You are correct in your thinking that your methods are more fatiguing.
Without being able to watch you race/ride, here are a few thoughts.
Set up a variety of corners, that aren’t too challenging for the following drill (no off-camber or anything crazy yet), maybe a big figure 8 so you can practice both directions, make sure the cones are far apart, so that you can accelerate out of the corner, and slow down to start over before the next cone.
Roll into the corners at a medium speed and try and roll on the power smoothly as you exit.
Practice a number of reps until you are always entering at a speed that allows you to smoothly accelerate out of the corner.
Slowly increase the entrance speed until you can hold the same pace into, and out of the corner.
Once you have confidence in this then make the figure 8 smaller (tighter cornering), this will also change the lines that you enter and exit the corner at to stay smooth.
If there are a series of corners you have to be careful not to enter the first one too fast, this will set you for the braking / sprinting thing that is happening now.
So if there is a series of corners try and always exit the series as fast OR faster than you enter.
Thanks Steve, I’ll also work on dialing in my pressure. It seems a lot of times I’m up and down just to stay off the saddle because I’m being jarred by ruddy bits and too much psi.
With only 4 more Sundays to go…do you see any value in mid week race pace intensity…and potentially digging a hole for Sunday morning race?
I’ll try it early this week, race Sunday, and report back. Thanks again, good stuff.
I really think you should be able to handle mid-week intensity, it doesn’t have to be all out to make you better.
I usually use races but not at max intensity, so if there is a weekly race I would do that as a hard effort, but not max. This will also give you an opportunity to practice technical ideas you want to work on.
When you ride the bumpy stuff, the stuff you are able to pedal, bigger gear, slightly off the saddle just enough so that it doesn’t hit you in the butt, so that you can continue to pedal.
Whaddya know Steve, it worked. This past weekend, I pulled off a win…which is a lot different from a few years ago, when this time during the season, I was going backwards mid-race and looking fwd to hanging up the bike come seasons’ end.
After last weeks race (did a double), it took me 'till Thursday to feel recovered so instead of slavishly doing intensity, I opted for ez Monday, OFF Tuesday, Z2 on the trainer Wed, and then skills with effort on Thursday. Friday was ez skills and Saturday was openers at 85% (instead of mash, mash, mash). Needless to say, you and Coach Ryan had me thinking about skills, rest, and being intentional during the week. Sure enough, by Sunday race, I was ready to go. Thanks again and I look fwd to finishing out the last 2 races.
Thanks Ryan, appreciate all your help and insight. You were adamant about being patient with zone 2 work and sure enough, it took some time. But then I was able you add top end with races and build from there. Yep - I appreciate what you guys do at Fast talk as I’ve learned a lot! And I also know… I’m going to leave the Epic Mtb races to you😬
Coach, during the last race, I was fighting a cold and couldn’t seem to get my heart rate up … and in fact, it seems it trailed off during the race. Is this just the effect of a head cold OR am I also running out of Base (end of season)? thanks, Frank
Thanks Steve for your reply … and I’m interested in your different response:
So let’s say I wasn’t sick and you saw this at an end season race? what comes to mind then?
The reason I ask is because it happened a few years back: I would start out great and then drift backwards mid-race even though I had a lot of races in my legs at that point. thanks again
Thanks for your reply Steve. I’ll follow up with a consult as this topic is something I’d like to dig into, understand better, then correct. Thanks again for all your suggestions this season, Frank
