Hopefully by now you've got a good idea of your training goals and some basic principles and methods for getting it done. The purpose of this packet is to lay out the specifics which the captains recommend. We have designed a series of indoor workouts, both on and off the bike, that provide balanced training of various aspects of cycling fitness. These aspects are described later in this packet. Each week's workouts will incorporate some of each type of training, and the overall progression of the workouts from now through Spring Break will be one of increased intensity as you become stronger. By March you should be as well conditioned as you can manage.

On Monday each week, the captains will post a series of workouts for each day of the week giving a specific plan and also the general plan for the week. These workouts will draw from the exercises included in this packet. The hardest days in this plan are Sunday and Tuesday through Thursday. Everyone should be doing at least four hard days a week in order to progress quickly. By mid-February most should add a fifth hard day as well (Saturday).

The philosophy of this winter program is not so much to offer specific workouts each day but to provide a balanced progression from week to week. The pattern presented here, recommended by several pro cyclists and coaches, is designed mostly for training to race on the weekends. Thus, it will be important mostly during the spring season, but we also use it in the winter to get used to such a weekly cycle.

We recognize the need to allow enough flexibility for riders to modify the workouts to his or her own preference, and you are by no means required to follow the posted schedule. In fact, many experienced riders prefer to follow their own program, which they have designed around their particular strengths and weaknesses. Other riders may have late classes that prevent them from doing workouts on the days posted. It is more important to get in balanced series of workouts each week, than to adhere rigidly to the schedule.

In either case, talk to your teammates and find partners to work out with. These workouts are presented as guidelines only, and every rider should follow a plan -- ours or yours -- by a reasoned choice. To that end, this packet describes the principles of our plan, including a description of the areas that should be trained and several example workouts which we will be drawing upon to make the daily schedules. This way, you have the raw materials from which to structure a program of your own liking if you desire.

Having said that, most riders can depend on the posted workouts to complete training. First year riders have two major considerations: working out as often as possible to gain experience, while making sure to develop fitness evenly. If you have not worked out since before break, you should take it easy for the first week, or ten days maximum. Do the posted workouts, but don't push to the limit immediately. Mostly, get into the gym as often as possible (flve or six days a week)- and spin a lot. Rollers are optimal for developing smoothness and bike control (which translated into efficiency, i.e. more speed per unit ability); do light roller workouts at least twice a week. By Feb. 1, you should be working hard. You've got a ways to go before racing season, and you must stick to your training. Though there is little danger of exhausting yourself with winter workouts, monitor your body and mind so that you don't get sick or mentally burnt. Take at least one rest day per week.

If you do get sick, stop riding immediately and stay off the bike for several days. A week away from the bike won't set you back that far, but a perslstent illness will ruin your season. When you are better, take a day or two to ease back into it, then resume training at your prior level. The general rules are that a cold above the neck means stay out of the cold but train, below the neck means rest up. Be careful not to get out of the habit of training -- a week without workouts can make academic life seem a lot more inviting. The general rule here is one week off puts you a week behind- Two weeks off puts you a month behind.

Types of Training

Bike racing requires diverse conditioning, with many difierent physical challenges in a single race: speed, power, endurance, body control. Thus, you need a combination of workouts that train each of the aspects. Outdoor rides (especially the Laurel ride) train all the aspects at once. On the other hand, indoor workouts tend to be specific, so that you may concentrate mentally on developing your form and skill for that type of riding. All types have a common requirement of high cardiovascular fitness (heart and lungs), which you build over time with a high volume (time) of training.

Heart Rate

The aspects of training may be described using different intensity leveis, as described below. In all these descriptions we use heart rate as a measure of how hard you are working. Gauging your efforts based on your maximum heart rate works best because you don't really need to consider other variables. Your heart rate combines the complex factors of resistance, gear choice, leg speed, health, and so on, into one number. This method also works well on solo rides outdoors.

