These intervals are the type where your legs arent going long enough to fatigue your legs too much , but long enough that at the end you're completely out of breath. Due to the short nature of the interval, you're usually able to pump out 10-15 repetitions in a workout as opposed to the 6-8 you'd do in a threshold workout.
The idea is to train your heart to rapidly respond to hard efforts, and to rapidly recover. One of my weaknesses is catching my breath at the top of a climb or after a sprint or gap bridging. This is ultimately the difference between the guys who do well at the races, and the ones who don't. Given 5 riders who have the same power outputs at every duration (1s, 5s, 10s, 30s etc.) the one who can recover quickest from the effort will be the one to win the race. Cresting a climb and being able to drop the hammer ASAP is of utmost importance.
My workout comprised of riding into a strong west wind and sprinting for three lightposts, and resting for 3-5 and then ramping it up again for 3 more posts. Chasing lightposts is not scientific, but riding for 16.5 s instead of a prescribed 15s on the nose shouldnt make a difference, at least at my ability level.
I then met up with my friend Erica for some singletrack riding. After berating me for not mentioning her name in THIS post, I told her that her name was not marketable, while her coach's was. I've gotta look out for #1. =) Erica is an extremely fast rider who has improved in huge strides over the last few years. She also races for the Wild Betty's... oh look! She's on the podium! ....
Anyways.. the trails were extremely fast and absolutely perfect. I was running my favorite tire of life, the michelin comp s (which has been discontinued). I had recabled my bike the day before so everything felt primo. The pace was relaxed, aside from a few intervals that erica was doing where I served as the leadout rabbit to chase over a 300m stretch of singletrack.
Today will be a rest day, I will likely go for a spin down Lakeshore, into Toronto since I will be at my parents house in Mississauga. Friday I plan on getting out on some trails for some longer intervals and to practice some technique. There were a few logs that were pissing me off at twin ponds yesterday.
There are also a couple races happening this weekend:
Springbank Road Race
Handlebars Spring Classic (in New York)
Durham MTB Festival (50k mtb race)
Id like to do one of them, but I have to check the finances..
Heres another pic from yesterday.
