It's not 1840 up in here. We are not eating ourselves. The highways are open. A five minute walk from my house, in full blizzard, finds you at the local health food store where you can take a wheat grass bath if you fancy. We relish this kind of weather. Snowboarding nirvana. Dropping!!!! But how do I ride my bike and train in this kind of craziness? Driving to the warmer lowlands every week is a bit extreme on the environment and quite frankly my pocket.

Back when the Donner Party reenacted the last supper the modern day bicycle had not even been invented. Fred Flintstone could have handled a bike from the 1840's. There were no pedals and cranks. Just a seat, frame and wheels that Fred could push with his feet. That would have made indoor training for us cyclist useless. Really you would have been training for a marathon or that quick getaway when you realized that the third course on the last suppers menu was YOU.

But I have pedals, cranks and an indoor stationary trainer. So a few times a week I lift the back wheel, lock my bike in place and go mental spinning like a gerbil. I am my own pet. That's not a photo of icicles. It's a microscopic detail of my brain fibers after a session on the old indoor. Frozen and mangled. Rendered wet yet not as dull as a sack of wet mice. And brittle.

On paper a workout looks like this:

Warm Up: 15 mins

Max Heart Rate? N/A

Reason: Increase anaerobic power, lactate threshold performance and your repeatability during short intense efforts. High Cadence / maximal intensity 9.00mmol/L and up

Method: Indoor trainer for better comparison between sesions or on a relatively flat section of road.

Intensity Level: High (your heart rate will remain extremely high and you will train your muscles for power and repeatability). Each interval will be shorter and recovery time between efforts is limited. You will NOT fully recover between intervals. Heart rate is not applicable because each interval is at maximum effort.

Practical Application: Your gearing should be moderate, but pedal cadence should be very high (105 - 115) during each interval. Attack each interval as hard as possible Jump out of the saddle and continue to build speed as the interval continues. If you need to, shift into an easier / lighter gear to maintain cadence, but do not let the intensity decrease.

Workout: Perform 4 sets of 3 consecutive intervals according to this schedule.

2mins at maximum effort possible; 2mins rec

1min 45secs at maximum effort possible; 2mins rec

1min 30secs at maximum effort possible; 1min 30secs rec

1min maximum effort possible; 1min rec

30secs at maximum effort possible; 30secs recovery

Recovery is 5mins between sets.

Cool Down: 15 mins

So there it is. Winter training not in a nut shell but from a brain the size of one.

Another great cyclocross race in Tom Simonson's Bay Area Super Prestige series (BASP). This race was at Coyote Point, in San Mateo, CA, just south of SFO. Great turnout, great fun, lots of beer and heckling. I improved my finish from the first race (7th) and gained a lower rung on the podium (4th) in Master's 55+, while Rich Blanco finished 8th in Single Speed A. Glenn Rawlinson was absent but we hope to see him at the next event. Course was hard with lots of soft dirt and slow speeds including a sand pit. I put together this video which sums up the event better than any words I might attempt to write down...

Hey . . . get on out this Sunday October 19 for Truckee River Day, a great opportunity to contribute to the health and wellness of the local trail network and broader environment and community. More info and advance registration at the link below (or do day of show up/etc. instead!). Register yourself and identify that you're part of CWC Racing (even if you're not), so we get to work together!

http://www.truckeeriverday.org/

We hit a similar event, Truckee Trails Day, a few weeks ago and it was awesome . . . full report here:

http://www.sierrasun.com/article/20090925/SPORTS/909259997/1013/NONE&parentprofile=1052