For these reasons, we've tried to avoid giving you specific gears to ride during your winter/indoor training. That doesn't mean that you can choose gears indiscrimlnately. Too hard a gear and your muscles will give out long before your cardiorespiratory systems, and vice versa. A good rule of thumb is to keep your cadence between 90 and 100 r.p.m. Then, to force yourself to work a little harder, you can click up one gear while maintaining the same cadence, or down one gear for an easier load.

To determlne your heart rate, look at a watch and take your pulse (at your neck or wrist); count for six seconds and multiply by ten, or for 15 sec. and multiply by four. You can use this to break the monotony of a long workout by checklng heart rate every minute or two. If you can afford a $100-plus gizmo, computerized heart rate monitors are excellent training aids- certainly more valuable than a speedometer for your training.

A qulck way to approximate your maximum heart rate (MHR) is to subtract your age from 220. For example, if you're 20 years old, your MHR is around 200. Your lactate threshold heart rate (LTHR) is then 80-85% of this number. Workout loads will be described below in terms of a percentage of LTHR. It is defined as the heart rate you maintain (on average) when your workload is the maximum that can be sustained, given that you have great cardiovascular fitness. When you begin to work harder and harder, you eventually exceed the capacity of your body to use oxygen to completely metabolize sugar into CO2 and H2O. If you're in shape, that means the capacity to deliver oxygen to your muscles. If you're out of shape, you also are limited in the amount of sugar you can deliver and the number of mitochondria in your muscle cells, which is where energy production happens. LTHR is when anaerobic respiration is producing exactly the amount of Lactic Acid that you can remove from your muscles and reprocess in the liver. If you exceed LTHR, you've got a few minutes before the burning pain in your legs stops you in your tracks. If you have a heart rate monitor, you'll soon get a good idea of exactly where your LTHR is. You'll also notice that it's different for different activities. Usually swimming, rowing, biking, running in order from lowest to highest. This is because the heart works harder to pump blood against gravity (you can do the math.) The 220-age number is for running.

Over time, as you get used to training at or near your maximum, you can learn to recognize your body's physiological signs of various intensity levels. That sort of seif-knowledge is really valuable in rides and races, as you will know when you can give more -- or when you need to ease off to avoid "blowing up." Use winter training to learn your limits.

Intenslty Levels / Workouts

See the Books of Chris Carmichael, Joe Friel, Greg (LeMond), Eddie B. and Bernard (Hinault) for more on quantifying intensity levels

Light Intensity (Zone 1/2) Very easy, for rest days. This is intended to help you recover, by using your cycling muscles without stralning them. Resist the urge to work hard. Indoors, this is a good opportunity to practice smooth riding on the rollers.

Medium Intensity (Zone 3). The effort used in a long, but spirited training ride, or somewhat less than race pace, generally lasting longer than 2 hours. The intent is aeroblc conditionlng -- smooth riding that keeps your heart at a steady, moderate level for an extended period. This training is more for your heart and lungs than for your legs, though low-intensity riding also improves your muscle tone. These workouts are generally long steady pleces, generally at a heart rate of 65-75% of MHR (75-85% of LTHR), on the rollers or the windtrainers.

Hard Intensity (Zone 4). Efforts at race pace: sustainable for 3-4 minutes and up to 20 minutes, with moderate rest in between. These correspond to hill-climbing and time-trialing efforts on the road, training leg power and aerobic capacity. The posted workouts will usually be at the short end of the range (3-4 min) and they are generally moderately anaeroblc lntervals: close to your maximum but not all-out, at 90-100% of LTHR. In between, you should not rest completely, only to "medium intensity", to maintain a minimum aerobic level. These lntervals can be done on the windtrainer and the stairs; rollers don't offer enough resistance unless you use fans (except for the red Kreitlers)

Maximum Intensity (zone5), All out efforts, usually done as speedwork, with very very hard efforts of 15 to 90 seconds separated by rest periods long enough to permit complete recovery. It's good to do these on the bike due to the highly technical nature of going all out, but in the winter it's generally too cold to do this. Instead, do these workouts indoors and practice going hard smoothly, with no wasted motion (flailing around). Heart rate is between LTHR and MAX, but you don't need to check it: you know when you're worldng your hardest. In between pleces you should rest completely, or until down to about100 beats per min., so that you can go all out again on the next one.

