Welcome to the Empirical Cycling Podcast. I'm your host, Kolie Moore. Thank you, everybody, for listening. If you are new here, please consider subscribing to the podcast. And if you are coming back, we love having you back. Thank you so much for coming back. And since you like what you're hearing so much, apparently, it would be really, really great if you could support the podcast by spreading it with word of mouth, recommending to friends on rides, on forums, and all that kind of good stuff goes a long way. Thank you so much for all of that. I've been hearing a lot about it lately, and I super, super appreciate it. You can also support the podcast with five stars. It's just one click. And a nice review always goes a long way, too. Thanks so much for all of those. And if you'd like to donate to the show, because we are completely and always will be ad-free, you can do so at empiricalcycling.com slash donate. And if you would like to kind of join our ultimate Patreon, I call it sometimes, which is becoming a coaching client or a consultation client, and you can do that by reaching out to empiricalcyclingatgmail.com and we can start a conversation about the right coach for you, possibly if the consultation's better. If you have any questions, please let me know. I'm happy to ask because we are all about helping out people and helping to make you faster and get to your goals. That's really what we're all about. to get into what we're talking about today. If you would like to ask a question on my weekend AMAs up on the Instagram at empirical cycling, go check that out. And if you would like to ask a question for our podcast guests, you can always ask there. I post all of those up in the stories for questions. So go give me a follow over there. I'm sorry that the meme content has dropped off a lot lately, like I just moved house here. And actually, one of the other reasons I haven't done a ton of podcasts lately is I've been trying to diagnose a hum. in this audio system, and I finally got it today, but I got it after we recorded this podcast, so I really appreciate everybody, your patience with all of that, because I had to gate my channel on this podcast, and so it may sound a little bit weird as I come in and out if I'm hesitating in my speaking. It may sound odd, but otherwise, we have resolved that issue finally. So anyway, what are we talking about today? Well, today, we have our newest empirical cycling coach onto the podcast, and she is absolutely fantastic. She's a retired pro road racer and pro cyclocross racer. She has raced at the top level. She's done World Cups. She's been on a world tour team. She has really done it all, and she's been coaching for about a decade, about the same amount I have. Turns out a little longer than me, so she's technically my coaching senior. And she's got a real wealth of experience and knowledge between her experience racing and coaching, and I really wanted to dig into that with her today. So basically, what we wanted to talk about was individualizing your training, especially for high-intensity disciplines, like she usually raced, which she usually raced criteriums and cyclocross. We talk about managing the intensity, individualizing the training. We talk about recognizing fatigue. We get into cross practices and weekly crit practices and mountain bike practices and how those fit in with training and group rides as well. We eventually, near the end, we kind of get into like strength training. We talk about mid-season breaks. Mid-season breaks, that's a big one. We spend quite a bit of time on that. But of course, we start with getting into her background and her history. And I think it was a conversation that was incredibly useful if you're coaching yourself or you are a coach. I think that there's a lot of very practical takeaways on individualizing, on mid-season breaks, on all sorts of stuff. And so, yeah, anyway, let's get into it. Let's get into our conversation with Erica Zaveta. Where did you get into cycling? Yeah, my family was just into riding bikes, so they didn't particularly race a lot. I think they did a few, my mom and my dad did a few mountain bike races back in the day, and they just loved to do things as a family. And so when I was little, me and my sister would ride with my dad and my mom on like towpath and then grass field and then eventually single track. And so that was an activity we did with my dad a lot after school all through. being, like, very young through high school. Yeah, so that was kind of the first step, and then I was riding my mom's old purple Klein with, like, down tube shifters in high school on the road, and I was like, oh, this is cool, like, we're going so far, doing all this stuff. My dad was like, oh, okay, she's into this, she likes it, and so he got me a road bike from a local shop, and those guys were super, super nice, they had group rides. and I was like 15 or 16 at the time and my parents would drop me off and they would make sure I didn't get lost in New Jersey and drop me back off and that was sort of the start of kind of like taking cycling a little bit more serious. That sounds so foreign to me because my parents did nothing athletic at all and it sounds like so much fun to have parents who were like also physically active and riding bikes and stuff. So any parents out there listening, You're doing a good favor to your kids, getting them out on bikes really early, I think. Yeah, it's definitely a lot of good memories together, too. It's a fun, you know, fun time to spend with your kids. Yeah. Did you get any pressure from your parents or anybody to, like, go race and compete or anything like that? Did you race in college? Yeah, I did my first bike race at 15 or 16, just local. No pressure from my parents at all. They basically, I was like, this is where you need to drop me off. And they're like, okay. So they dropped me off and I like figured out bike reg on my own and like figured out how to do all the registration and all the things. So, you know, they don't know a lot about bike racing at this time. Like still, they'll be like, is it cross season? Not yet. But no, no pressure at all. They were psyched for me to do my own thing, and they were supportive of it, but they weren't in the mix, necessarily. Yeah. Okay, cool. So when did you start racing pro first? Because actually, one of the things that I remember about you specifically, while I was coaching you, is that you ended up in the Catherine Bertine book. You know, oh crap, what was the title of it? I forget. I interviewed her last year, and it was like the highlight of my year. Oh, we're sorry, Catherine. Yeah, we're like, sorry. But anyway, you were in it. So take me up to like that point and how you got here and like where you got into coaching as well. Sure, yeah. So for college, I went to a few different colleges, kind of bounced around a little bit, but I was really focused on cycling when I made that jump to... to college, you know, it was like, I want to be with a team, and I want to just do as much bike racing as I can. I started at University of Arizona with Chloe. Still a big cycling team, yeah. Yeah, with Chloe at the time of Woodruff, and she, you know, she was on Lunachick, she's a, she went to the Olympics, an incredible athlete, and so I would race mountain bikes with her and do, do. There wasn't much cross in Arizona, and I'd do some road there. And then I went to Lee's McRae and raced a lot. I raced everything, and I would encourage all collegiate cyclists to take advantage of that. It's really cool. Like, if it's a supportive program, you just wake up, you get in the van, and you go to bike races. Like, you have a coach, and they register you, and there's probably snacks, and, like, your friends are there. And, like, it's a very cool way to – I experienced all, like I did. Dual Swallow, Downhill, Cross Country, Short Track. I did all the cyclocross, every road discipline I could do. They even had me on the track at one point because they needed a woman. And it's just a cool way to experience like, oh, I did like downhill. That was cool. And those skills. transferred to a lot of different disciplines in cycling. So if you have the opportunity to race collegiately with a program that you're psyched on, you should do it. I was fortunate to win Division I cross-country mountain bike nationals when I was like 21-ish around there. And I got picked up with a BMC mountain bike development, was a pro team in the U.S. And then I was also on the U.S. national team for mountain biking. So I went and did the World Cups in Europe. And then I got on a pro team for mountain biking called Moda Mountain Bike Magic. And I think that was a publication. Moda was the bike. And I moved to Europe the next year. I lived in England, raced the UK Series, raced the World Cups. We'd drive back and forth in the van. That was my first year elite. After that, I kind of lost. Just like it's really hard mountain biking in the U.S. Like there's not a lot of programs. That was sort of the end of like a big push, a big era. And if you're not based in Europe and if you're not having the ability to fly back and forth to California for all the UCI races in the spring, like it was very challenging. What year was that? That's a good question. Like mid-aughts, late-aughts? 