cross fit crew – who goes berserk every workout.  That can be harnessed .. I am digressing….. 4.When your CTL is higher than ever before or within 10-20% of I like the historical CTL data because it serves as a point of reference if you’ve got last year’s data and can compare.  If you hit 85 last year and you couldn’t ride any longer and you are close to 85 this year (80-90) and you know it’ll be tough to find more time to ride to keep raising your CTL – that is when you know it is time to Switch from Base to race. Use the Performance Manager Chart – the PMC the The Shit that will Kill Them – to help you identify and even project (model out) when you’ll make the switch.  Use the PMC chart to model that out and determine if/when/why to make the switch. 3.When you can’t ride any more – as in you’ve maxed out 12 hours of riding per week (can’t do 13) If you can’t ride anymore than 12 hours per week you wont’ be able to keep increase your CTL , building your base and you would be wise to bank those gains and make more by beginin and interval training phase. I see this alot with athletes that have done a good build but there CTL hovers flat for long period of time as they run up against a brick wall trying to keep riding long and keep riding more when life simply doesn’t let them.  That’s when to stop sweet spotting and start doing intervals. Your PMC chart should only track flat when you are ‘in season and doing intervals’ if you are building base it should be increasing and if its not for whatever reason, move onto the next phase of training, which is intervals or rest and/or a taper to peak for a A race. 2. When you are dog tired from all the sweet spot training and your legs are begging for a break Base training is hard once you really start pushing out the adaptations and it can wear on you.  Rarely does an athlete overtrain from base, but you certainly can overreached.  As I mentioned in # 3 if you are running up a brick wall because your legs are tired and you cant’ make watts like you could when you were fresh – that is your body telling you to rest.  Remember the Greg henderson, Wrestling the Gorrilla analogy – this is when you let the Gorrilla win, your body and your legs – tell you, no mas. Rest , ride less and then switch over to high intensity interval work – especially If you are about to start racing soon. Which is our # 1 reason to switch from base to race. Soon as in 6 weeks or less and you are hungry like the wolf to steal the Duran Duran song and are motivated to ride harder as referenced in #5 previously. Thanks for listening! Hit us up in our forum  forum.FasCatCoachig.com to ask us YOUR question about switching from base to race Don’t just sweet spot all year round – you’re leaving watts on the table if you don’t do your intervals.  It goes right to the core of how we each each episode which I’ll amend for this podcast Work Hard, Ride Fast, don’t forget to Switch from Base to Race, Have FUN and as ALWAYS FtFP Copyright © 2021 FasCat Coaching – all rights reserved. Join our *FREE* Athlete Forum to nerd out with FasCat coaches and athletes about your FTP, race data, power based training, or anything related to going fast on the bike! To talk with a FasCat Coach about your switch from base to race, please fill out a New Athlete Questionnaire to set up a complimentary coaching consultation. The post Switching from Base to Race Part 2 appeared first on FasCat.

 Coach Frank goes on a 14 minute rant about ‘internet scientists’ and the whole sweet spot versus polarized debate.  He espouses how the coaches are ahead on the scientists and bring it all back to the podcast topic: the long ride.  Frank describes his three long rides and how you can progress thru each. 61558Gravel Training Plan to help you practice what’s described in this podcast! In this podcast, Coach Frank covers the benefits of a long ride and goes on a rant about ‘internet scientists’. Thanks to everyone for tuning in, subscribing and reviewing on Apple Podcasts, and for engaging in our forum! Save 25% on your next training plan with code 25podcast Show Notes: How I invented Sweet Spot Training Peter Stetina Podcast I am a man of science with a masters degree in physiology and US Patent # 7202067 from my molecular biology biotech days.  I’ve spent days, nights in the Bowman Gray medical school library going thru thick 10 pound, 500 page medical journals trying to figure out how to get nerves to grow back on Astrocytes to help spinal cord injury patients. I even presented that work at the annual Neuroscience meetings in La Jolla and have to say – sometimes science doesn’t have all the answers.  It’s your experience in the field from trying failure, doing and succeed. Here’s the story and what I mean: I spent 6 months in a medical school laboratory with an NIH grant trying to figure out how to get spinal cord rat astrocytes to grow in petri dish to study nerve regeneration with an in vitro spinal cord injury model.  Say that tongue twister with me again. 6 months culturing hundreds of thousands of astrocytes (cells that make up your spinal cord) day after day.  And they weren’t growing. And my boss started to get pissed and I was going to the medical school library every night to find that one nugget of information to figure out how to get these astrocytes to grow in the petri dish. I Experimented with everything the scientific journals listed in their ‘methods and materials’ section of the publication – the growth media, the way we harvested the cells, you name it. Finally one day I reached out to a researcher in the field who’d published a paper on astrocytes from the University of Alabama Birmingham’s medical school of all places. The next day I cold called him and he picked up! Lo and behold he answered on the 2nd ring and we talked for 20 minutes and a week later I flew down to his lab to work with him and his lab tech to see if we could figure out a way to get the spinal cord injury model to work. Within the first hour of our collaboration the lab tech told me to coat the petri dishes with L-Lysine to give the Astrocytes something to bind too because they didn’t like plastic. And whammo – that was the golden nugget of information.   That was the information that wasn’t in the hundreds of scientific publications I had found on pub med and spent hours making copies of in the medical school library.  I asked the lab tech how she figured it out and she just shrugged her shoulders and said another researcher suggested it to her. Aha – insider information….. Long story short, cells grews, motor neurons were studied, papers were published and more NIH grants were received.  I went on to graduate school and got distracted by mountain bike racing… but I digress. The point I’d like to make is that sometimes the science, the scientists haven’t found what they are looking for. And someone with 20 years of experience has,  like the coaches. Everyone on the internet is quick to point to the science this researcher has published in order to argue their point or to sound smart.  And while I read the same studies, there are paper I wish have been published looking at what I’ve noticed in the field from athlete performance and power data. Sometimes the coaches are ahead of the scientists because they have the ability to perform experiments and gather the power data and see the results from the athletes they coach. Coaches have n = 1000 to the lab studies that had n = 12.  And the longer they coach and the more experience they glean, the better able they are to figure out what works and what does not. By now I have close to 20 years of coaching experience and analyzing the power data of athletes and taking their data set from the whole season and seasons to measure their performance. Good coaches will micro experiment with their athletes:  Did they rider faster , win x y z race, FTP improve, endurance stretched. What worked, what did not.  