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Coach’s Column: Pre-riding like a pro

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Question: I notice the pros spend a lot of time pre-riding courses for really important races.  What are you thinking about or focusing on as you pre-ride the course?”

Answer: Pre-riding the course at a big race is an important part of your race prep and can be the difference between a top ten and a podium finish.  If done incorrectly it can also wreck your legs and end up making for a miserable weekend.

 

There are two ways to pre ride a course.  The first is to do a mellow reconnaissance of the course at an endurance pace.  This gives you your first look at the course and what you’ll be faced with on race day.  This is an important lap and should not be done as a “social” ride with a large group of friends.  Here are the things I do on my first lap:

  1. On this first easy lap you need to carefully analyze all technical sections.  If you can’t ride something now is the time to stop and practice.  Get these sections dialed and make sure you can ride them.  And if you can’t, figure out the fastest way to walk/run and the best place to get back on your bike without losing any momentum.  Remember it isn’t who can ride everything; it is who is fastest through everything whether that is on or off the bike.
  2. Look at the climbs.  How long are they, how steep, are they technical and slow or smooth and fast?  How will you attack each climb?  Ask yourself if you have the correct gearing on your bike for the climbs.  Make a mental note of where each climb begins so that in the race you are ready and in good position before each hill.
  3. Analyze the terrain and trail conditions.  If it is super muddy and slick will you need to change tires?  Is it super loose and rocky?  Hard packed and fast?  This might also determine the type of bike you ride on race day.  If you know the course is going to be a total mud fest with lots of running you may choose to use a lighter hard tail with narrow tires then your full suspension.
  4. Check out the first kilometer of the lap.  You need to know exactly when the first singletrack sections begins after the start/finish and is this first section slow and technical or fast and smooth.  Do you anticipate a big bottleneck getting into the singletrack section?  If so you need to figure out where you want to move up and in what position you go into that first singletrack.
  5. Check out the last kilometer of the lap.  How does the course come into the finish line?  If you are finishing the race in a small group how will you outsprint your competitors?  Where will you make your big move?
  6. Know where the feed zone is,  how long is it, how rough is the terrain, and figure out how many bottles you need to grab per lap.

Now you’re ready for a second lap of the course.  I call this the “hot lap” and now is the time to start putting things together.  The second lap should be done at a higher speed and intensity; maybe not true race pace but definitely a hard effort.   You want to know how the course flows, what the corners are like and how the technical sections ride at speed.  I like to go hard on my second lap because I want to see and feel what it is like to ride the lap with a high heart rate.   Riding over a 3 foot drop is a heck of a lot harder when you are at race pace then when you are doing your casual reconnaissance lap.    I don’t like to stop on my second lap, but if there is something that is giving you a lot of grief, stop and quickly work out a better line, practice once or twice, and then continue with your hot lap.

If the laps are really short, maybe 20-25 minutes, you can do your first lap easy, the second lap at tempo, and make your third lap your hot lap.  And if the laps are really long and you can only realistically do one lap, then ride the first third easy, the middle third at tempo and the last third at race pace. This can be tricky because you don’t get to see the entire lap at a slow speed to work out any technical challenges.

The biggest drawback to pre riding the course is it can make you tired.  Be careful and strategic with how and when you pre ride the course.  Don’t do three hot laps on the course the day before the race because you feel amazing and you love the course and you’re just having too much fun.  Come race day your legs will be trashed.  Also don’t spend a ton of time trying to ride every technical section perfectly.  If you have a long lap and you’re doing a slow pre ride, you could be out there over three hours.  Sure you’ll know how to ride everything, but you’ll be so tired by race day it won’t matter.   Pre ride the course just enough to learn the major technical sections, get a feel for the terrain, and figure out the best tires and tire pressure to use.  That’s it.  Be confident in your abilities and trust yourself that you’ll know what to do out on the course.  Creating stress and anxiety over a course won’t do you any good and just leads to a miserable 24 hours before the race.

After every pre ride of the course I like to have a recovery drink as soon as I finish.  I will write down important items before I forget them; tire choice, tire pressure, gearing, and bike choice.  If you’re lucky enough to have a mechanic helping you, talk to him right away and let him know your thoughts on the course and what you’d like to do to your bike for the race.  Then clean up, get some food, get out of the venue and get some rest.  Race day is fast approaching!