20, maybe 2011, 2012. Okay, early teens, yeah. Yeah. So then after that, you know, I had been racing. I had raced road before quite a lot. And so I raced kind of various teams in the U.S. and had a few good results here and there and then was able to get on Silance, which was a world tour team for the road. And I raced with them for two years. And that was cool. You know, I wish I had been able to do more races. It's challenging as someone who's born and lives in the U.S. You know, it's like I didn't race those roads since I was a teenager. So it's a big commitment for a team to want to invest for you to learn the roads, learn the style of racing, and then eventually see a result. But I was fortunate to be around a lot of really fast women and learn a lot. And yeah, it was a good experience. Yeah. And so, oh god, I had a question and it just left my head. Also, tell me about your academic background as well, because you have some academic credentials in exercise science as well. Yeah, it was, so I went to Lees McRae, I raced with their team, and I was almost done my degree, and then I... took time off to go live in England and race for that mountain bike team. I was like, hey, this is a really cool opportunity and I'm going to take it. When I came back, my parents were like, hey, what about that college degree you've been working on? I was like, yeah, you're right. So I finished at Brevard College. It took me a little bit longer because I switched majors completely to exercise science. I had a minor that ended up translating to just an English minor. But exercise science was my focus, and I was really thankful that I invested that time into that, and, you know, obviously, like, I love coaching, and there's so much technical, you know, science and papers and literature surrounding that, so, like, having that background before jumping into coaching was great, you know, it felt like a good fit, and it kind of made sense that I ended up with that degree. It was like, oh, this is cool, like, there's so much information here. Senior Year at Brevard College, where I finished. I did an internship with CTS, so I just started, you know, working with a coaching company there and kind of seeing what their group looked like. At the time, I was racing road, and I had a teammate, Anna Sanders. She's like, hey, I work for a coaching company. Why don't you come and work with me? I think you'd be a great coach. I'm very thankful for her. She's an awesome person. It was a great start into the world of coaching. This is how you do it. This is what it looks like. She was a very good mentor. That was like mid- Like mid-teens, like 2014-ish, right? Yeah, 2014 was when I started. Yeah, so it was great. Yeah. So you started coaching like a year before I did. We're old. You're technically my senior in coaching. Actually, you know what's ironic is I actually didn't know your academic credentials when I asked you to come be a coach with us. You had all the other qualities I look for. And the fact that you have those credentials, I was like, oh, that's cool. That's a really nice bonus. Surprise, I studied science. Yeah. And so tell me about the different coaching styles, because I've only been part of two coaching companies myself. the big one, and very briefly another one. And so I've been exposed to a little bit of these things, but like how do, how much do coaching companies really vary from like the inside? I've always been curious about this. You don't have to answer if you don't want to. Oh, no. Yeah. It is. It seems like there's a lot of variation. I think that some companies focus on high volume, you know, like working with a lot of people. And so in order to do that, You need to create a little bit of an internal system where maybe it's a little less specific to the athlete, but still provides a good structure and points them in the right direction. And then there are some companies that work with a pretty small group of people and everything is very specific and customized to the individual. I don't think maybe one... Yeah, I don't think one is maybe better, worse than the other. It's what the athlete is looking for. And I've always wanted to coach with a company that does a smaller number of people that really gets to know the athletes and, like, really can see a progression and, yeah, just form a relationship with this person. It's like they have limited available free time. They've got maybe a family or kids or an intense job. And it's like... I am helping them schedule this very short amount of time they have for themselves in the day, so I want to make sure it's right and they're stoked on it. Yeah, and I always feel like that's something that a person needs to decide for themselves, because coming to a smaller, more one-on-one company like us, it's obviously more expensive than going for the more generalized kind of training plan. I'm not here to decide what somebody wants to do with their finances. So if they can work with us or want to, that's fantastic. And if they don't, I think that's also fantastic too. I want everybody to have those kinds of priorities. But when it comes to the kind of coaching we do, I've always been like, I'm not really happy if we're not doing the 110% best job that I know we can. And I personally couldn't ask people for money if we're not doing the best job I think we can. Yeah, yeah, I agree. I agree. It's just, like you said, it's whatever fits the athlete's needs and where they're at at the time is the best fit. Yeah, well, I mean, that's why you're a good fit for us, and I'm really happy to have you with us. So tell me about your own training also, because you've worked with a bunch of different coaches yourself, and so, like, how has training evolved over the years that you've seen, and also, how is it different for yourself as you've gone? Yeah, I, kids today, they don't know, they don't know what it used to be like. Back in my day. Hey, back in my day. Nutrition was terrible. Nutrition was the worst. The early 2000 was like low carb, fasted rides, like tank the system. And so like everyone was cracking. Everyone was in a bad place at that time. And for me, I, had some pretty bad guidance early on in college with a person who was coaching me, and it's just the nutrition stuff was just so bad. And so today, please, everyone, go. Go to your cabinets, pick up a carbohydrate-filled item, put it in your pocket, and go do a bike ride. So I think that was a major change. I think we're all learning as a community for everyone that, oh, wow, we can consume a lot of carbohydrates, and therefore we can do a lot of work on the bike. We can see a lot of huge jump in power numbers and repeatability, both in a session, but then subsequent days. There's just so much. So much positive information out there on feeling appropriately on and off the bike. And so I think that's something that changed for me, and I think it changed for everyone. In terms of specific bike rides, bike training sessions, I think I started with, I think as my development as an endurance athlete, Built, I think the change, the progression was longer hours, you know, like longer hours on the bike, and that's paired with the nutrition, right? Like that's also possible because I was properly fueling. But just doing these longer steady state efforts and the long threshold sets, that was a transition I made with empirical cycling, like working with you. That was super helpful. I mean, I felt like that took me to another level of fitness that I didn't know was there. So I think that that was a change in the style of training I was doing. I think at the time, some of the shorter efforts were meeting my needs. And then I think as we continue on in our journey and in whatever training that we're looking to do or whatever our goals are, we continue to progress and we need to change the way we're training as we go along and to make those next steps up. Yeah. And that actually led to... One of the things that I think was probably one of your best days you've ever had on the bike, which was Nationals, last year, I think, right? Yeah, I raced it so poorly. Oh, gosh. You say that. The fitness was amazing. The execution of distributing those watts, not ideal. That's okay. Yeah, you were 19th, I think, right? Yeah, I was in the... The next group, the chase group right behind the leaders. Yeah, the next, the leaders that had like Chloe and Megan and, you know, Corinne and all them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, I mean, like when you, when you did that, I, I, I screamed my head off when you crossed the line. I was like, that's Erica! Whoa! I think I made somebody next to me go deaf, probably. Just a quick note for everyone to learn. If you're in a national spike race and your fitness is really good, believe in yourself. Do not lose confidence and don't spike the power every time on the climb. If there's a crit or a circuit race where there's a large climb, do not use that as an opportunity to move up, but also don't spike the