Perform develop, grow , achieve. Many of you have heard my December 2018 podcast “How I Invented Sweet Spot” If not go back and give it a listen, I’ll put it in the show notes too.  In there I recant my experience training with the polarized method and then the extraordinary improvement I made when I discovered and developed sweet spot training.  I went from P ½ field pack fill to winning P1/2 races. XC MTB races, Time trials and crits all of things which is opposite but I always had a good anaerobic system no doubt developed from all the intervals I did. I’m not trying to start a polarized v sweet spot debate – I think, we (at FasCat think) you should do both and when you combine them together you’ll ride your fastest.  Its taken me/us close to 20 years of training, racing, analyzing to articulate that to you all when everyone else is busy arguing which side they are on. The answer from the coaches is BOOOOOTTTHHHH!! Polarized training gets you so far just like sweet spot training only gets you so far. But when you combine the two together, when you switch from base to race:  whammo – that’s the stuff of peak performances The big point I want to make is these broad connecting the dots types of perspectives from real world experience, working with athletes day in and day out,  takes an open mind and years, decades of experience.  I chuckle when the internet cites a study performed over six weeks.  And then you dig deeper and the paper was written by a graduate student. Nothing against graduate student, I used to be one myself! Six weeks is just not enough time nor experience to really determine an athletes performance in a laboratory studying from following a real training plan. Studies like this can answer one single question that is more or less one layer of dozens that coaches factor into performance. Sometimes these studies answer questions about performance that honestly doesn’t matter too much to coaches because its common cycling sense.  Granted they answer specific scientifica questions but many many times the coaches are ahead of the scientists AND the studies haven’t even been conducted to what the coaches have already figured out. Case in point – the whole sweet spot v polarized debate. Now I like science and I like the research – if these researchers were to go on journey and follow the results then you should perk up and pay attention.  But to my knowledge no study has been done looking at sweet spot training to build one’s aerobic endurance in the off and pre-season and then a switch polarised training pre competition and in season. No study except for the fact that hundreds of my coaching colleagues training athletes with this methodology to help athletes of all abilities from average Joes to World Tour Pros’ ride their bikes faster. A super digression! I apologize, I was going to talk with you about the Long Ride and I just went on a huge rant pitching scientists against coaches.  I think the holy grail is an experienced coach rooted in science (like most of my colleagues)  Real world experience with a scientific background.   But if I had to choose one or another, I’d choose the experience coached over what the science says every single time. And I’m a scientist! But the honest truth is that when I went to research the benefits of the long ride I wasn’t satisfied sharing the results of a paper in the Journal of Sports Med citing the increase in mitochondrial density from aerobic endurance training.  Rather let me simply share 20 years of professional coaching experience with you – what works and I won’t even mention what does not.  And because I’ve gone on a rant let’s skip the review of the week and announcement. Subscribe, leave us a review, engage with us – we want to help you ride your bike faster! We as Coaches know what works.. Why? Because we’ve done that ourselves and have monitored hundreds of athletes over the years that have benefited from long endurance ride training. And when I say endurance I’m talking about your aerobic endurance and you are ‘aerobic’ between Zones 2 thru sweet spot. Even Zones 4 & 5 are aerobic just not for long.  Therefore I like to have athletes do three type of long rides in a progression. The first is the zone 2 ride the 2nd is the sweet spot TSS ride and the third is the AmEx TSS ride. Start with the zone 2 ride then move onto a long sweet spot ride and finally if your training has been going really well move onto the long Amex ride. Save the Amex rides for when your goal event is close.  The Zone 2 and sweet spot long rides are off and pre-season and even in season. Zones 2 is zone 2 – fairly straightforward , steady constant pedalling and avoiding any forays above zone 2 – oftentimes facilitated by choosing to ride on flat terrain. The Sweet Spot ride is actually zones 2 through Sweet Spot for the sweet spot TSS ride and Zones 2 – zone 5 for the AmEx ride.  And we’ll even sprinkle in a little organic zone 6, especially if they are a road, crit, mtb and cyclocrosser. Backing up we are coming up on the end of winter where everyone needs (this is free coaching advice) to get off their trainer and increase their riding volume.  One hour a day is fine 18+ weeks out from their goal event but the progression to your training from increasing the intensity and frequency of intervals only takes one so far.  In other words, there’s only so far you can ‘get’ from one hour trainer rides. The next step is to increase your riding volume. And for most of us weekend warriors that comes from the long ride on the weekend.   2-3 hours at first and then add 30 minutes each successive weekend to work your way to a 5 hour ride. I think the five hour ride is within all cyclists of all abilities: young, old beginner, advanced. This is why centuries are so popular bc 20mph for 5 hours = a 100 mile century. This is also why the pros do long rides. They just do a lot of long rides to add up to some 20-25+ hour weeks. So get off your trainer, put on some cold weather riding gear and double the longest ride you’ve done on the trainer this winter. Say that is 1.5 hours indoors so ride 3 hours outdoors.  Ride 3.5 hours the next weekend and keep going to 4 > 4.5 and 5 hours each weekend. That is a 5 week progression. Why 5 hours? 2 reasons: #1 5 hours is specific to many of the events we are training for like an 80-100 mile road race, a gravel race, fondo, century, etc… #2 5 hours is a large dose of training (lotta mitochondrial biogenesis) but not so large that we can’t recover from. For example – the first time you do a 5 hour ride you are going to be smashed from it the next day. But the next time you do a 5 hour ride you’ll be less tired the next day and less tired the next time.  A 5 hour zone 2 ride will incur a training stress score of roughly 250 or 50 TSS / hour.  Experienced cyclist know they can recover from that. Especially when they’ve done 350 – 400 Sweet Spot TSS rides or events and have experience of what that felt like. The single day long ride progression is to go from not one long 5 hour ride on the weekend but TWO .  That’s another 5 week progression after the aforementioned 5 week progression. For example – so now you are doing regular 5 hour rides every Saturday.  On Sunday’s you are going to go from 2.5 hour ride and increase the duration by 30 minutes each successive Sunday on up to 5 hours. Now you are talking two long rides over the weekend for 10 hours of training + the 3 – 5 you are getting in during the week which adds up to close to are 12-15 hour training week.  That’s a lot of mitochondria. And that’s how you build endurance. FTP gets a lot of hype while endurance is the ugly step sister.  