Building
Speed and Endurance
By Chris Kostman
Originally
published in The
Purpose
Spring training to start getting serious
about the season ahead. Build speed and endurance with interval training
Training
First, track your mileage and basic training data in some sort of a log. Put in 5-15% more miles per week for the next month to build your endurance, comfort level, and to burn fat. Make your one long ride even longer and your short ride day even shorter, but build the total miles up all month long. (Quick math: if you're riding 100mi/wk now, and you increase by 5% weekly, you'll be riding 121/wk in a month.)
Also, now is the time to add one serious day
of training to your routine. You have a few options: Ride once a week with a
fast group training ride which rides aggressively, attacks the hills, and does
some random group sprints for such important landmarks as telephone poles. This
will help whip you into shape in a fun and unstructured manner.
Another option is to add a day of structured
interval training to your weekly schedule. Note that I said one day; more is not better this early in the year! The basic idea is to
go as hard as you can for 30 to 180 seconds, rest while spinning in an easy
gear for an interval of the same duration, then repeat the process. Start with
sets of five intervals, then gradually build up to a
set of ten by two months from now. Your goal is to go so hard that you have
nothing left at the end of any particular interval. This will make you faster
and give you greater endurance.
Example Workouts
Start with a 15 to 30 minute warm-up, and
then...
30 sec on, 30 sec off, 60 sec on, 60 sec off,
120 sec on, 120 sec off, 180 sec on, 180 sec off, 120 sec on, 120 sec off, 60
sec on, 60 sec off, 30 sec on, 30 sec off.
A combination of three 30 second intervals
followed by three 180 second intervals, followed by another three 30 second
intervals.
A set of five to ten 120 second intervals,
etc., etc.
Rules
Once you've started one particular interval,
always ride it out until your predetermined time span is completed.
Don't do this where a traffic light or stop
sign will interrupt an interval.
Relax your body, take a drink, and always
keep spinning your legs between intervals.