power unnecessarily. The people around you, if they're good, you know you're in a good spot in the group. You're in that. Very Top Group, like in the front of the group, I should say, and you're not going to get dropped. It's okay. Like the people around you also don't want to get dropped. So like don't spike the power, chill, and then use that power on the last lap, for example, when someone attacks and then that will be there for you. It was a lesson I had already learned when I was 19 racing the Gila crit. You know, there's that big hill in the back section and when I was younger. I was like, oh, this is a great spot to move up. And then I exploded. So yeah, it's just, it's another, it was more a lesson of like, hey, believe in yourself. You know, you can do this. Yeah, well, and that's something that I think we've heard a lot as we coach people to better fitness is just like, is the decision-making tree in a race changes drastically because suddenly you're like not getting dropped you're like oh my god I'm climbing with this person or I made this group I can't believe it and also like reading the course and knowing the course because that Knoxville course from the last couple years was so different from Charleston from this year and the next four years because the descent on the backside is like short and a steep and then it's just kind of like you can catch back on so easy and like Now, there's very little catching back on. That's a long descent, and people drill it when they hit that flat road between the climbs. And, whew, boy, is that a... The Nationals course now is like a proper hard person's classic course. It's really hard. I mean... It looked very hard. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I know people who were getting dropped, like just going over the bridge to the first climb. Like, it was like a... It was like a World Cup cross-country start. That's really, really cool. It sounds like a really fun and interesting tactical puzzle. It's such a hard course. How do you distribute that energy? Yeah, but like you said, warm up before the start, sprint off the line. Yes, absolutely needed. No, I think it's actually a really interesting course because my assessment of it is that Like in Knoxville, we would, occasionally we would get a winner like, who's that? Like, there's not going to be any who's that winners on this course. It's going to be like, oh, I know that person. Like, they're really strong. Of course they won. Like, it's going to be like that for a little bit. So I'm actually really, really happy with the new course as hard as it is. So, anyway. Yeah, that's exciting. Yeah. So, I think one of the other things that I wanted to... mentioned before, mentioned or kind of talked with you about before we kind of get into our main stuff today, because I wanted to introduce people to you a little bit. The differences in the training for you personally, because when you started working with me, and you said you were doing more hours and stuff, one of the other things that I was really trying to do with you was like, again, individualize stuff with you, as I obviously try to do with everybody. And you've got a very, very unique physiology in that, and this also goes to your skill in racing, in that doing super hard efforts and training for you didn't really translate to that much race fitness. It was strange. For you, it was mostly consistent hours, do some threshold and sweet spot work, and then go race. And that was it. Most people... Hopping into that first race, and if they've only been doing threshold, they're like, man, my top end sucks. And you would be top 5'10 in these national-level crits. And I'm like, oh my god, how does Erica do it? And there are people that you and I mutually know who need very, very different training, need a lot more sprinting, a lot more top end. And so how do you think that that was different from the training you had previously done for yourself? Yeah, yeah. I think that I think that like my background, I've been racing crits since I was 15. So I think there's a little bit of like, okay, I've got a skill ability in criteriums where like I know where to be and you don't always have to be the strongest in the moment to place well. I think that that sometimes helped bridge that gap. But I think it was clear what you're saying. Like my physiology was such that like I literally didn't need that high intensity in preparation for it. I think the difference was, yeah, I just think the Big Hours in just super steady state. Like, you were like, yeah, just go ride maybe like an hour or, you know, 90 minutes of sweet spot to see how you feel. And I'm like, okay, all right, here I am just like biking. Yeah, stop at a 7 out of 10. Just call it. And I know there's a bunch of like really good climbing around you too. And so like those kind of unstructured workouts are actually really easy to do. They were perfect. It was absolutely perfect. That was a big shift in mentality. Also riding, it was like, what does this feel like? Do I feel like I'm hitting the zone and the goal of this session and letting the fatigue I was feeling or not feeling guide it? It's like, oh, I can do 90 minutes of this. This is no problem. And I think a shift also was when you were like, Do five-minute maximal efforts, you know, times however many our goal was. And I was like, well, what power target do you want me to hit? And you're like, I'm not going to tell you. And I'm like, oh, what the heck? But that was a huge mental shift. I was like, oh, I can do way more power than I thought that I could, you know? And it was like, suddenly it was a good shift in that, like, our zones are not just to keep us from going too slow. Like, if we have a top side. like a limiter at the top, we may limit ourselves, you know, so saying maximal was a really cool change. Yeah. Yeah. And that's one of the things that I think is really useful for people doing criteriums and like, you know, mountain bike races and stuff like that is, it's like, if you kind of like limit your, let's say your three minute efforts to like 120% FTP, and realistically, you can do 150% repeatedly. You know, you get into a race, and unless you've been racing a long time and you're confident with your pacing, how do you know what you can do? Like, this is actually a very, very common thing, especially with a lot of the clients that I have, is really getting used to knowing your limits, because not having confidence in your limits, and by the way, this is the thing for both men and women, because I know a lot of A lot of people would be like, oh yeah, I can do whatever. It's like, okay, I know the typical dude sure of yourself thing, but realistically, on the DL, men and women both are like this. And so knowing your ability to pace, knowing your ability to push yourself and the limit you can get to, Like, one of my clients, he was like, oh man, I was, I saw the break go, I could have got on it, but I didn't think I could hang. And I was like, what's the worst that happens if you can't hang on that break? You fall off the back, but you made the winning break and you know you did and you're like, okay, I just need a little more fitness. Or maybe I took too many pulls or something. But like, if you don't go and you don't find your limit, you will never know where your limit is. Yeah, exactly. If you're seeing that move, go. Always go. Always get on the move. Yeah, but it's hard. I mean, that was my experience at Nationals. You know, it's that confidence of like, am I supposed to be here? Like, you know, yeah, exactly that. Yeah, and you've got a, maybe this is probably partly due to your riding and training history, but like you have an amazing amount of top-end repeatability. Like, on that Knoxville climb, you were doing, I think, somewhere between 140 to 150% of FTP for like three or four minutes for like, what was that, like nine laps every single time up that climb. Yeah. And there are some people in that race who were at 120% of FTP and that was their limit. Yeah, anyway, so this is my way of awkwardly rolling into individualizing training for this kind of thing. So I asked you to come with a couple of do's and don'ts and some individualization stuff. But so since we've been talking about individualizing, let's dig into a couple ways that we individualize training for like criteriums and cyclocross, like the high intensity stuff. Yeah. I guess one note that I skipped in the background of my racing. I raced a lot of cyclocross in the background there, and I totally just let all that go in the little preview. I raced for Redline, which is Tim Rutledge, his team. He's since passed away, but he was an incredible guy who was so supportive. and so excited about cyclocross and developing athletes. And that was a very cool opportunity. So I was on that team. After some good collegiate racing again, I got that opportunity. I raced for Amy D team, which was the first year of it with Dan Dombrowski was putting that on in honor of his sister. Really, really cool. Partnered with Raleigh Clement, Don Kellogg's team. Caroline Menny was like a very strong mentor for me for cyclocross and just