Let me tell you without ‘endurance’ your FTP is going to be subject to fatigue during your event. Aka that 300 watt FTP at the beginning of a 4-6 hour event will be 200 watts or less in the final hour. Scenario:  If you have only been riding one hour a day 5-6 days a week  for a total of 6-8 hours of weekly training for 6+ weeks and your FTP is over 300 watts that is great. But when you start getting into your Springtime and Summer events that require endurance, that 300 watts FTP will decrease each hour going to 275 and 250 and on down and the miles roll on. However for the athletes that have put in the time in the saddle training 8 – 12 hours per week their FTP is going to decrease less over the course of a long endurance event.  Remember our podcast with Peter Stetina? He finished Unbound with the equivalent of a 170 watt FTP as measured by his normalized power in the final hour.  And he finished 3rd! And he has incredible endurance from his training and years as a world tour pro. That race is truly a test of endurance and FTP much less so. And here’s my coaching experience for ya: you can incur less fatigue and have less FTP decline during an event from doing regular long rides.  No scientific paper proves or disproves that – that’s just common cycling knowledge. The cyclists are ahead of the science. The long ride is the quintessential workout of aerobic endurance training for an aerobic sport. Dr Andy Coggan famously exclaimed way back, ‘its an aerobic sport, damit’ referring to the fact that event pursuitors whose event is less than 5 minutes benefit from endurance training. Even MvDP and Wout van Aerto go do 20-25 hour weeks in Majorca in December to get ready for 1 hour event in January. Because it is an aerobic endurance sport. And that’s also why they are such good road racers. Side note who do you think will win Strade Bianchi this weekend? Even Criterium racers and  XC mountain bikers with events less than 2 hours do long rides because its an aerobic endurance sport. Time trialists and hill climbers benefit from long rides because its an aerobic endurance sport.  And of course gravel fondo and century riders need and benefit from long rides because its specific to the event! The event is a long ride. As the expression goes, ‘long live long rides’ because they are fun, can be adventurous and honestly what I’m looking forward to this Spring and Summer. In the mountains of course. Thanks for listening to my rant and be sure to subscribe because next week we’ll be podcasting about switching from base to race part two – and our regular Ask a FasCat user submitted questions # 17 ! And if one of your buddies or the internet argues with you say in your best Big Lebowski voice ‘mitochondrial biogenesis man’ Do your long rides and remember to “Work Hard, Ride Fast, Have Fun and as always FtFP” To practice: ride your Gravel Bike on trails! Descending!  I’m gonna give you all my cyclocross skill tips here: Steam crossings + Roots and Mud:   Copyright © 2021 FasCat Coaching – all rights reserved. Join our *FREE* Athlete Forum to nerd out with FasCat coaches and athletes about your FTP, race data, power based training, or anything related to going fast on the bike! To talk with a FasCat Coach about your long rides, please fill out a New Athlete Questionnaire to set up a complimentary coaching consultation. The post Long Rides, Coaches v Scientists, Sweet Spot AND Polarized appeared first on FasCat.

 Spring is around the corner and that means dried-out roads, sunshine, and GRAVEL. While gravel riding and racing is super hot right now in the cycling world, there are still a lot of cyclists who are intimidated or unfamiliar with how it all works. So, in this episode, Coach Frank breaks the gravel skills  down and offers some of his tried and true tips for gravel riding and racing as a veteran of the gravel scene (he’s been doing it since before it was “cool”). 61385Gravel Training Plan to help you practice what’s described in this podcast! In this podcast, Coach Frank covers: pack riding skills maintaining a line of sight body position and english on the bike braking cornering descending roots and mud Thanks to everyone for tuning in, subscribing and reviewing on Apple Podcasts, and for engaging in our forum! Save 25% on your next training plan with code 25podcast Let me start with the 3 different types of gravel courses that different kinds of gravel skills apply to: the Boulder Gucci gravel  What I jest about here is that the dirt roads around  Boulder, CO are practically paved because out West Boulder County grades the dirt with giant tractors and treats the dirt by spraying the road with magnesium chloride (I think) to help bind the dirt and when the conditions are right – its smooth and hard pack just like a rough paved rough. Incidentally for those of you who live or have ridden in Costa Rica, you know many of the roads are dirt and they are treated with molasses to bind the dirt and keep the dust low.  So riding in Costa Rica smells like pancakes.   But I digress…. In either place not many gravel skills are necessary and I know that because I’ve ridden a road bike on these roads just as I would ride a road bike.  In fact Boulder has historically held a road race called the Boulder-Roubaix on the Boulder gucci gravel and we all used our road bikes with maybe 25mm slick road tires.  And nobody got hurt. The skills required are the same skills you need for road racing: To be able to ride in a pack, group, peloton Draft wheels Conserve energy from drafting and maneuvering in the pack to travel faster with less energy expenditure When I say draft I am speaking about the fact that aerodynamic drag is 30% less riding directly behind a rider in front of you than it is riding with no rider in front of you aka breaking the wind. Over 3-4-5-6 hours + that 30% adds up alot and you can travel farther and faster by riding in a group.  Having a good group to ride with during a gravel race is kinda the holy grail to your performance especially in the final quarter of the race when you are really tired.  You’ll go faster and be more motivated than being stuck out there by yourself in no man’s land questioning your life’s decisions. How do you work on your pack riding gravel skills: why by George practice by riding in groups.  This where a lot of roadies excel and why you see a lot of them coming over to gravel. That and they are aerobic endurance monsters. So to practice you need to seek out opportunities to work on you drafting and your pack riding skills.  This is why we are such fans of the weekend group rides and the weeknight crits and group rides. I said crit – yes – crit racers  are some of the best drafters in the sport of cycling (trackies too) but a good crit racer can draft like nobodies business and out sprint , out kick you on the last lap.  Want to improve your pack riding, drafting gravel skills – do a crit.  Or a road race – that counts too. In fact, the first 30-60 minutes of a gravel race is just like a fast paced road race.  Therefore seek out road races to work on your gravel skills.  Of course you can do gravel races to work on your gravel skills because by doing you are practicing. And with more practice you’ll improve and become more comfortable riding at speed in close proximity to other riders. All the while it is dusty and bumpy. Familiarity plays a big factor. So practice practice practice.  I’ll give you an aside about pack riding skills to put it in perspective for gravel racing.  