Do your homework by pre riding the course, put together a solid race plan, and then relax and have fun.  And then ride your bike like you stole it!

Happy trails!

Alison

Alison competed in two Olympic Games, won the UCI Mountain Bike World Championships, the UCI World Cup Overall, and is the holder of thirteen US National Championships in road, MTB, and cyclocross.  Since retiring in 2005 Alison has been working full-time coaching cyclists and running skills camps and clinics. She is a USA Cycling Level I coach, a certified Professional Mountain Bike Instructor out of Whistler, BC, a Wilderness First Responder, a Colorado College graduate, and a very proud mom to her 5-yr-old son, Emmett.  Alison is a Colorado native and lives in Colorado Springs with her family.  For more information please visit www.alisondunlap.com

Travel Wise to be Your Best on Race Day

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Question: My race season this year is going to entail a lot of travel with overnight stays.  What suggestions do you have regarding preparations for all the travel to be able to be at my best for race day?

Answer: Traveling can be one of the trickiest things to deal with when racing, especially if you have many events over the course of a season.  Travel disrupts our normal routine, makes it hard to get the right foods, changes our sleep patterns, and puts us in an environment we’re not used to.  But there are many good techniques that will help lessen the negative effects of travel on your race.

  1. When flying, try and travel mid-morning.  Having a flight at 6am is brutal on the sleep schedule and can take 2-3 days to recover from.  I suggest booking a flight between 10am and noon.  You can still get to your destination before it gets too late.
  2. I also suggest booking a non-stop flight if possible.  The shortest travel time is always the easiest.
  3. While on the plane do some simple leg stretches in your seat.  Getting up and walking around is always good, especially if you’re flying to Europe.
  4. If you are driving, get out of the car every two hours and run around and get the blood flowing in the legs.  Do some quick stretches.  Eat and drink.
  5. After you arrive at your destination it is super important that you do some kind of ride. It can be a 30 minute spin on the trainer in your hotel room or a 90 minute spin on the road or trails.  Get those legs moving after a long day of travel.
  6. Pack your own food.  I always bring a full lunch with plenty of snacks.  Don’t rely on airport food or convenience stores.  It is expensive and might not be what you want or need.  Also bring plenty to drink on the plane.  A big mistake athletes make is not drinking enough and getting dehydrated on their travel day.  This makes you more susceptible to germs and getting sick.
  7. I’m a germaphobe when I travel.  Bring a little bottle of hand sanitizer and use it a lot.  I don’t know if those things truly work but it is better than nothing.
  8. When flying, bring your helmet, shoes and pedals in your carry-on.  If your bike doesn’t make it you’ll be able to borrow one and get in the ride you need to do for the race if you have these three items with you.
  9. When you lay out your training for the week leading up to your travel day, it is best to have a recovery or endurance ride on the day you travel.   You don’t want to do an interval workout in the morning and then jump on a plane in the afternoon.   Bad for the legs.   Doing a really hard ride the day before you travel can also be less than ideal.  Make your last hard workout two days before your trip.  If you want to do openers for your race on the same day you travel, do them after you get to your destination.
  10. After you get to your hotel room and you’ve done your ride, stretch, eat, work on getting hydrated, and then put your legs up on a wall and relax.
  11. If you have any say in your travel schedule, try and arrive to the race two days before your event.  This gives you one day to deal with all the stress of travel and then have a full day to either pre ride the course, do openers, or just relax in your room.
  12. Stress is something you want to avoid.  Plan your travel with the least stressful itinerary as possible.  Give yourself more time than you think you need to get places.  Do your research.  Have maps ready to go.  Know exactly how to get to the race venue or the race hotel.  Have phone numbers of your team manager, family, friends, or race staff to help you if things get ugly.  The more prepared you are, the less stress you’ll have to deal with.
A good travel plan goes a long way in avoiding possible pitfalls

A good travel plan goes a long way in avoiding possible pitfalls

Getting to travel to races is both exciting and challenging.  If done right, travel is just a minor blip in the day.  If done wrong, travel can wreck your week, your race, and your season.   Plan ahead and be prepared.  And most importantly, have a good attitude, be ready to deal with anything, and be willing to make changes on the fly.  And like everything else, the more you do it the better you get.