continued to race cross for many years and finally made the national team as an elite member. So that was a really cool big goal for me and had some good, for me, some good results at like Namur and the European World Cups and some of the C2s and such because I usually go over to Belgium. for either the Christmas block or for like the end of the season, January session. But yeah, yeah, that was a little bit of a note. To shore up your credentials about why you can give advice on this stuff. Cyclocross is where it's at. Cyclocross is a fun, super fun discipline and a good group of people and like, I feel like I've always liked Cross because it's like, it's ridiculous. Like, we take it very seriously, but if you stop momentarily and you're in Belgium and drunken spectators are cheering you on and you're like, I'm running with my bike in a different country, like, what am I doing with my life? It's good to keep it. in perspective, like, bike racing is fun, and we should remember, like, we're choosing to do this, and it's a fun thing. Cyclicross races make bike racing fun, too. Like, in New England, especially, we've got races like Ice Weasels and Orchard Cross, and Orchard Cross has, like, the noon costume race that is fantastic. That's cool. They make a tiny little track, and they've got a little pump thing sometimes, and, like, one guy usually has, like, a giant giraffe costume that's, like, nine feet tall over his head, and he somehow rides around with that. It's fantastic. It's a great time. And the fresh cider donuts are incredible. Everyone, get stoked for cyclocross. It's coming. Yeah, I agree. Okay, so let's get into individualizing this stuff because we talked about individualizing for you. And so actually, why don't we think about like, here's a question I asked you that I've asked a lot of people, but when I asked you, you said, I don't think I've ever thought about that before. And I said, how many races, this is before cyclocross season, how many races do you think it takes you until you feel like you are familiar and on good race fitness, let's say, and with the skills component in what they're... Yeah, we briefly touched on this with the criteriums. I think the answer could be zero, which is like, it sounds like, you know, that's specific to me. Like, I don't think that I need a lot of prep. Yeah. For cycle, okay, I try to be modest. You could have said zero. I guess, too, yeah. But cross is a little bit different. Every year, we see in all sports and all disciplines of cycling, you know, like, it... The game is getting harder and harder to win. People are like, oh yeah, skills. Cyclocross, the skill is very specific to cross racing, being able to transition on and off your bike, the ability to turn. Cyclocross is all about how well can you turn your bike. There's a major skill component in cyclocross to be truly good at it. So I would say entire choice. and bike setup. You don't need to be so aero. You need to be able to control your bike. What tire pressure do you like? Weight distribution, line choice. Exactly. Have you practiced with the foul treads? Are you just chilling with the mids because you're scared? There's a lot of things in there. So I think for cyclocross, before the season... your first race, maybe go cross or whatever it is. You should do some hot laps with friends. You should do some skill training as a group or a community or start one with your community. I think it's a good community building sport, but also you need it. You need to be able to push yourself with your friends on laps in the woods. Riding bikes in the woods is probably... I actually haven't done that in a long time, and I've been considering getting a cross bike so I can go do that again, because I miss it so much. Yeah. And it's just so much fun. It's sort of like trail running, except you don't have to hurt yourself. Like, my hip doesn't take trail running anymore, I don't think so. Actually, you brought up cross practices there, and one of the things I actually wanted to touch on, this is on my list, is how many cross practices do you need? Because... Because when it comes to individualizing training, there's a lot of cross practice in the US, especially, I find cross practice is mostly just like, you know, it's like a two by 20 hot laps on like a Wednesday. And that's it. And people race that and then they race like Friday, like Saturday, Sunday. And they do that for months on end. And so you are going hard three times a week. And if you like add in like a single speed workout. On the weekend too, or a single speed race after your regular race, you are going hard like four or five times a week, and people can do that, especially, well, back in the heyday in New England, for like three months straight. So talk about cyclocross practice and how you would try to decide how much cross practice does somebody realistically need? Yeah, it depends on the individual. So I think that for everyone, I think transitioning from producing power on pavement and smooth surface where it's continuous power and you can choose the cadence you want to ride at, yeah, it's very different when you get on a cross course and all of a sudden you're doing like... Super High Torque, Low Cadence Efforts out of Corners, and the ground is bumpy, so you're trying to kind of ride threshold on a long, bumpy grass section. It's not the same. As your pedals are engaging and producing that power, you're hitting these small, unsteady power productions as you're going over a bumpy surface. So I think for everyone, it's important to get those cross-practices in to work on that. You could do cadence drills on the road, but I think accelerating on A non-paved surface is important in preparation. I think using the month of August is great. If you got a weekly cross-practice once a week in August, that would be a good way to set up your September. You're like, okay, I have done maybe some sub-race pace laps, some short laps with friends, but I've also taken time and slowed it down and thought about... Mounts and, um, dismounts and remounts on, on my cross bike, or like, approaching the barriers, or maybe you can bunny hop a barrier, all the small, like, suitcasing drills, and then also our time on our feet, like, obviously we're, we're based in, in the U.S., so we don't have a ton of running in our cyclocross races, but if you have aspirations to race in Europe, or you have family, I've, I've had some people that have family in Europe, and they'll jump into a race over there, you could be running, like, I don't know, a quarter of a lap. And that's a lot of running. So cross practices, off-road, I think that that is specific to everyone. Something maybe for individuals is like how much time, how many years have you been racing cross? Some people need a ton of like, oh, this is like, this is my first time racing cross, my first season. So if you can spend more time on a cross bike. I think that that is key. And if that looks like doing that midweek practice and racing, that's a good way to build just foundational skills. And then maybe the next year you get a little bit more specific. Okay, I don't have enough energy to be doing this midweek cross practice. I need to do specific fitness intervals. But my skills, I've sharpened last year and I kind of get what I'm trying to do now. If you've been racing for a really long time, You still need to work on skills, but maybe you do it in a less, you don't need to go every Wednesday and like crush yourself. Right, you got to keep them fresh. Actually, I was going to say we should contrast this with like a cross practice versus what I call a skills practice. So like a lot of the time for cross season, I'll give somebody like, like Monday usually will be off or like an easy spin or something. Tuesday will be probably easy also, so that way somebody can have hopefully a good Wednesday or Thursday, depending on where their next race is. And I'll say, go do 90 minutes of cross skills, but keep it easy. A little above recovery pace when you're pedaling, and just work on your mounts or dismounts, or work on barriers, or work on your off-cambers. The thing I always tried to work on, and I ate shit one out of two times, was the off-camber U-turn. like downhill to uphill. I was so bad. I'm still bad at those. I'm sure if you gave me a bike right now, I would wipe out every time right now. So like working on those things that you know are weak for you, but also like if you get a chance to work with your friends on this kind of stuff, like that is a good way to spend time with riders who are better than you while you are also all working on the same stuff. Because I think Having that kind of tutelage more like, like, you know, how in quote unquote real sports, you know, basketball, hockey, their coaches are standing right there for most of their practices. And I think that that's something that we that, well, obviously, we don't really have that in cycling, but in cyclocross for this kind of stuff, this is a great way to get people with disparate levels of fitness to come do the same thing and to go hang out and have a good time. Yeah, I think in college, I mountain