When I worked for USA Cycling and Directed the US National Women’s Team at all the world cups like Flanders, Drenthe Plouay, etc…  pack riding skills was many time the rider’s biggest challenge. The US National Team would take the best riders in the US used to slower speeds, bigger roads and a not as tight of a pack and put them on narrow unfamiliar roads, higher speeds , closer quarters and that was their biggest challenge. That’s also why racing in Europe is important for athlete development – its a skill that comes from doing.  There’s no practice or drill or workout that is a substitute for riding in the European peloton. The point I want to make is to practice by doing when it comes to your gravel skills.  The more gravel races you do the better you’ll become at them, including our gravel pack riding skills. Okay – that covers the chaotic first 30 minutes of a gravel race but what about after that? After that you will be lucky to be in a smaller group of 6 – 12 riders.  Same skills apply it is just not as scary. Your line of sight is much better! Let’s talk about your line of sight because this is a big gravel skill.  Your line of sight is drafting and looking ahead at the road/trail and seeing the smoother path.  The path of least resistance AND making changes to your line to avoid that rock, or that hole in the dirt or the muddier line. Your line of sight is easier to see when you are out there all by yourself in the latter portion of the race but at the beginning of the race see the dirt is blocked by the pack and your attempt to draft better.   Know why there are so many flats in the first two hours of the Dirty Kanza/Unbound? Because riders are desperate to find a better draft and don’t see the sharp rock because they are literally glued to the wheel in front of them. What’s the skill? Eyes up  #1.  Don’t just look at the wheel just in front of you – looking ahead and around. Look Around # 2 – if possible – you’ll be able to see better by riding an inch or two to the left or the right of the wheel in front of you – riding just to the side gives you a better line of sight.  Sometimes that line of sight comes at the expense of the draft so its a balance.  Do you trust the wheel, the rider in front of you and follow them verbatim or do you ride just a little off to the side? Its a balance – but don’t use your brute strength in the first few hours of the race riding off to the side because that will come back to bite you in the last quarter of the race when you are dog tired. One final gravel skill or tactic is when riding in a group of 20 for example position yourself towards the front but not on the front for a better line of sight. You’ll still have a good draft but less likely to be surprised by a rock, a rut, root, patch of mud etc… Kinda like the Paris-Roubaix entering the Ardennes Forest – be up front. But not on the front…. That covers the roadie esque portion of your gravel skills. You’ll use those at nearly all your gravel races. Let’s shift over to the gravel skills per the terrain – the gravel conditions getting away from the Boulder gucci gravel course and on to the medium and chunky sections – even sections that are like mountain biking. For these sections of a course line of sight is critical and the draft is not that important.  In fact you will negotiate these sections better by not being around other riders.  For example – you’re riding in a pack, drafting well , traveling  faster and life is good but you come to a singletrack section: The skill here is to enter that section first out of the group you are with or if not give the rider in front of you space ahead – like 3-5 bike lengths so you have a clear line of sight to handle the turns, the rocks, mud, slick section, roots, etc…. Often times these sections are only a small fraction of the whole race so my best piece of advice is to try to negotiate them safely and then you can put the hammer down when the technical aspect is over and the gravel road is in better conditions. In cyclocross we use the adage, “you know what’s slower than riding a section carefully? Crashing.” Crashing is slower and often costly to you and your equipment.  I know its cool and all to rail a section like Matthew van der Pool or Christoper Blevins but remember from our podcast with Amity Rockwell – the tortoise beats the hare every time. Your goal for these sections is to safely steadily negotiate your way thru. Gravel Skills include: Check your speed before entering a technical section Eyes up – look ahead Ride light – and by that we mean get up out of the saddle so if you do need to roll over a rock or a root your whole weight sitting on the bike does not compress the tire and potentially damage your rim, cause an flat etc… While you are out of the saddle use your knees and elbows like shock absorbers.  Let the bike move up and down and around underneath you while your arms and legs are extending at your knees and elbows. I took a mountain bike lesson from 2000 World Downhill Mountain Bike Champion Myles Rockwell and he said – ‘dance with the trail’ let the bike move underneath you while you are stable To practice: ride your Gravel Bike on trails! Yea, its fun and will help you train and practice for these portions of your gravel race. So for the Boulder gucci gravel riders – head over to Dowdy Draw where the xc mountain bikers go and practice riding your gravel bike on the singletrack. This reminds me of the announcer of the Crusher and the Tushar which is billed as ‘no matter what bike you choose, you’ll be dead wrong at some point in the race’ – and of course this was in the early days of gravel racing when some choose to ride a mountain bike and some choose to ride a cyclocross bike – the crusher had/has mountain bike sections and road bike sections. These days ride your gravel bike on mountain bike terrain as well as the road.  Be diversified. The more you do it the better you’ll become. Back to the more in the moment skills here are a few more tips to consider and implement when you are out there getting your groad on: Use your rear brake more than your front brake unless the traction is good and consistent.  Like 70 % rear 30% front. This is especially important for descending and corners. Again criterium racers and cyclocrossers have the upper hand here and often times take their skills for granted. For cornering – my number 1 tip is to check your speed before you enter the corner.  While you are coming up on the corner read the line and the terrain. Is it loose and dusty, muddy slick or buttery smooth? How tight is the corner what are the safe speeds? At the Crusher the corners come in the form of switchbacks on the descents and the speeds are really slow. At Steamboat Gravel the corners are more like bends in the road and the speeds are high and some don’t even require braking at all. Just  remembering the tortoise and the hare its better to go thru a corner safely than by crashing. No one ever finishes a gravel race wishing they’d of cornered faster. Descending!  I’m gonna give you all my cyclocross skill tips here: Keep your weight back and feather your front break, use your rear brake more. To get your weight back even further stand up and get your hips behind your saddle over the back wheel. Keep your elbows loose to dance with the terrain and avoid having a death grip on the handlebars.  Be loose and flowy so the bike can move underneath over rocks, roots, etc… Avoid the death grip. Hand position: hoods are ok but for better brake modulation be down in the drops – the curly bars as the enduro folk poke fun of us endurance types. To practice: descend!  For the Bouder gucci gravelers – descending down the gravel section of Sunshine Canyon – it has similarities to Steamboat and the Crusher.  The gravel road at the Crusher get chewed up big time and stutter bumps forms as well the corners get loose. So descend Sunshine when its like that : awful. You can let off the brakes more in the straight sections and check your speed as you enter the corners.  