Training to go Fast!

One of the questions that comes up frequently is what is your training like? What do you do? What is your favorite training session? I intend to pose this question to a number of our regulars at Hellyer Park so that we can all learn about what has helped other people go fast, and what may help each of us go a little faster ourselves. Since I'm already writing, I'll go first.

Uphill sprints. I hate them. I love them. They are a major component of the training that's helped me win twice at Masters Nat's. Every month I look for them in the training plan my coach has given me, and for about 9 months of the year, there they are. Waiting to inflict the worst pain and suffering upon me. And they are the efforts that I look forward to the most because they help so much.

To describe them, and how and why they work I think it's best to start at the end, and work back. When I'm getting close to a major peak in the season I'll do these once a week, usually on Tuesdays so I'm fairly recovered from prior racing, and I'll have time to recover (mostly) before the next races. On a hill of about 4-6% grade, about like a steep freeway overpass, I roll up to the bottom of the hill in the gear I'll use for the entire sprint. Usually it's a 53x15, sometimes it's 53x16. If I want to work mainly on strength I'll start from a dead stop and use the bigger gear. If I want to be more specific for sprinting I'll start from about 10-15mph and sometimes use the smaller gear. I go 100% right from the start to the finish, 15-30 seconds later.

The shorter efforts are for improving the standing start for a TT like team sprint, kilo, or 500mTT. (Pursuiters don't need to start nearly this hard.) The longer efforts are to improve ability in match sprints, the finish of TT's, and points race sprints. I often do a few sprints of the shorter duration, and then some of the longer duration. Here's the really hard part. The rest period between repetitions is only 2'30" to 4', and rest between sets of 2-4 reps is only 5' to 7'. A person focused more on points races than sprinting would aim for about 12 repetitions with the shorter rest periods and more reps per set. A sprinter/TT rider would use the longer rest periods and 2 or 3 repetitions per set. And the total number of reps will be 6 to 9 for the sprinter, and 12+ for the points racer.

Generally, we will work up to this volume beginning in January for the peak near August, and then another peak later for World Championships. In January most of the sprints are 10-20" each, no more than 3 reps in a set, and usually 4' rest between reps. Going into March the duration is usually 20" each, and the total number of reps is 5-8. By June the volume is at it's highest, with plenty of 20-30" sprints, and 6-9 reps. In July the volume comes down slightly to allow for higher quality of the efforts. About 6 weeks out from peak we'll regularly do these efforts on a hill one week, and on the flat the following week, and if I'll do sprints at the track later in the week we usually do less than 5 uphill sprints that week.

These efforts are very hard, and will significantly drain your levels of blood sugar-which can educe the sugar levels in your brain (you see dark spots). It is very important to have plenty of sugar in your blood before and during these efforts or you might black out a bit after the last one or two sprints of the session-been there done that. Don't do them with car traffic around you.

For so much suffering why do them? I am very fortunate to be coached by Max Testa since 2003. Before I started with Max I thought to be good at match sprints you just do 15-20 second sprints on a flat road with plenty of rest between each sprint, and maybe 4 or 5 sprints in a session, and that was it. With this approach I could win at the District level, but at the National Championships I couldn't handle the long sprints of the 3-ups, and when racing the best sprinters in the country they'd come around me out of the last turn. I have learned from Max that quite often, the best training for a specific kind of race effort is not to just mimic that race effort in training.

In a match sprint you'll come up against lots of riders who can go fast for 150-200 meters, but the ones that often win the championships are the riders who can tire the other rider out just a bit, and then go very fast for the last 200 meters, and without slowing down as they approach the line. You will need to be fast when your legs are a bit tired, and you're in a bit of oxygen deficit, and your legs are already loading up with lactate. And if you're doing TT's you already know you need to be really good for 25 seconds or more.

You can not win consistently if you can only produce high force for 5 or 10 seconds. The uphill aspect of the sprints doesn't allow you to spin up the gear to 120+ rpm's by the finish of the effort-the higher rpm's reduce the force per pedal stroke. You won't get much above 80 or 90 rpm's on a hill if the gear is big enough, and this also allows you, and causes you to maintain very high force for the entire effort. And that's what you need for long sprints and for TT's.

The relatively short rests result in incomplete recovery between sprints. This means you'll be sprinting within many of the constraints you'll face in your races, whether that is during a long sprint common in 3-ups, or against another rider who is good at long sprints, or during TT races. You could just do longer efforts, but then fatigue becomes a major limiter. You can't expect to go out and do 4 repetitions of a full-on 500mTT in a single session, or 5 repetitions of 350m sprints at maximum effort. Your fatigue will reduce the quality to a level that is counter-productive.

While the short rest periods help to provide most of the conditions you'll have to cope with in your races, significant fatigue won't be a factor until the 5th, or 8th repetition. You will notice that when the rest periods between sprints are shortest, your muscles will recover a few days quicker than when you use longer rest periods. Consider this a hint for the emphasis of the training that day, or that week, and plan accordingly.

Max used to coach the star riders at Mapei. The first time Max had me do these uphill sprints I was in such agony during the last few sprints (of 9) that I called him up right after the session. I asked him, when the team owner at Mapei was upset with a particular rider, did he tell you to have them do these uphill sprints? Max laughed and said that when he was coaching Michele Bartoli he would have him do 20 repetitions in a session, so that he could attack over and over in the last hour of World Cup races. (Bartoli won the WC overall two years in a row.) Oh well, I guess 6 to 9 repetitions isn't so bad, and they do work.

-Warren