biked with a lot of guy friends that were really good mountain bikers, and I was thankful they waited for me. I learned a lot, just riding behind someone and watching, oh, they took this line, they transitioned in this way, and that applies to cyclocross practice as well. It's like just watching other people if you don't always have the opportunity. Or additionally, you can video yourself with your phone, maybe like a mount, like a barrier session, like did I take a stutter step? I don't know. Or like, were my eyes up? Were I looking where I want to go, not down at the barrier? Things like that. I mean, I think using that, your phones, they're super easy and accessible all the time. That's another good way to like practice some of those skills. Technique check, like you're in the gym, like you're recording your form. Totally. I do that all the time. and then I delete them because I'm usually embarrassed about my form. I'm like, oh God, my front squats need work. Stuff like that. But actually I want to contrast this with a training crit because training crits are a little bit different in that depending on your level of fitness, like you may be able to go like sit in and have a pretty breezy day or it's like hard enough where you can go work on your level of fitness. So like, so how would you differentiate? Like, you know, getting into cross practices versus getting to crit practices. Yeah, you just need to determine how stressful that training session is. I mean, if it's pre-season cyclocross and you want to do some, like, true race pace hot laps where you're not just sitting and you're going pretty hard. Maybe that would be a good way to fit in a practice and some fitness. But then in September, say you did GoCross and now you're driving to Rochester and you're doing all this stuff and you're tired. Do like celebrate space laps. Go and like put a little speed to it, you know, because we want to practice our off-road techniques with some amount of speed that replicates like what the bike will feel like in a corner at a race speed, but maybe not a full race pace lap. So I would say like. In terms of comparing it to crits, crits you can really sit in if you're quite efficient, whereas we do need to be more careful with cross practice because it's higher fatigue for the session, regardless if you're trying to go easy or race-based, but I still think you can differentiate between the two. Yeah, and would you say it's probably about the same for mountain biking? Because in my experience, it's roughly similar, even though the races are usually a little longer. Oh, yes. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, off-road. Yeah. What about, let's see, where do we want to go from here? Actually, well, that was kind of one of my points. Like, why don't you give me one? Your turn. What? What just happened? Let's see. Yeah, I guess a final point on hot laps. Something I struggle with, because I'm lazy, I don't know, I'm not creative sometimes, is like creating a space to do these practice labs. That is not easy. You're not going to go to your park and it's not going to be like, here it is, here's the perfect course. And so that, it takes time to find it and I think just ride around, look for areas that will fit, like here, how many features can I get in one space, off camber, around a tree, an uphill that I could run. Um, a long stretch. Any, any features, maybe a sand pit, if people don't mind, you're cruising through the volleyball pit every once in a while. Like, anything you can find, and that takes time, and don't get frustrated. I think if you can really dial in a space to work on these cross skills, you can utilize that space for years and years, if it, if it remains open, and it's there, and it's close to you. Um, so invest in that, I think, is my final thought on hot laps. One of the things I usually want to advise people on for hot laps is making sure that you're pedaling enough or that you're not pedaling very much at all, having a more skills-based lap. So one of the things that I always find is great for hot laps is somewhere that you are mostly pedaling. and you're mostly pedaling pretty hard for anywhere from like 10 to about maybe 30 to 60 seconds at a time and because I remember that we had a cross practice in Boston where it was so twisty and it was so up and down that like the longest I pedaled I think for the most for most of a hot lap was probably about 10 seconds and it was like straight up a very steep hill and other than that I actually Never really felt like I was working my fitness that well. It was much more skills-based. And so the people who had really good skills, like they would be lapping me. And I had terrible skills. But like when it came to a regular race, I would be doing okay with some of those folks because I had like what they called roadie fitness. So deciding on where you want to have your kind of hot laps Emphasize, in terms of skills versus fitness, I think that's actually a very important distinction, and having a course where you can work on one versus the other is actually a really smart way to go of like, okay, this is a skills hot lap, or this is like a fitness hot lap. Yeah, yeah, if you can... Curate both of those things and have them. That's amazing. Yeah. Then in season when you're really tired, you've been doing a lot of racing and a lot of driving and bike maintenance. Just go do a flow lap and see like how many times can you not pedal? Can you not touch your brakes and just be super efficient? So tell me about fatigue management with all this stuff because you have raced pro crits and pro cross. as both seasons many times. So what advice would you have to people? How would you coach that kind of thing for folks who want to have a good, strong road season and a good, strong cross season? I opened a big can of worms, I know. It's very, very challenging. I have found it to be very challenging. I think that You need to be selective on your race calendar and very specific when you're taking breaks if you want to do a two-season, like a summer and a winter sport discipline. Well, it's not one according to the IOC. Late fall. I would say, you know, if we look at, so when I raced for Silence, which was a world tour road team, in my contract, they said, you cannot do cyclocross, you cannot do an additional discipline, which was very reasonable and very fair, you know, like, road season goes for a long, we were at training camp in Spain in January, January 1st, I think, you know, like, that's literally, yeah, it's literally, yeah, it's like, so they, obviously, they overlap in time, but you need time to prepare for for a very specific and intense season. But then we look at, you know, look at the best of the best, which is like a weird example because they're freaks anyways, but like Pauline Prevost or, um, yeah, Wout or Pickcock or anyone like who they have the, or Yolanda Neff, they have the ability, um, to go to their team and say, hey, I only, I want to do both what I do, you know, I just want to do these events, like Pauline will focus like worlds, target worlds, target nationals, perhaps, and specific races, so she's not racing a full calendar of both seasons, it's not, she would not be good necessarily very much, so I would say you, as someone, if you don't have a team determining what races you need to do, and it's all up to you, I would say like, okay, What are my goals? What do I want to be good at? Okay, Cyclecross Nationals is in December, and maybe there's a focus race that you're really excited about in the summertime on the road. I would say like, okay, how many races do I need before that A event to be good and be at my best in terms of like tactical skill on the road or technique for Cyclecross? And then think like, okay, when do I need to take my mid-season break? Um, in the summer, such that when I approach cross season, I've had a short amount of time, maybe I have August, to prep for a cross season with fitness. And then I can go into the beginning of cross season with fairly good legs, because it is hard to build, um, fitness within cross season. Almost impossible, I would say, depending on your race schedule. Yeah. Almost impossible. And it's, it's a bad time of the year as well. Like the weather's not good. You do a lot of driving. Holidays. Yeah. Yeah. And so I, typically for me, I've always tried to come into cross season with good form, but I was chasing UCI points and I needed, and I needed those points for grid positioning and I needed it for worlds and such. Cross season is long. Don't forget it's, you know, September to December. So if you want to, you know, come in with maybe not the peak fitness and build throughout. There's potential for that. So I guess, first and foremost, what are your goals? What races do you want to be good at? Mark them down. And then look at, okay, when do I need to take a break? Or approximately, when do I think I need to take a break based off of when does the next season start? I think that's a good first step. I think it's the middle of July while we're recording this. And so I think if anybody's listening to this... who's having a strong road season