Even in the drops keep your elbows and shoulder loose.  If you can remember to laugh and flap your arms like a chicken you’ll get bonus points. Steam crossings + Roots and Mud: Gravel skills for stream crossings mostly depends on how deep the water is, visibility and the conditions at the bottom.  At the legendary Winter park Tipperary Creek MTB race way back when, Lance Armstrong was racing and came to the famous Tipperary Creek crossing in the lead of the race.  In late summer the water was still running pretty high and there was no visibility to the rocks below. Rumor has it Big Tex did a full on superman endo with a full face plunge into the water. Local honch Jimi Killen who was about a minute or two behind dismounted and overtook Lance for the w. The point here is safe passage is faster than crashing. There’s a lot of stream crossing at Unbound and a lot of flats after because the visibility is poor a riders slam a rock underneath. So run your big tire and don’t be afraid to get off your bike if you can’t see you line. Roots!  There’s dry roots and wet muddy slick roots.  I still have PTSD from racing the NorBA Nationals at Mount Snow and in West Virginia.  If at all possible square off and ride the roots perpendicular.  Whatever you do try to avoid riding a root diagonally because the chances are much higher for the rubber tire to slip sideways on the smooth wet muddy root.  That is nearly impossible at Mt Snow or West Virginia but thankfully I do not know of any gravel course that gnarly. Pick your way over these sections. Light out of the saddle eyes ahead, feather the front brake and this is where doing a course inspection will help a ton.  Ie. riding the course and knowing about the sections coming up. Finally let’s talk about mud! I think we’ve all seen the picture from the Mid-South last year – just soul crushing slow peanut butter heavy mud.  The biggest mud riding skill is a light gear and to keep your momentum, moving forward. Once you stop or dab you are going to probably need to get off an run to a less muddy section or expend a lot of energy to get going again. Fortunately for most of the gravel races out west you’ll be battling dust rather than mud.  But races further east have the potential to be muddy and that means slower speeds and more patience is required. That is more tactics but skills are to simply keep your arms and shoulder loose – and honestly let the bike slide underneath you and keep your center of gravity overtop the bottom bracket.  Avoid the death grip.  Letting the bike slip around in the mud is for sure an acquired skill so how do you practice? That’s right ride in the mud. 10,000 muddy miles for mastery. ha! Alright that’s all the gravel skills I have for you in this podcast, if I missed some please let me know in the comments.  My biggest take home point is that gravel skills is like riding a bike – the more you do it the better you’ll become. So while you are out there FtFP’ing weave 10-20 minutes here and there to ride singletrack or mountain bikey terrain. Use your long gravel simulation rides not only for the physiological aspect of the training but for the skills practice too. Not only uphill but downhill as well! Copyright © 2021 FasCat Coaching – all rights reserved. Join our *FREE* Athlete Forum to nerd out with FasCat coaches and athletes about your FTP, race data, power based training, or anything related to going fast on the bike! To talk with a FasCat Coach about Over Under intervals for your training and racing, please fill out a New Athlete Questionnaire to set up a complimentary coaching consultation. The post Gravel Skills and Tips appeared first on FasCat.

“Happy spouse, happy house” is an important mantra to keep in mind as a cyclist. Training and racing can be a selfish endeavor, and it’s often easy to get sucked into the tunnel vision of goals and TSS and forget about the home life. Coach Frank shares some Valentine’s Day wisdom for finding and keeping balance in the household while still hitting your cycling goals! 59525Sweet Spot part 3 top off your base!” We are having a 30% off Valentine’s Day sale!  Use the coupon code FAST30 for 30% any training plan on FasCatCoaching.com.  Note: if you’ve already used your limit 1 25podcast coupon this is your 2nd chance to save again. Thanks to everyone for tuning in, subscribing and reviewing on Apple Podcasts, and for engaging in our forum! Save 25% on your next training plan with code 25podcast The post The Relationship Podcast appeared first on FasCat.

 Welcome to the 16th edition of our “Ask a FasCat” podcast series, where we gather questions from our forum, website, and social media to help you ride faster!  This round Frank and Lacey dive into questions ranging from course pre-riding, long term development in cycling philosophy, starting training again after a crash, and tons more. Thanks to everyone for the thought provoking questions! 58364Sweet Spot part 3 – as mentioned in the podcast!” The FasCat community now has access to discounts on Stages products, learn more by clicking on the Stages logo in our latest power based training tip “Top 10 Reasons to Ask Santa for a PowerMeter” Show Notes: Leaving post-activity comments: https://fascat.wpengine.com/tips/how-to-leave-post-activity-comments-for-your-coach-and-be-coachable/ Secret Training: To Race or Not To Race: https://fascat.wpengine.com/tips/secrettraining-to-race-or-not-to-race/ How to use the VIPR tube: https://fascat.wpengine.com/tips/how-to-use-a-vipr/ Use 25podcast to receive 25% off your first training plan! Join our *FREE* Athlete Forum to nerd out with FasCat coaches and athletes about your FTP, race data, power based training, or anything related to going fast on the bike! Copyright © 2021 FasCat Coaching – all rights reserved. The post Ask a FasCat #16 appeared first on FasCat.

Show Notes: This week on the podcast we are talking about ways to help you stay motivated!  That’s right motivational tips and tricks to beat the mid-winter blues and follow your plan.  Coach Frank with sound bites from Coaches Isaiah & Jake expand on using these 18 examples to stay motivated in order to achieve your goals: 57324Sweet Spot Part 3 with Over Unders and Criss Cross Intervals Remember your Goals Set a Daily Goal to FtFP (General McRaven’s Make your Bed EveryDay) Make it Turn Green – same as above, daily goal Indoor Training – lower the barrier to completion If you have a 3 hour ride on your plan ride 1.5 hours one way so that you have to ride 1.5 hours to make it back home! Ride a different bike than the day before Ride in a new place or new route Set an FTP – plan a 20 min field test and or a Strava PR into your plan Travel to somewhere warm and sunny Ask yourself what would Alaphilippe Do (WWAD)? Coach Jake :: Zwift Meetups / Group Rides Coach Jake :: get to Daylight Savings Coach Isaiah : focus on progression goals Coach Isaiah :: focus on feeling faster / improvement sensations Sweet Spot TSS rides when there are no group rides Watch a Pro Race – like the World CX Champs in Ostend this past weekend Buy a Training Plan Hire a Coach Watch the podcast here: Listen on Spotify: Phil’s Everesting Video with Coach Frank Dr. Michale Roshon’s VeloNews about early season racing Previous Podcast Episode on Motivation Indoor Workout Motivation Don’t forget Ask a FasCat # 16 is coming up and the deadline to submit your training and racing questions is 5pm mst February 4th. Thanks to everyone for tuning in, subscribing and reviewing on Apple Podcasts, and for engaging in our forum! Save 25% on your next training plan with code 25podcast The post Motivational Tips and Tricks appeared first on FasCat.