"Alternative" Workouts

Climblng stairs is great for indoor training. They help you improve with climbing and power and they get your heart rate up. Remember to monitor your knees, though, because running stairs can be difficult on them. Use the blue stairs near the elevators, which run all the way up to the ninth floor. By the way there are "B" floors above the 5th floor, and each floor has two flights so that running from the 5th to the 9th floor is 20 flights of stairs. Don't use the bannister. Stair etiquette: run up the stairs on the inside, and descend on the outside.

Technique: Running up 2 steps at a time approximates the leg motion used on the bike. Stair workouts are designed to strengthen quads; though it's possible to use your calves and feet to spring up from step to step, try to push yourself up with your thighs. You don't need buff calves for cycling. The first time you run stairs, do it light because you may pull some muscle that isn't trained from the bike. Also, since stairs train the quads exclusively, if you do a lot of stairs you should supplement them with some hamstring exercises (like leg curls; see below). If your knees hurt, do one the one stair/ one stair method. In fact, I recommend this in general when you're trying to stay aerobic- the downside is that it works your calves more than anything. Do 2 stairs per step for little power intervals. To save your knees, descend slowly and carefully one stair at a time.

Stair workouts can be designed to approximate sprints and power workouts on the bike. The number of flights you run depends on the length of the interval you want to do. For instance, runnlng from the 5th floor to the 9B floor as fast as you can is about a one-minute piece, and walking back down to the 5th floor should give you enough rest.

You can do an aerobic workout but doing two flights up, one down to the top and one up/two down to the 5th floor with steady (not to fast) climbing.

Stair workouts usually last about half an hour. You should do them about twice a week, but they should never replace your cycling workouts. They should be used as supplements.

Crosstraining

Although crosstraining is advised in the early winter, only those of you who have started crosstraining should continue to do so. Anyone who has not ridden consistently for over a month must start to train now and to concentrate on cycllng. If you wish to do skiing, running, swimming, rowing, etc. limit it to one day a week (Saturday for example).

Weights

The same principle applies to weights. Weights can be done for many reasons. They help you ride with more speed, less fatigue, and greater comfort, but they are most helpful when done in the early winter. Those who have not started weights should not start to lift or bulk up now, especially those cyclists who are well-built, stocky, buff, pick your euphemism. Generally, your time is best spent on the bike. Women and skinny people who want to sprint better should lift for power once or twice a week, emphasizing speed. going fast on a bike means power output (force x speed) so while you may never squat 300lbs, you'll trounce the guy who can if can squat 170 twice as fast.

Weights are also recommended for those who are prone to injury. When doing weights you want to work on muscles which you don't usually use during cycling. For instance, you use your quads a lot when biking. In the welght room you should also do some weights for the opposing muscles, the hamstrings. Athletes are most commonly injured when they overdevelop a muscle without developing the opposing muscle.

A good weight program for the whole year is described in the article by Joe Friel (you have a link to it) If you're starting now, the maximum power phase is all you need. something like 2 sets of 50 reps with low weights on the following exercises: squat, leg extension, leg curl, situp, backup, lat pull, benchpress. You should wind down your weight lifting program by Spring-break and commit all your work-out time to the bike.

Applying the Workouts: The Weekly Plan

Here are some examples of specific workouts involving the principles of the different intensity levels. This example is the general pattern which we will follow for creating the posted workouts. The weekly pattern of workouts is based on the "tried-and-true" methods of Hinault, LeMond, et.al., building each day's workout on those that came before.