right now and they want to have a strong cross season, right now is a great time to take a week off the bike. Yes. Stop what you're doing. Go sit on the couch. Eat some snacks. I mean, what are some markers of fatigue to watch? Because I remember with you, The, like, you actually are kind of typical of a lot of people that I've worked with, where even as fatigue mounts, you will get more fit. And if we just have the numbers in a vacuum, you know, we could train three, four, five, six weeks in a row before taking a rest, and you're going to get faster and faster and faster, but you were also going to be building chronic fatigue through those weeks. And if it was, like I said, if it was just the numbers in a vacuum, I'd be like, oh my God, we can keep going. Look at all these numbers. This is great. And your comments on your workouts were very grumpy indeed. Sadness. Yeah, that was the big tell with you. So I think that's one of the reasons I always tell people, even if they're coaching themselves, keep comments and read them back like a day or two days later or a week later, and you will see patterns in yourself that you can watch for. Just the way I was watching them for you. But what else is a good sign to take a week off the bike or just take a week to chill or maybe just take two rest weeks in a row or something like that? Yeah, I think exactly what you said, take the rest week before you've exploded. You don't want to wait until you're totally cracked and just feel terrible and then be like, oh gosh, I got to rest. So I think allowing yourself, like giving yourself the space to like take a rest week, even though you're like, oh, I think I feel fine. Yeah, that's very important. Instead of trying to like fix a problem before, you know, while it's there and it's terrible. For me, I think I do really well with like long, long periods of time off, like a month is usually I come back pretty good after that. And then I would pretty, then you would be like, all right, I'm going to, you know, I'm just going to go take until whenever I feel like it to go do other stuff. And then I would hear from you again in like January, February. Hey, I got to get fit for this season. It's coming up pretty quick. I got to start riding. Yes. Yeah. For me, I think mentally it's important to like step away from it, do some trail running, do whatever I felt like, just take time away from cycling. I, you know, I started racing when I was 15. I continued racing until I was 33, 34. Like, that's a long time. So I just need to be removed from it. I'm a super active person. And so, like, I would be doing a lot of other stuff. I still like to trail run and do things. But specific training, yeah, I needed that gap. Your question was fatigue, like how to manage that and when to take that break. Yeah, again, take it before you feel like you need it. Look at when your season is starting. And I, yeah, I really like what you said. It's like looking back at your comments. When we're in the thick of it, you know, like you... It's crazy how your emotions and your perspective change when you're super fatigued. I mean, fatigue itself changes your perspective on how things are going, perhaps, for some people. For me, yeah, definitely. So I think looking back at those comments, and then I think maybe by numbers, you said for me, I could still build fitness. with the numbers. But some people, if they're like, oh, my fitness isn't changing, let me do more intervals. Well, if that's not improving your fitness and you're not seeing benefit from that, you're probably just really tired and you need to go the other way. Everyone is a little bit different. I think you can take a week off and I think you could take two weeks off the bike as your mid-season break. I know two weeks is a long time, but everyone is different. For me, that was really important. More time was better. And that's not for everyone, but I think if you're doing a pretty strong training load and you train pretty seriously and you're pretty focused and you have a lot of other things going on as well with work or sleep is limited, two weeks I think is great. And maybe that second week is like, I did a little bit of running or yeah, I played around on my bike or rode with my kids. It was great. Yeah. One of the things I've seen a lot of my clients do this year is they'll take a week break kind of mid-season. And then the week after that, they will plan something fun and low intensity. I've had a couple people go bikepacking for anywhere from three days to a week. And then, of course, they need rest on the other side of that a lot of the time. But then they've done something really fun. They've gotten their kind of base level of fitness back from all that riding. And they're building memories on the bike. They're spending time with loved ones and friends. That's awesome. And then they get back to that first session. And I would say for 50% of people, they're back to where they were. The other 50% are even stronger. And having your fitness build by doing barely anything for two weeks, I think, what more do you, it's like losing weight by eating food. Yes. Like a lot of it. One of the other things I wanted to kind of mention with breaks is like from a coaching perspective for you and me, I think we probably both have a couple clients, maybe quite a few, who are reticent to take a break. And so they will, I don't want to call them liars, but they lie to us about how they're feeling. Just a little untruths, like, oh yeah, I'm feeling strong, let's go! And then, how far after that do the wheels come off the wagon? Like, mid-August? Yeah. September-ish, maybe? Probably September. Yeah, man, cyclocross season is long and dark and cold. A lot of drives in the dark. Yeah, and you're washing that bike a million times. You're replacing your bottom bracket once a week. Yes. Yeah, it's like, I get that. Say you've been training, your fitness is the best it's ever been, and you're not super new, but you're fairly new to cycling or training. You don't want to let that go. You're like, oh no, I have spent all summer building this fitness and doing these crazy workouts and really trying. I don't want to take a break. I don't want to see whatever metrics you like to follow on TrainingPeaks or wherever. I don't want to see them go down. You need to, there's a little bit of like, trust your coach. Normally I'm like, yeah, it's a communication, a partnership, but sometimes like we have seen this and I've seen that with myself and it's like, you need to take that break because yeah, maybe you hit November. I've had this. I had this with the year I went to Worlds. It's like I had to come in with super good fitness because the positions, the spots allocated for the roster were not given yet. And so I needed to have really good points at the beginning of the season. And then I also needed to like do okay nationals. And then I also needed to go to Europe for the Christmas block and like do well there. You've got to maintain peak fitness for three months straight. And then Worlds is not till end of January. Yeah, like four months. My body would not respond to training anymore. It was like, no more. I could not do high-intensity sessions and feel good. It was done. So I think we just need to like... We need to remember that and say like, okay, maybe in October or November, we take like a chill week. We take a week off. We take five days off and we just like step back for a minute. Maybe we have Thanksgiving week where we don't really do it very much. We just hang out with our families, eat a lot of food, you know. And miss a race. And then we refocus. And miss a race, yes. It's easy to over race and cross. Again, like. Well, it's easy to over race and road too, but like depending on the calendar you're doing, they naturally kind of separate out a little bit. Most of the time. Yeah. Yeah. This would, like, be, again, like, we started the conversation, like, be specific with what your race calendar, what you want it to be. Like, what races do you like? Maybe block the races together. I'd have three weekends of racing, and now I have three weekends of not racing, so I can actually train, or I can rest, like, a mixture of both, right? So I think kind of putting those races together and not, like, Every other weekend I'm racing, so I'm never really training, but I'm also not resting. Don't do that. That's bad. That is one of the hardest things to coach, I've found, is a race schedule like that, where somebody's looking for, okay, how do I get my best legs at, like, cross nationals, and they start racing in, like, mid-September, and then it's like a race every other week. and they want to do okay at all those races too. It's like, okay, we can talk about this, but we also might have to temper our expectations for your likes at nationals if you're going to do this. On the other hand, maybe halfway through, we give you a break and we get you some training again because, I mean, I remember one year in like September, I was like, I'm going to do every cross race I possibly can and I'm going to double up whenever I can too. And so I ended up doing a lot of racing and by