A few more questions/comments

Question:
Your answers are what I was needing to hear – that I shouldn’t try and sprint a time trial. Logically I know this, but I think the hardest thing for me is going to not panic and over do it at the start.

Answer:
Yes, you must concentrate and focus your energy to last for the whole 20 K or whatever the distance happens to be. Get excited when you are 3/4 done and then use that adrenaline to kick in when your legs/heart/lungs are getting tired.
I tend to get all worked up and before you know it, I’m cramping off the bike.
Not Good . . . not good at all. Practice putting yourself in tense or exciting situations while on the bike. For example; maybe a group road ride maybe even tell your buddies what you are going to practice so they can help create the atmosphere – then—in your head—picture crowds screaming and trophies or cash or whatever it takes to get you all excited and then feel the adrenaline rush and control it. TT is a HUGE mind game. Play the game.

Question:
Now I need to do some research on LT and find out what my level is and start training with that in mind. I know that one of the local bike shops say they test for this, but I was thinking it was more of a formula based on age. See, I have so much to learn!

Answer:
Are you comfortable working with the bike shop or whatever for this? I can give you more data but it is probably better in a real live conversation not e-mail. There is a brief description that may prove useful @ http://home.hia.no/~stephens/lacthres.htm. If you want more data than the bike shop can provide there are lots of other sites on the web . . . do you have a coach? If s/he is a well trained coach, s/he should be able to give you an idea about it based on training and heart rate and perceived exertion levels and when the legs load up etc. even with out the blood work.

Question/Comment:
We do an hour on the rollers (on a track bike) three times a week, with sprint intervals towards the end, then on the weekends, we do road riding, focusing on hills. It sounds like from what you are saying that being able to ride at your LT for longer periods of time is what I should be focusing on, so I’ll start looking into that and incorporating it into our current ride schedule.

Answer:
Yes sounds like a good plan. One thing you might try is something that worked wonders for me back a few years ago. My goal was 40 K but it can be manipulated to work for a 20 K (12.4miles) as well.
This next training tip I will share with you is something that happens over the course of the season – not in a few weeks.
First week do 6×2 miles hard (not max but hard – 90%) efforts. Take full recovery time (usually 2 times the amount of the effort or more between efforts). If that felt especially hard, do the same workout the following week. When you are ready to advance, do 4×3 mi. hard efforts. Same protocol as last time; full recovery, double the effort time to determine the rest time. Again you may want to do this workout for 2- 3 weeks if you have that much time to play with. Next time, do 3×4 mi efforts same protocol. Then do 2×6 mi. efforts, then you are ready for your big day. (Or at least a whole lot closer to your goal than you would have been without these tt specific workouts).

Question/Comment:
I’m looking at doing the time trial series as training for RAO, since I will be doing around 30 minute pulls in my relay. Hopefully by breaking down the training the end result (finishing RAO) will be less painful.

Answer:
Since you are racing RAO as part of a relay team and are expecting to take 30 min pulls you can break the 30 min. time frame up in the same way 10×3 min HARD, then 8×3:45 min. efforts then 6×5 min efforts (or 7×4:10 or 4:15 efforts) etc. etc. you get the picture.
So, lots of time trials, and lots of training for those time trials, then RAO is just a bunch of time trials, all in a 40 hour period. Actually it is a pretty smart approach.

Thanks for reading,
Susan Cooper

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