Low Volume Training, Racing as a Solo Rider, Hydration and More – Ask a Cycling Coach 241

Getting faster on low volume training, pro tips for racing as a solo rider, maintaining proper hydration and more is all covered in Episode 241 of The Ask a Cycling Coach Podcast.


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5 Likes

I race a few crits/road races ALONE each year and am hoping to cat up this year. …however, sometimes one of my teammates do show up and say “I’ll help you out. What do you want me to do?” If you had to give a teammate one quick instruction based solely on him “helping” you (and not necessarily being savvy at reading the race), what would you say?

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Looking forward to this! Around cramping I found when I lower carbs in my diet I cramp really quickly and often, anything I can do apart from load up on electolytes before and during a workout?

Will be interesting to hear your take on the whole cramping issue.

My personal experience suggests that it has to do with muscle fatigue, particularly early in the season. That’s when your body isn’t used to the extended hard efforts.

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I’ve seen Precision Hydration notes on some of Coach Chad’s Strava workouts. Just received my first order of PH 1500 for preloading and hot rides, be interested to hear Chad’s experience with it.

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I’ve had minimal but positive results with Precision Hydration 1500 during my last race. No cramps. Not super hot or super long event though.

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Wishing it was warm… Won’t be too long before weekly worlds and other rides in 90+ degree heat.

update:
Preloaded Saturday night around 9pm before rolling out at 7:40am Sunday morning. It was foggy and 40F / 4C pretty much the entire 3 hour ride. Small but fast group, did 2 hours a 0.89 IF and came home with salt on my face. The PH 1500 was tasty and convenient. Seemed to help despite the low temps.

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Looking forward to this, especially the low volume training topic.

I’m currently following a low volume olympic tri plan and feel that I could do more bike workouts ( there are only 2 TR workouts per week). As I am not sure that I can follow the mid volume plan every week due to time constraints, I am considering sticking with the LV plan and adding bike workouts when I can.

It is still not clear for me what the best approach would be and if the approach is the same for all training plans (road, triathlon, cyclocross…).

  • replacing the whole week by the corresponding MV week when I know I can do all 3 workouts
  • adding the -1 or -2 version of the 3rd MV workout to my LV plan
  • adding endurance workout (Z2) for easy TSS
  • other ?

Considering that adding workouts to my LV plan will mess with the designed continuous and progressive grind in TSS of the plan, can this harm my progression in any way ? (2nd year of structured training, racing sprint and Oly distance only).

Thanks

Really interested to hear the TR perspective with regards to these two.

I have a really bad habit of doing exactly this. Feeling fresh and really pushing it when I should be having a rest day. The result? Usually 2 or 3 days unplanned off the bike. You’d think I’d learn at 54 years of age :blush:

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This is the main reason I really love TR. Training by myself on the road or even the trainer on manual mode would see me going, 120%VO2Max? Nahhhhhhhh. I’ll do 130%. 3x20min sweetspot. I’ll just do 5x30min sweetspot because I’m feeling awesome!

2 weeks later I’m in a world of hurt…

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I’m not sure if this the the place to ask those “spur-of-the-moment” questions, but I would love to hear the TR crew’s opinion on shorter crank lengths for Triathletes. I’m 193cm and my bike fitter just told me I could go as short as 155mm!!!

I would like to hear your opinion on how to sprint without a team when the peloton is going really fast (probably controlled by a team) vs a slow approaching sprint (probably with only solo riders on the peloton)

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@Nate_Pearson & @chad
Hey TR guys/gals, I live in Cedar City and would be willing to help y’all out for Masters Road Nat Champs in anyway I can. Also pro tip bring your mountain bikes, we have a ton of trails all around us, and I’d love to show you the trails.

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Topstone Carbon is 27.2mm seat post diameter, so the KS, PNW other similar sized posts will work.

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Hey guys, any reason why Castbox and Google Play only have 1:10 of the podcast today? It cut off midway through Amber’s story.

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I had the same from Soundcloud. I reDL’d it and got the full one.

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