mid-October, I was I was beyond done. I actually had walking pneumonia for like three weeks at that point. I remember doing Orchard Cross and just like wheezing the entire time and coughing. But like the week before, I was like, I haven't done any like interval intervals in forever. And I did like a two by 20 sweet spot and like my legs came back to me. I was like, oh my God, training actually kind of works. That's crazy. But it's hard to manage. Actually, one of the other things that I think it's important to note is that when my clients tell me I want a break, they get a break, especially around this time of year. The people who have been either racing and training the longest or the people who I've been working with the longest know that unless we've got some team expectations to try to manage, like, oh, your team needs you fit here, We can't give you a break here. We got to get to keep you fit like that kind of bullshit. But if you are kind of able to choose your own schedule, when somebody says I'm tired, it's time for a break. Absolutely no question. Like maybe you scratch from that race that you've got planned and you get the rest you need because on the other side of it, everybody's better. And actually that's a weird thing about being an amateur, how that is a lot like Being good enough at the top level to kind of like a la carte your own race schedule. I want to do one of these, I want to do two of these. You know, it's kind of like being at a buffet. You go, okay, this is great. I'm just going to have one of everything. Why not? Like everybody does. But like in the middle, it sucks because it's all dictated to you. And so you don't really get to go, oh, I'm tired. I need to, I get to rest. It's kind of like the worst of both worlds to be in the middle level of pro like that. And you've been there. I know you know what I'm talking about. Yeah, yeah. It's a little bit too much. You know, you're trying to manage a lot of expectations from, yeah, from multiple different sort of like, yeah, trying to be good at both sides. It's like in college, I... I don't know what I was thinking. I was young and dumb. I ran cross-country, like running with the cross-country team, but I also did mountain biking with the team. So like Friday, I'd run a 5K. And then Saturday, Sunday, I do like dual slalom, short track, downhill, cross-country. And then Monday, the cross-country running coach would be like, time for practice. You've had Saturday and Sunday off. I had just like a flash when you said that managing expectation. I was like, oh, oh no, I'm letting someone down. I need to go for a run right now. Yeah. All right. Do you have any other thoughts before we get to listener questions? We've got a handful of pretty good ones here. I don't think so. I feel like that was a lot of the two disciplines. I think it's just, again, like focusing on what your goals are. And if you need to come into either season, road season of the next year or cross season of the current year later, you know, like do realize that people may have really good fitness coming into the year. Their goals might be a little bit different. So like, I think it's a little bit of just like, remember that the training and the planning is specific to your goals. So sometimes if you go into a season a little bit later, people are going to be flying. You're going to be like, oh my gosh, I've missed the boat. And that's not necessarily the case. Just kind of staying focused on like, what works for me? When do I need to be taking this break? And what am I hoping to achieve through the season? Yeah, and I think if people have not really considered all that stuff before, and you're like, oh man, that's a lot of stuff to think about and plan for. Genuinely, it's really not that bad. Just start thinking about it now. and take your best guess and you're going to get something wrong. Every year something's either going to need a little tweak or you're going to be like, well, that sucked. I'm not going to do that again. Let's try this other way to approach it. So as long as you have some kind of feedback cycle on it, you're going to be honing in your process for the future, but also the more ways that it goes wrong for you in the present. the more you're going to be prepared for when things go wrong in the future too. Yeah, yeah. Okay, cool. So, first question is, how fast can one get into crit shape asking for a cat four, for a cat four or five crit asking for a friend? Actually, this is a, you know, kind of like an individualization question, but like, what's, if somebody came to you and said, I've got, You know, three weeks, or I've got a month to get into, like, okay shape. Like, is that realistically doable? Does it depend on your training history? What are your thoughts here? It sounds like this is maybe a newer cyclist, because they're 4'5", so they might not have a huge depth of aerobic training, but if they're like, I've got to get fit quick, like, okay. Maybe, I think, going to do 15-15s, like, on-off short-style efforts, Top End can come around fairly quickly. I think that is probably what we might go to. I'd be like, okay, we're just going to do sprints to work on form and the ability to produce power. And then also, yeah, 15 seconds on, 15 seconds off. Any short style like that, I think would be a good place to, like, try to get some fitness quickly. But I think in the long run, it is best to perhaps, like, do some threshold and some sweet spot and really build that form. But that's where I would start if you have limited time. I don't know how you got there, but. Well, this is something that I see is actually somewhat common in a lot of people is life throws a bunch of curveballs either several times a year or once a year or something like that. And they're like, I got sick or I moved jobs or I got to move house or something happened where, you know, the best laid plans of mice and men, something, something, Steinbeck. How you approach that kind of thing, I think is, I always tell our coaches, first of all, it's a matter of expectation management. How many times do I say that every coach meeting? Anywhere from one to, what, ten? But it's also realizing that your best fitness and your most resilient fitness doesn't come off of like three weeks. If you've got a race where you're like, this is my A race of the season, and I'm basically at zero fitness, and I've got three weeks, manage your expectations. You are not going to have your best fitness here. You may have gotten lucky and gotten faster from your rest, but that's not that common, especially if you've got super high stress during that downtime, or you're perhaps down with COVID or something like that, or pneumonia, and it's going to take you a lot longer to get back. Let's see. I've had no anaerobic training this year besides some spicy group rides and races. Cross is coming in September when hill reps. I think, what do we mean by hill reps? Actually, let's talk about group rides because that's a pretty good one that we didn't really talk about. So how do you fit group rides into your training? And I actually want to do an entire podcast on this at some point. Yeah. Yeah, group rides are tricky. Like, um, we want to be specific with the time that you have and specific to you and your goals. So a group ride is like, I just label that as like mixed intensity, whatever we get. And usually it's like a, like a bit of a, a lot of recovery endurance and it kind of just trends less and less and less, but a little bit of time in every zone. Sprinkled throughout. So it's just really hard to be specific with group riding. But cycling, a lot of reasons people want to ride their bike is because of community and friends. And I think there is a place for group riding and that like it's social and people sometimes they want to be with their friends and do a group ride. I think there's another maybe performance component of it, which would be like being comfortable to ride in a group. If you're using, you know, 25% of your brain in a race just navigating the group or feeling a little nervous because people are riding close to you. That's taking away from your ability to concentrate on the race itself and the tactics that you should be employing in a road race or a crit. So riding in groups to practice that I think is really good, being efficient, being out of the wind, the rotation, thinking about crosswinds. There's a lot of positioning, skill work that's good for group riding. But in terms of fitness, Fitness itself, you would probably be best served riding by yourself doing a specific interval. But if you're like bummed out and like, oh, I never get to see my friends, then your power is probably not going to be that good anyways. It's a balance, I think. Yeah, it is a balance. And this is actually something where... Where I deal with this a lot in consultations is like how often can I or should I do the group rides? And what I usually tell people is you've got to balance what makes you happy versus your fitness goals. So if your fitness goals, like if you're like, man, I half want to spend time with my friends and I half want to meet these fitness goals, go to