Sprints nstuff

Last week Duano asked me what he should do for training in order to best prepare for Nationals. He is just doing the crit in the 45+. I passed on the sprint workout that was given to me a few years back by someone who does this stuff for a living. Now it might seem weird, me, the most pathetic sprinter in NE masters racing, giving advice to Duano, who is a speed merchant with a shitload of wins. But hey, stranger things happen.

So my sprint sucks. I also hate doing sprint workouts. Basically, I hardly ever do them. A person of science might conclude that these facts are related. Even though I'm not a sprinter, and I never will be, it still might help to work on the sprint once in a while, or so I thought yesterday. With the heat wave and all, I didn't get outside to ride until 7 pm. I really did not want to just do another lame-o ride around the 'hood, but the look of the sky hinted strongly at an impending thunderstorm, so I did not want to stray too far from home.

Lucky for me, the storm never came. Maybe it passed by a few miles away, because it got breezy and cooled off a bit, down into the 80's. I rode sleeveless and was quite comfortable. So here is the workout:

1) Warm up. Duh. You always have to warm up. For me that means ride easy for a bit, climb a small hill, do some spinning, then do a little jump. Now time for the first part of the workout. Take note, this is also a great way to warm up for a race.

2) Stay seated, in the drops, in a fairly small gear. I chose a 36x17. Find a road that is flat or a very slight uphill. Roll down to less than 15 kph. Go. Do not stand, do not shift. Accelerate in this easy gear as fast as you can, like you were doing a sprint on rollers. Hit the highest rpm you can without crazy bouncing. You should be spun out in less than 20 seconds. Stop. If you have a cadence meter, keep an eye on it. 165 rpm is a good target, unless you're Jonas Carney, then go for 200.

3) Repeat the process above between 3 and 6 times. You should not need too much recovery in between these, maybe 20-60 seconds.

4) After 6 of these, you should be pretty warmed up, but spin easy for 5-10 minutes for full recovery.

5) A second set of 6 of these "spin sprints" is optional. Last night, I did them. Might have only been 4 or 5. Whatever, you get the idea.

6) Now comes the hard part. Find a hill, not too big, but at least 200 meters is good. Put your bike in a big gear, like a 52x15. Roll down to 15 kph, right into the base of the hill. Sprint for all you are worth. Tug on the bars, pull on the pedals, go like it's a drag race. Try to break the pedals right off the crank (but don't actually do that. In fact, check your cleats first). You should blow up before you get to the top of the hill, and in fact before you ever get on top of the gear, otherwise you did not go hard enough.

7) Recover fully, at least 5 minutes before doing another one. Recover fully between each. Do between 2 and 6. Best to start with 2 or 3 the first time you try it.

8) Another 10 minutes of full recovery. Your average speed on this ride should end up the slowest of all your rides this week.

9) Now do a few regular road sprints. Start at around 25-30 kph, pick a sign down the road, and go for your maximum top end, just like in a crit. Do them on a flat or slight downhill with a tailwind. Do 2-6. I only did 3 last night. Don't ask me what my top end was; it was sad.

That's it. Today my arms hurt. I feel pretty tired too. The whole thing only took me 90 minutes. Thanks for reading, please comment all you training machine mofos.