The return of the Club’s Cranberry Route. It can be warm here in contrast to the cold wind emanating from the northeast. Those winds blow strongly across Sandy Beach…until next year Forest St! We will start on Nov 9 at 8:30AM.
We will be riding for fitness and to keep the legs moving. We are not going to turn the pedals heavy. We could break into 2 or 3 groups depending on turn-out.
This ride is suitable for A/B/C riders. We will roll at 16-18 mph. The start time will be 8:30 AM. Ride is show’n’go, if there are no persons signed up. Heavy rain cancels. We will split into 2 groups depending on the demand and the abilities of the riders.
ROUTE: Cranberry route features scenic areas of Middleboro and Halifax. Avoids some high traffic areas of the old route. Several sections were repaved since we ran this as a Wednesday night route.
PARKING: Park in the back of the lot. Park on the west side of the Cumberland Farms. There are active business in the area. Do not disrupt them.
PACELINE: Rotating single file; do not coast; short pulls; no tucking; no swerving. Expect to average from 18-20 mph. If we have a second section, then it would probably average 16-18.
Often, we get into a rut during the winter training cycle. How many of you stay on the same cadence throughout the winter? When you go to the training center, then they set the power via ERG mode. You leave your bicycle in the same gear during the entire workout. The power varies when the ERG mode changes its set level.
You do need other things to be a well rounded cyclist.
Working on cadence drills is just one form of neuro-muscular drill. On the road, you can work on following the white line. This helps to improve your eye coordination and its synchronization with your cycling muscles. It also helps to improve your balance.
The weekly rides will return in 2020. At the membership meeting on 1/4/2020, we planned the following rides. The start date for the Marshfield ride has not been set, yet.
Blue Hills weekly on Wednesdays
Hanover rides weekly on Saturdays
Halifax rides every other Sunday
Alternative starts every other Sunday
Thursday Time Trial will be every other Thursday starting 5-14-2020
The Blue Hills ride will be focused more on hill workouts. The first ride will be on 4-15-2020. The meeting spot will be the free public parking lot at Houghton’s Pond on Hillside street in Milton. Workouts will include the option of the classic loop, repeats on the access road, and repeats on Chickatabot road in Quincy.
The Hanover ride will start from Route 53 by the BikeWay. The first rides will be on 4-18-2020. The first group will leave at 7AM. The Women’s group and the moderate pace group will roll at 8 AM. The front group will use the 50 mile route starting on 6-2-2020. The standard 37 mile route will on 4-18-2020.
The Halifax ride will start from Route 58 and Route 106 in Halifax. Park at the Cumberland Farms. The first ride will be on 4-19-2020. We will run this ride every other Sunday. The standard route to Marion will be used.
The Thursday Time Trials will start on 5-14-20 from Halifax. A route map is being made by Mr. Chris Corbin. Mr. Corbin will be the time trial manager.
Suggestions for alternative ride starts should be sent to Mrs. Liz Malone-O’Hara or Mrs. Wendy Torkelson. The alternative rides will allow members to showcase different routes or for the club to participate in rides with other clubs.
Many ask about using the polarized method of training. This methodology is recommended by Dr. Seiler. Most of the fitness podcasts and magazines analyze his system. The benefits of this system are as follows.
Improved lactate clearance
Higher volumes of training
Reduced risk of training injury
In these discussions, training volume or experience is not mentioned. With the case of the athletes that benefited from the polarized system, they were on the bike for 30 hours during the week. They also made sure to limit inflammation. They also completed yoga, stretching, and weight work in the gym. Can you afford all of this time?
In order to be a well rounded person, you should focus on improving all functional strengths. You want to be able to walk up the stairs briskly. You don’t want to complete a training workout on the bicycle and be unable to use any stairs for 5 days. You need to assess your goals and your personal time constrains. Don’t compare yourself to others. Do you really know how someone trains when you only see them on the bike for 1.5 hours each week?
Using a Polarized system is likely to reduce the amount of training injuries. The required amounts of high intensity and frequency of such are amounts are less than the requirements of a more traditional plan. You build the engine by riding many hours. Those hours often have less intensity. The muscle fibers don’t like the long hard hours at high intensity. Your heart will not have to run at 165 bpm indefinitely.
In a sweet spot typical plan provided by many of the coaches, you ride near your maximum sustainable heart rate for an hour or two. You come home tired. The next day, you might elect to skip training. Remember, you want to be able to walk up those stairs? So, you decide not to ride on the following day. You need time to recover. In the sweet spot plan, you accumulate TSS rapidly. You are earning those points.
In the polarized plan, you might find yourself holding out through the day’s workout and saying that you can repeat this, again, tomorrow. This is good. In the polarized method, you would repeat the same intensity, often. You might be able to actually ride more days in the week, consecutively. In the sweet spot training plan, you might need to take a lot of days to recover.
The polarized method might help to improve lactate clearance more than a more traditional approach for the typical American amateur athletes. The author of the cycling bible, Mr. Joel Friel, wrote a piece about polarized training. He referenced a study. You have to realize that the study was about elite champion athletes. Those athletes already have improved lactate clearance. Their Vo2Max numbers are in the 50s.
Is your typical new cyclist starting at a Vo2Max of 30? Mr. Friel dismisses the polarized method, which is contrary to his years of publications. His method pushes many complicated interval plans. Does your body really distinguish between all of these intervals?
Some of those intervals are really designed to make you think that the coach is spending a lot of time working on your plan, when they are not. They simply pull the workouts from a library. The library automatically updates the numbers within the workout based on your 20 minute endurance. Can you really rely on this method?
Go polarized. For your high intensity sessions just use the following intervals
HIIT – 30 sec Z6, 30 sec off – repeated many times
4×4 – 4 minutes z5, 3 minutes off and repeat 3 more times.
20×3 – 20 minutes z5, 8 minutes off, and repeat 2 more times.