Remember not to go all out the flrst week of winter trainlng, especially if you've been off the bike over break. The first week, try fewer repetitions of the exercises, and each week increase the number of sets you do. You can also build up your intensity level with the gears you choose. For instance, you can ride 3 minute intervals on a Thursday in a certain gear but ride the same interval in one higher gear the following Thursday, etc. Training by heart rate will help you train at the appropriate level, but we wlll also remind you to build up from week to week.

All workouts should include adequate warn-up and cool-down. Then, do 15 minutes of easy pedalling ln successively higher gears: for instance, ride 5 minutes each in 39x19, 17, and 15. It is often good to stretch before beginning the workout (but not when you're dead cold). For cooling down, spin for 15 minutes in successively easier gears; for example, 5 mlnutes each in 42x15, 17, 19. After exercise, do some stretching, which helps develop overall flexibility, prevent injury, and aid recovery.

A typical week would include:

[To reiterate 15 years of nagging, from what I've seen in the archives] the Sunday ride is for everyone. It develops all aspects of cycling, and is great preparation for the challenges of pack racing. If you can ride outdoors only once a week, this should be the ride. If you are afraid of being dropped, bring a copy of the route map (on the web page), and use a short-cut to get you home quicker. The pack will meet you again on the way back. If the weather is too awful to go out (rain or sub-freezing temps. only), go indoors and do a hard 2-3 hr. workout with a variety of intensity levels (an example will be posted). You can combine several of the above workouts (sprints, long intervals, etc.) along with stairs, running, swimming, or weights. Don't Just skip, as this day ls an essential element of the weekly training.

Of course, if you entertain no hope of making it through the 1st half of this ride, you may not want to do it. I still must encourage everyone to show up (with realistic expectations), and try to regroup with teammates who also get dropped to finish up a ride. Every minute you spend trying to hang onto a speeding pack will make you better for the racing season.

Monday: Rest/Spin. It is good to get in at least one day of total rest each week and this is a good day to do it. Otherwise, try working on rollers (especially novices).

For example: Warm Up Do Workout # 1 Warm down

Tuesday: Sprints/ Maximum Intensity. We start the week out with the speed work because you are fresh from your rest day.

Important note: Many coaches recommend that you not work on these high-intensity efforts early in the winter season, because a solid foundation of cardiovascular and strength training is required before you can benefit from these exercises. For this reason, we will not emphasize all-out intervals until mid-February. For now, concentrate on leg speed -- spinning at as high a pedal cadence as possible. For this you could do exercise #5.

Otherwise, a regular interval workout would include a trainer session from the "High Intensity" group. Since the total time for this workout is short, this is a good day to add on supplementary exercises like weights and body circuits if you choose. Note, however, that though a high intensity workout is short, you should be basically wasted once you are finished.

Example: warm up, Do exercise #2 -do weights / body circuits or short stair intervals warm down.

Wednesday: Intervals/Hills/Medium and High Intensity. This day builds on the previous day's chores with some longer-duration strength training. The overall workout should be longer than Tuesday's.

Example: warm up, do workout # 6, do stairs (workout # 11), warm down

Thursday: easy spin/Minimum Intensity. This is a good day to work on rollers. Again, this is a good day for novices to do rollers (see Monday's example).

Friday: Endurance Ride at steady pace/Medium-Light Intensity. This should be the longest of the three days, but the least intensity. Try to maintain a steady elevated heart rate even when you're between workouts, for the best aerobic conditioning. This is a good day to go outside if the weather's hospitable. If you're stuck indoors, a medium-intendity triathlon using the practice pool and the indoor track or treadmill is a good way to cut the boredom if you're suitably skilled.

Example: Warm up, Do Workout #9, Weights / body circuits, Running or swimming, Warm down

Saturday: Potluck. This is an optional day for now, though in mid-Feb. you should definitely be doing Saturday workouts (in season we will have two races every weekend). If you're into crosstraining this is an appropriate day. If you go indoors, do a mixed workout, like Sunday but less intense (1.5 to 2 hrs.)