 The recipes in our Winning in the Kitchen Meal Plans are designed to be template guides for meals and have nearly endless variations to fit your preferences and tastes. In this episode, Frank and Jackson discuss how to adapt a few of the recipes to change them up and how to approach incorporating the 5 key food groups for meal planning. Listen in to hear how to keep the kitchen exciting if you’ve been feeling uninspired with your meals! 56075Winning in the Kitchen Meal Plan! Show Notes: Meal Prep Guide: https://fascat.wpengine.com/tips/meal-prep-guide/ Eggs and Kale recipe: https://fascat.wpengine.com/tips/what-to-eat-for-breakfast/ Chipotle Rice Bowl: https://fascat.wpengine.com/tips/chipotle-burrito-bowl/ Salmon Watts: https://fascat.wpengine.com/tips/salmon-watts/ OG Winning in the Kitchen Podcast: https://fascat.wpengine.com/tips/winning-in-the-kitchen/   Thanks to everyone for tuning in, subscribing and reviewing on Apple Podcasts, and for engaging in our forum! For more things cycling training, visit http://fascat.wpengine.com. Save 25% on your next training plan with code 25podcast The post Winning in the Kitchen Recipe Variations appeared first on FasCat.

How about a little anaerobic work to go with your sweet spot base training? At FasCat in the wintertime we like to caress and nurture our athlete’s anaerobic system.  One training myth we’d like to dispel is to only do base training for 2-3 months. Why not do both simultaneously, in the right amounts.  We’ve long been fans of fast fun wintertime group rides for the short 10 – 20 second forays above threshold we see in athlete’s power data.   While not a ton of time is spent above threshold there is value and benefit to including anaerobic work to your base training.  After all, isn’t this how the sport of cyclocross was invented? 54547Wintertime Intensity Training Plan. 1 hour workouts Zwift Compatible. This year a number of athletes are missing group rides not only for the social aspect but also for the training.  And not only the base miles training and TSS but the anaerobic component that makes these group rides so beneficial.  Doing a group ride on Zwift (not a race) over variable terrain with mixed high and low power output is OK but not quite the same as these 5 workouts we are presenting below. First, what is ‘Wintertime Intensity’? Wintertime Intensity is 2 – 4 cumulative minutes of zone 6 work per hour.  Two to four minutes is not a lot considering a one hour criterium or cyclocross race has more than half or 30 minutes spent in one’s zone 6. Wintertime Intensity as you would guess is prescribed in the second half to final third of one’s aerobic endurance phase or CTL build.  As in our sweet spot part 3 plan or our new wintertime intensity plan. These variable power wintertime intervals mimic the power demands* of road, mountain bike, gravel, fondo, cyclocross and even punchy time trials.  In this training tip, we’ll describe the how, what, where, and why of wintertime intervals and give you five progressive workout examples plus a link to our WinterTime Intensity Training Plan that includes these 5 workouts** in an easy to follow, simple and affordable training solution. *surges in the peloton, steep pitches up climbs, switchbacks, and technical singletrack, cyclocross accelerations ** compatible with Zwift and others 3rd party riding app. The Wintertime Intervals are what we call variable power workouts and they have 5 main benefits: Specificity of real world conditions Help the time pass quicker during indoor training sessions! Concise short high quality 1 hour workouts (designed for indoors and ERG mode) but just as easily performed outside with longer zone 2 warm up and cool downs. Nurtures your Anaerobic System Provides an introductory amount of intensity to one’s base training before the high intensity interval training phase Wintertime intervals are structured over under or criss cross style workouts with short 10 – 20 second efforts at the beginning and/or the end of the interval. For example 10 seconds @ 150% on FTP followed by 2 minutes and 40 seconds at Sweet Spot wattages and/or heart rates followed by 10 more seconds @ 150-200% of one’s FTP before a 1:1 work to rest ratio 3 minute recovery.  Then repeat. That’s a 3 minute variable power sweet spot effort with 20 seconds total (10 second before and 10 second afters on zone 6 work of zone 6 work.  One can do 6 of these in a one hour workout for 18 minutes of ‘wintertime intensity’ split 88 % sweet spot and 12 % anaerobic zone 6.  Or 16 minutes of sweet spot work and 2 minutes of anaerobic work.  That’s a perfect ratio for your wintertime base training Dec-Jan-Feb.  Now the progression lies in spending more time in sweet spot and more time in zone 6 in the context of a one hour workout. To get started with your wintertime intensity interval training we have the FasCat #1 Sweet Spot Cheetah Pounce” 4 x 6 minutes.  We like to have a little fun with sports psychology and animal imagery in these workouts.  And of course we are talking about the world’s fastest land mammal, the cheetah. Carefully sweet spot stalk your prey (your prey being your training goals) at sweet spot wattages and/or heart rates for 5 minutes and 40 seconds and the “pounce!” on them for the final 20 seconds at a 115 – 150% FTP Zone 6+ effort.  Pounce out of the saddle as if you were going for the win and and uphill sprint.  Really give’er here because you have a 3 minute recovery interval after.   Take a 2:1 work to rest ratio 2 minutes recovery and repeat 3 more times. If all goes well and you FtFP your power and heart rate data will look like this: note the ‘extra credit’ watts for the last Pounce – we encourage this!   In total this will be 24 minutes of WTI with 94% or 22.66 minutes being Sweet Spot and 6 % and 1.34 minutes being Zone 6 Anaerobic. ERG mode is fantastic for these variable power workouts but toggle if OFF to be able to get ‘EXTRA CREDIT” with more watts for the Pounce Pro Tip: Shift Down 3-4 seconds ahead of the pounce to be able to respond to to load the FasCat #2 Sweet Spot “Cheetah Pounce: is 6 x 4 minutes broken up into 2 sets Its a progression from the Cheetah Pounce # 1 Again visualize yourself as a cheetah stalking your prey, which is your A#1 training goal and sweet spot for 3 minutes and 40 seconds. Then just like #1 pounce out of the saddle for 20 seconds at a 115 – 150% FTP Zone 6+ effort. Again really get after the pound effort because you have a 2 minute recovery interval to catch your breath after. Little known cheetah exercise physiology nugget: Cheetah are all fast twitch and anaerobically gifted but at the expense of their endurance. A cheetah is wicked fast for 30 – 60 seconds but if the antelope can outrun the cheetah for longer than that cheetahs lose their speed quickly.  Would make a terrible endurance athlete but a world class obviously kilo and pursuit rider!  Cheetahs need more sweet spot training! … but I digress. Continuing on with the Cheetah Imagery theme is the FasCat # 3 Sprint > Stalk > Kill: 2 sets of 3 x 3 minutes.  The progression of # 3 come from added in a 10 second anaerobic out of the saddle sprint to the beginning of the effort like a traditional over under. The Sprint Stalk Kill Goes like this: Sprint out of the saddle for the first 10 seconds of each interval @ 150% of FTP.  