Good luck and happy trails!

Alison

Alison competed in two Olympic Games, won the UCI Mountain Bike World Championships, the UCI World Cup Overall, and is the holder of thirteen US National Championships in road, MTB, and cyclocross.  Since retiring in 2005 Alison has been working full-time coaching cyclists and running skills camps and clinics. She is a USA Cycling Level I coach, a certified Professional Mountain Bike Instructor out of Whistler, BC, a Wilderness First Responder, a Colorado College graduate, and a very proud mom to her 5-yr-old son, Emmett.  Alison is a Colorado native and lives in Colorado Springs with her family.  For more information please visit www.alisondunlap.com

Coach’s Column – Getting the Best Start to Your 2016 Training

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Question: After having a couple months off from structured training, I now am starting to get back at it.  My season starts in April with mostly XC races and some endurance races later in the year.  What should my first few weeks back to training look like?  I’m a 35-year-old Cat 1/Open racer.

Answer: Now that the holidays are upon us we start to feel the urge to get back on the bike and back into a training routine.  The rest has been great but now it is time to start working towards the spring riding season.  After a month or so of no training, you can slowly start back into a very casual routine of riding.  By this I mean you should try and ride your bike 1-2 hours a day, maybe 4 days a week.  No structure at this point.  I’d keep the intensity low and the cadence between 90-100rpms.  You can ride on the flats or the hills.  If the HR goes up that’s fine but you don’t need to intentionally make the rides hard.  However, if your friends are doing a big hard mountain bike ride on the weekend you can definitely go with them.  Again the goal is to have fun and not feel like you’re “training” just yet.  The goal of this month is to spend time on the bike.   I would also start a strength training program, lifting 2-3 days a week.  You can still throw in hikes and trail runs 1-2 times a week if you’d like.  Anything aerobic is good.

After a month of getting reacquainted with your bike it is now time to get more serious about riding.  This next month should be all about endurance training or increasing your aerobic capacity.  This enlarges the heart, increases stroke volume and blood flow, and increases the capacity of your muscular system; all necessary to be a successful cross country racer.   Lots of rides at your recovery, endurance, and low tempo zones are great.    I would recommend riding 4-5 days a week with two of those days being structured workouts.  You can do a mix of 5-20 minute tempo intervals, muscle tension (same as tempo intervals but at 60rpms) and longer weekend rides with some intensity thrown in.

A focused plan now can help you get where you want to be this summer. Podium spots come with stacks of cash at the Intermountain Cup. Photo by Angie Harker

A focused plan now can help you get where you want to be this summer. Podium spots come with stacks of cash at the Intermountain Cup. Photo by Angie Harker

By late January/early February you will be ready to start your “Meat and potato” training.  This is the foundation for any higher end intensity you need for racing.  The next 6-8 weeks should be spent developing your power at threshold; lots of sweet spot (steady state) and lactate threshold intervals.  Painful and mentally exhausting but also the biggest bang for your buck.  These intervals will do more to improve your racing than anything else.  Spend a lot of time on these and do them well.

March and April are the months to focus on high end aerobic and anaerobic power.  Race pace intervals and race simulation workouts are a great way to get ready for your first race.  But only if you’ve done your homework over the winter.  If your foundation isn’t rock solid, all the fancy stuff you build on top of it will cause everything to just crumble into the basement.

The off-season is one of the most important times of the year for cyclists.  It gives us a chance to rest and recover from the long season.  It is also when you will build the foundation that determines how successful you’ll be next season.  The biggest thing to remember is patience.  Don’t rush back into training too fast and give yourself ample time to get ready for the race season.  Enjoy the process.  Remember, “The will to win means nothing without the will to prepare.”

Happy trails!

Alison

Alison competed in two Olympic Games, won the UCI Mountain Bike World Championships, the UCI World Cup Overall, and is the holder of thirteen US National Championships in road, MTB, and cyclocross.  Since retiring in 2005 Alison has been working full-time coaching cyclists and running skills camps and clinics. She is a USA Cycling Level I coach, a certified Professional Mountain Bike Instructor out of Whistler, BC, a Wilderness First Responder, and a very proud mom to her 5-yr-old son, Emmett.  Alison is a Colorado native and lives in Colorado Springs with her family.  For more information please visit www.alisondunlap.com