Example: Warm up, Do 1/2 of a medium intensity workout, or do stairs. Do a low intensity workout. Do body circults & weights or running, Warm down

Creating Your Own Workouts

The above is an example of the order of workouts within the week. If you can't do the workouts on the days posted, switch them around, but remember not to do maximurn intensity workouts two days in a row (it's too taxing). If you find you need more rest than we have given, try interspersing rest days with each hard workout (i.e. work hard on Sun., Tues., Thurs. and Fri.) You still need to get in at least four hard days regardless of your program. We will post some examples of altemate weekly schedules. Another note: if you're trying to lose weight, ride your bike at least 10 hours a week. [well, ride as often as you can manage no matter what. A good way to loose weight is to do double days: if you work out in the morning, do a short workout with a couple of 5 minute intense efforts in the evening, even run hard around old campus for 20 minutes as a study break. Keeping your metabolism up throughout the day will help.]

Outdoors Substitutlons

When you ride outdoors, stick to the principles of the indoor progran. Don't Just do the loop; do a specific workout. For example, for an outdoor ride on Wednesday, do some hill repeats or choose a hilly route and think about your form; on Thursday (endurance) ride choose a flat route and keep the pace steady (you must agree on this ahead of time to prevent a lot of hammering). It is inadvisable to go outdoors if the temp. is less than 32 degrees, or under 45 if you don't have a very full stock of winter bike-wear, due to possible knee and muscle indury. [To that end, keep in mind that you should wear tights if it's below 70 degrees F. If it's below 50, you can't wear too warm a tight. if you're working hard, you can be sweating on top in 10-20 degree weather no problem, but for God's sake keep your legs warm.] Also, when you're bundled up it's tempting not to push the pace- you want to go slower to keep the wind chill down, faster to generate heat, and the happy medium you find is just a crappy workout.

Example Workouts:

1) 20-30 minutes of smooth riding on the rollers. You may want to break up the pace every flve minutes with slightly harder efforts lasting 15-30 seconds or so. You can be creative, using different gears, but keeping your heart rate at 60-70% of maximum.

2) do 10 sets/repetitions of:

15 second all out efforts, with at least a 2:45 minute rest, or 90 heart rate, whichever comes first

3) do 1-2 sets of:

30 second all out effort, Recover completely. 60 second all out effort, Recover completely. 90 second all out effort, Recover completely. 60 second all out effort, Recover completely. 30 second all out effort, Recover completely

4) do 5-12 repetitions of:

25 second all out efforts, with complete recuperation

5) for leg speed: do 5-10 reps of

2:25 medium level, fairly low gear (100 rpm or more) 0:30 in 1 or two gears lower, striving for max cadence Recover (good to do on rollers)

Medium and High Intensity Workouts/Intervals-------

6) do 4-6 sets of: 4:30 medium effort 25 seconds very hard in bigger gear

recover, repeat ~

7) do 4 sets of: 6 minutes medium effort 4 minutes in a higher gear recover, repeat

8) do 2-3 sets of Eddie B.'s 9 mlnute intervals: 3 minutes in a chosen gear, going pretty hard 3 minutes in one higher gear, and maintain your rpm 3 minutes in one more higher gear recover, repeat

9) 30-40 minutes of medium intensity. You can break up this ride with 4-5 minute pieces of harder efforts, for variety. You want minimum rest, around 30 -60 seconds. (hightail it to the water fountain, stoplights, etc.)

10) do 3 sets of 10 minute pieces which consist of 4:30 minutes medium effort in a chosen gear, for instance 52xl9 30 seconds in one gear higher (52x17) 4:30 minutes in the previous gear (52Xl9) 30 seconds in previous higher gear (52X17) Recover/Spin for 5 minutes Repeat

A good power workout would be a brisk climb formt he 4-5th floor to the top, with the descent down to the 5th floor as the recovery period.

12) A sprint interval rnight include running up 2 flights very quickly (lasting 15-20 seconds) and walking back down (includes full recovery, of 2-3 minutes) to repeat the effort.

13) Steady state: up and down several floors, all at a medium intensity for 20-30 minutes.