Then settle back in the saddle to sweet spot stalk your prey (your goals) before going for the KILL with an out of the saddle > 150% FTP sprint! Really visualize your goals here – it is a crit and cyclocross race and mountain bike course – think and see yourself in the crux moment of these races making this kind of power. Please pardon the KILL’ing reference but that’s how it is in the Serengety and if you bring a killer mindset to your racing you’ll make Eddy Merckx (the cannibal proud). the FasCat # 4 Sprint > Stalk > Kill: is 2 sets of 5 x 2 minutes and is a progression from # 3 Same deal, sprint out of the saddle at 150% of FTP settle back in the saddle to sweet spot stalk your goal before going in for the KILL at 200% of FTP for the final 10 seconds. Visualize your Goals to Sprint FAST like a Cheetah! Accelerate, Settle In to your Sweet Spot and then go Full Gas for the KILL! I believe Duran Duran says it the best ‘Hungry like the Wolf”. To our knowledge no cheetah has made it into pop music culture . The Sprint > Stalk Kill # 3 contains 18 total minutes of wintertime intensity with 88% and 16 minutes being sweet spot and 12 % and 2 minutes begin anaerobic. The Sprint > Stalk Kill # 4 progresses to 20 minutes of WTI with 83.3% and 16.6 minutes of Sweet Spot and 16.7% and 3.4 min of anaerobic zone 6.  The progression comes from a little bit less sweet spot and a little bit more anaerobic. Finally!  If you know us well you know we always include a ‘Diabolical’ workout version for all the young buck  whippersnappers out there who can handle the load and want to get their cat 2 upgrade. Now the FasCat # 5 Diabolical “Cheetah Pounce” is diabolical because you don’t have time to catch your prey with sweet spot – you need to stalk them faster at threshold watts! There’s is no set break either in order to get 8 reps in an hour workout. The FasCat # 5 Diabolical Cheetah Pounce goes like this: 8 x 3 minutes with 10 seconds zone 6 followed by 2 minutes and 40 seconds at zone 4 followed by 10 seconds at 200% of FTP.  There’s a 1:1 work to rest ratio to enable you to complete the workout but the 8 reps add up – pace yourself especially for the first 2 or 3 because the last 2 reps, 7 & 8 will hurt! compliments of Coach Isaiah taking a diabolical one for the team   Caress and nurture your anaerobic system this winter with these 5 wintertime intensity workouts.   Get on the bike, get down to work, get off, go win in the kitchen and go on about your day. Copyright © 2021 FasCat Coaching – all rights reserved. Join our *FREE* Athlete Forum to nerd out with FasCat coaches and athletes about your FTP, race data, power based training, or anything related to going fast on the bike! To talk with a FasCat Coach about your wintertime intensity, please fill out a New Athlete Questionnaire to set up a complimentary coaching consultation. Comments The post Wintertime Intensity appeared first on FasCat.

 Happy 2021! Coach Frank is back in action to talk about what’s coming down the pipeline for podcasts over the next few months of the new year. Winter training, nutrition challenge, and more! Frank also revisits an episode he recorded earlier in 2020 discussing the importance of measuring and tracking your FTP (functional threshold power) with a 20 minute field test, an essential metric to focus on in the beginning of a new year. 53820Six Weeks till the Sweet Spot Part 1 Base Training Plan Reference: A 20 minute Power-Based Field Test As always, thanks to everyone for tuning in, subscribing and reviewing on Apple Podcasts, and for engaging in our forum! For more things cycling training, visit http://fascat.wpengine.com. Save 25% on your next training plan with code 25podcast Copyright © 2021 FasCat Coaching – all rights reserved. Join our *FREE* Athlete Forum to nerd out with FasCat coaches and athletes about your FTP test, power data, power based training, or anything related to going faster on the bike!   The post What’s Ahead on the Podcast in 2021 + FTP Testing appeared first on FasCat.

 I wrote this five years ago in 2016 and have been living it since – cycling is a lifestyle and in this training tip I’ll share that lifestyle with you – Frank Overton Jan 9, 2020 Five year’s ago my new year’s resolution was to double down and make 2016 my year to have a great cycling season. You know, ‘get serious’.   The motivation came from two cyclocross seasons of getting my ass kicked. That was not fun at all. Like cross the finish line, go back to your car, get in and drive away.  So I woke up on New Year’s Day 2016 and went for a ride. Then the next day I went for another ride and the next day and so forth. Training consistently was my first goal and I knocked that out in January – I got back to being a cyclist, just like you. As I look back on 2016 and the 4 years since then, I more than accomplished my goal to have a ‘great season’ and as a coach I want to tell you how I transformed my cycling so you will know how coaching can help you for 2020 and beyond! Here are 8 next level approaches to your training and two things I learned about myself that I’ll share with you: #1 Consistency: I made getting on my bike a daily priority, whereas before I let work, kids and weather be an excuse. 1 hour a day Tues/Wed/Thurs, indoors or out. We’ve since adopted the phrase “FtFP” which is like Velomanti’s Rule #5, HTFU.  Here FtFP means Follow the F&*#’ing Plan.   100% of our athletes report back that having a plan to follow helps them get on the bike and accomplish their workout each day. Having a coach to hold you accountable to that plan and consequently those goals is also next level. 3864Start Sweet Spotting your way to your best cycling season ever. #2 Zwift: speaking of indoors, I hadn’t trained indoors in years. Maybe it was that 4 hour roller session I did as a youngster that scarred me?  Enter Zwift. Try it, its fun and you’ll no longer use weather and daylight as an excuse. Zwift enables you to #FtFP. Last winter was the first winter in a long time where if it was sloppy cold outside or I couldn’t ride till after dark due to work, that I would move onto plan B and get on the KICKR and Zwift. Fun and productive, 1 hour: one and ‘dun’ where I whole heartedly went for KOMs, rode hard and made a lot of sweat, aka TSS.  Exporting your workout from TrainingPeaks to Zwift is incredibly easy and straightforward, we’ve documented it over in our athlete support forum. In January I established consistency and in February Zwift enhanced that consistency. By March, I stepped it up group rides. And you know what, this is where my training an goals became F-U-N. #3 Group Rides: by March I had 2 previous months of fitness to propel me on the group rides.  I also had the cyclocross season in my back pocket where the fitness carries over.  This gave me the ability to not just hang on, but to take pulls and ride harder without having to worry about getting dropped.  You know what’s not fun? Hanging on for dear life on a group ride.  You know what’s ‘funner’? Going faster. Improving is fun. During these group rides, I was able to generate more TSS, raise my CTL higher and higher all the while having F-U-N. Hard as heck, shattered afterwards but Fun with a capital F.  I kept going and the training snowballed from consistency, Zwift and the group rides. #4 CTL: Speaking of CTL , I took mine from 22 on 1/1/16 to 113 on 6/23/16 (2 weeks prior to my first A race). This was all made possible from 1, 2, & 3 and of course sweet spot training.  We’ve since podcasted on using the performance manager chart to build a big aerobic engine as well as manage your training load – TSTWKT is truly a next level approach to your training. #5 Winning in the Grocery Store/ Kitchen:  I’ve always eaten well but I knew eating better was key to my performance and the lofty goals I had set. Better nutrition was going to help me lose weight, fuel my workouts and help me recover better. Back in my younger days I used to race at 148 – 154 lbs but over the 10 yrs since my ‘retirement’ the weight had crept up. So I resolved to eat better on January 1st, 2016. I ate more veggies and started cooking more. I also cut sugar completely out of my diet and cut back on beer. The sugar was easy; the beer was tough. But there’s 3-500 empty calories in every beer and going down to a few a week instead of 1-2 every night made a weight loss relatively easy. Oh and I started planning out my meals and cooking more, thus paving the way for what would be a major theme within our coaching philosophy:  which was a relief.  Athletes – I encourage every one of you to get more in tune with your nutrition by going to the grocery store yourself and cooking your own meals. It will be such a phenomenal shift in the way you eat, that you can’t help but get faster. All these dietary changes took me from 168 to 158 lbs by Memorial Weekend and I felt great, setting Strava PR’s because my power to weight ratio was way up. Overall, I lost a little less than 2 lbs per month for 5 months. Not dieting per se, just cleaning things up. Better food choices an eliminating empty calories.  Basically practicing what I’ve always preached as a coach here. My threshold power was up too and my confidence really began to sky rocket. Then during the Tour inspired by Chris Froome, I took my diet and weight loss to the next level: Winning in the Kitchen: under cut my daily caloric requirements by 250-500 calories per day. Basically, I ate a ton of fish, veggies and salad + some carbohydrate the night before hard training rides. In July and August I went from 158 to 150 lbs, super lean and was absolutely crushing it on the bike. I started intervals in August so my power went up even more buoyed by the CTL I built up thru June. Less on the denominator and more on the numerator = significant power to weight improvement. Like back to where I was 10 years ago when I was racing NRC’s at the professional level. I don’t recommend trying losing weight during your season but remember, this was pre-season for me at the time because the cyclocross season was yet to start. To recap, I lost another 8 lbs (ontop of the 10 lbs by Memorial Weekend) and went from 12-14 % body fat to roughly a 5% lean, mean, cyclocross racing machine . 18 lbs total since January – had to buy a new belt! Not surprisingly the cyclocross season went well and I had the season I’ve always wanted to have. Hanging out after the races and swapping war stories. I podiumed in my first 6 race weekends, winning one race and nearly missing out on 2 other ‘w’s’. Wow. New year’s resolution complete. #6 Yoga I had taken yoga classes in years past and remembered how good I felt after the classes and how it helped with proprioception for better bike handling. So I started again and sure enough, it was helping with my recovery (like stretching) and I started handling the cyclocross bike better especially leaning the bike over in the corners. I started with YogaGlo on the iPad at home and then upgraded to studio classes. At first once a week then up to 2-3 times per week, primarily on my off days when I had a recovery day on the bike. Along the way I found my ‘breath’ and when I was doing intervals for ‘cross, I could literally slow down my breathing and ‘relax’ during the interval and in the race. Yoga is like moving meditating for me (just like riding) and the benefits spilled over to my mental toughness during the races. #7 Strength and Conditioning: I enlisted the help of a personal trainer to put me thru the paces in Sept and October. I saw amazing gains in my explosive power which I put to use with the accelerations I needed for cyclocross. It was all about getting the glutes engaged and utilizing this muscle group for power production.  This year (2017) I’ll integrate this work + squats, hip thrusts & plyometrics into my cyclocross off season Feb/Mar and then again July/Aug – earlier than this past year so I can recover and still deliver the power on the bike. What else? Sleep. Oh yes, sleep – the best recovery aid there is. #8 Sleep. Best recovery tool in the business.  Everything else is secondary. In 2015, I got a Fitbit with my daughter for Christmas and what I found most helpful was tracking my sleep hours. 8 hours a night and I’m good, nine and I’m gold. 7 and I feel it and 6 or less and I’m absolute garbage the next day. Since that Fitbit in 2015, I’ve upgrade to using the Whoop which is a 24/7/365 wearable device that records my daily strain, my HRV and sleep to measure my recovery.   Big data type of stuff but the Whoop distills it all down to a daily recovery score: red, yellow, or green that helps you adjust your lifestyle and training load in order to keep recovery (and keep getting faster). Lastly: all the stuff you already know: intervals, motorpacing, training hard, life balance and working on my cyclocross skills with our annual cyclocross camp. Overall I mostly trained 8-12 hour per week with the occasional overload 14 – 16 week before a regeneration block. I did do one 20 hour week over  the Memorial Day long weekend. I made some mistakes along the way because I was self coached but I have the data and experience that I’m going to correct and use to my advantage in 2017. For example: #1 Not raise my CTL so high by Memorial Day (I was 109) – rather a more gradual ascent this winter and spring. And that means less forcing training days and more time snowboarding over the winter. I was pretty cooked from training so hard in June that I didn’t quite have the snap for my A race that I had in May. Patience – it takes time and consistency. As I age I may set a CTL of 100 as the high end of what is good and beneficial to my goal events. #2 Prepare for my A race by doing a training race. Probably the Haute Route – its a great overload and timed perfectly to end 2 weeks before the Crushar. I’ll simply recover and taper into peak form. Coaching is so much more than a training calendar and power files.  Its a relationship with an expert invested in your goals ready to share their experience to help you. Granted a well thought out scientifically designed training calendar and power based training are fundamental but the 9 items I described above are next level.  Its like the home depot commercial, “You can do it, we can help”. It takes time and it was hard but ho. lee. moo. lee. it was worth the effort and every single bit of TSS. And the podiums. Copyright © 2021 FasCat Coaching – all rights reserved. Join our *FREE* Athlete Forum to nerd out with FasCat coaches and athletes about your FTP, race data, power based training, or anything related to going fast on the bike! Frank is the founder and owner of FasCat Coaching in Boulder, CO. Frank and the FasCat Coaches have been talking the talk and walking the walk [FasCat Core Value #7] for over 15 years.  To talk about transforming your cycling and having your best season, you can email frank@fascat.wpengine.com , call 720.406.7444, or fill out a New Athlete Questionnaire to schedule a Coaching Consultation. Comments The post Transform your Cycling with a Next Level Approach appeared first on FasCat.