the group ride every other week. You know, if it's 75%, I want to do group rides and 25%, these are my fitness goals. Okay, like go three out of four times and do that fourth time as like rest or something. And I think group rides are also very much a mixed bag because like you said, it's, we got to see what we're going to get because for some of them, they're really good for like repeated efforts and kind of surging when you don't want to be surging because you're already tired and you'd rather rest. like that kind of stuff can be fantastic for some people. And if that's what it takes to like get you good, like race fitness or interim capacity or whatever it is, fantastic. But it's going to be something that is really needing to be individualized, I think. I really like that point of in an interval session on your own, it's like, you're like, okay, three, two, one, I'm going to start my interval. But on a group ride, if someone attacks and you have to respond, I think practicing Maybe it's even more of a mental practice. The ability to respond to it, even if you're like, I'm on the limit, kind of building confidence with that unpredictable intensity is nice with that. I guess for me, when I was really focused with training, I didn't do group rides. I wanted to go out and do exactly what I felt that I needed on the day based off of my training and how I was feeling. So that was, and then I hung out with people not on bikes. I actually would have benefited from doing more group rides back when I was racing road. Because for me, mentally, surging when I didn't feel like surging was actually a big problem. Like, you know, we're on this climb and somebody, some junior, some tiny junior attacks is usually what happens, some 15-year-old kid. I'm just like, God damn it. And so everybody surges and it's like, oh man, I was just getting comfortable with my rhythm. I don't want to surge right now. I want to be saving energy because I'm a... Lazy-ass Sprinter. And so I would have benefited a lot from getting more used to that kind of stuff, just because I would wear a rut in whatever effort I was in and not really be ready for the change in pace. Even though physically I could do it, mentally it was harder. So anyway, next question. We've got, what happens during a break that lowers fitness? I think like blood plasma volume is usually what we see when we are not doing exercise. Takes the biggest hit after like two weeks. And so it seems to have a small decrease in the first week. So usually a week off is like totally fine and then do a little riding and you're fine. That's one of the reasons I usually would recommend people like mid-season don't do much more than like five to seven days. And even then, If you're super nervous, I'll be like, okay, you can ride for like four hours, 90 minutes max, no harder than recovery pace, and maybe a little above recovery pace. And like that is usually plenty to like still give somebody recovery, but also kind of get rid of all those fears of, oh no, I'm going to lose all my fitness. But another thing that usually goes away. is like that kind of polish of your top end of like repeatability or maybe like that super snappy long sprint that you've got. And actually, I find in season that this is something that is quite individual of feeling like I've got my top end or I don't have any top end because a lot of people after a break will usually post their best ever sprint numbers. It's very strange. But then there's people like me where I need to be sprinting for three or four weeks before I can actually feel like, okay, I can really make some watts. So everybody's a little bit different in that respect. But yeah, anaerobic capacity tends to go away a little bit. And that's kind of what I mean by that. But it's also very quick to come back. So it's positive volume. Yeah. It's like our cap four friend who needs that quick fitness for this three weeks away race. Yeah, yeah, and that's another one, again, thinking about that whole thing again. It's like, you also want to get to that race not feeling like you just burned yourself out on three weeks of hard training to try to get ready for this thing. Yeah, yeah, it's definitely a balance. What's the best way to maintain FTP and TTE while you are focusing on crits, and can it improve at all? Well, I think to can it improve, it depends on how often you're racing. Yeah, so what do you think for best ways to maintain FTP and TTE? Uh, yeah, this is like, this is like what, that was my training, right? It was. It was like, ride at sweet spot and threshold every day. Just do that. Not every day. That, yeah, if you want to maintain that, if your race, again, like planning the race schedule, if you can dictate your race schedule, I think like planning some time to, to race, maybe. a series race. I really like series race like Intelligentsia. So then maybe leading into that, you don't have every weekend of racing. So maybe you work on some threshold there and you could work on TTE and just like work on some steady state efforts there and then go into a block of racing. So I think allowing yourself some space to do training in a block for racing, I think is a good way to be able to focus on. Still maintaining that threshold power. Yeah. And I would also say that this is something that's very individual because I've got some clients where we do very little threshold training in season. We'll do just enough to make sure it's kind of maintaining. And these are usually the higher volume folks. And some people, even the high volume folks, are... needing a lot more threshold training and needing to rest from the high-intensity efforts in season. And so here's the thing I would say about FTP and TTE is it's hard to realistically measure them in season because you're usually fatigued from your racing. And making sure you get to your races in good shape is more important than accurately measuring FTP and TTE and all that all the time. So a lot of the time for maintenance, I will give people like anywhere from like five to 20 minute FTP efforts. I know we usually say 10 minutes is like a minimum, but that's if you're building fitness. If you're maintaining like five to five to 10 minutes of FTP efforts are usually fine. And so I'll say like, give me like five to eight by five minutes at FTP. And, you know, if your FTP is Ranger Watts and You can't maintain 300 watts, like, okay, that's the red flag, you're probably tired, don't do that. Stop, go home. Or, on the other hand, if you're like, man, I got four efforts and I was tired. That's information that you can't ride at that intensity very long, and you probably need more rest. And so, when you are, you know, looking at doing this kind of training, it's like, oh, well, man. I was able to do, I could do 4x20 minutes FTP before my season started. Okay, yeah, that's great. But also at the same time, you don't need to do that because you've got other races coming up soon that you don't need that specific fitness for a lot of the time. So the real question is just balance versus progression and season. And for the most part, people need more maintenance than they need real progression, especially if somebody races kind of a lot. Yeah, it seems like it's... just balancing the level of fatigue that they have and then what is the, I don't think the shape of their fitness, like what is the goal that they're trying to achieve? Like if you're trying to race really well in criteriums, like I don't know that I'm so worried that I can maintain like a very steady FTP effort for a very long time in season. Yeah, so maybe best for pre-season build and then. What are your goals for the actual race result that you're looking for? Yeah, and what keeps your fitness around the best? Because even in cross season, like I said, I did a 2x20 sweet spot, and I felt amazing. I did that on a Wednesday, and I think I felt good on Saturday, when I hadn't felt good the previous Saturday. And I realized, okay, I need more of this training in my life while I am doing all these races. And that was because cross practice got rained out. Otherwise, I probably would have gone to cross practice, and I never would have learned anything. And so some people just need straight up rest. Some people need a handful of sprints and, you know, kind of easy riding. And so, yeah, it's kind of do what you feel works best for you. And this is one of the things that, you know, we do as like kind of boutique coaching, I guess you could say, is we're always trying to figure out what works best for this person. And we can try it with somebody else when we don't really know. We can kind of say, maybe it's this, maybe it's this, but we need their feedback for that. Yeah, I like the test that you were describing with threshold to see like, is this just fatigue? This very much could be in race season. Oh yeah, like if you could do a 4x20 threshold workout before and you can barely squeak out like 30 minutes of 5 minute efforts, absolutely no question, there was fatigue there. Mid-season break. Do you still think creatine doesn't make sense for flat crit boys? Typically, I'm going to say, yeah, I don't think creatine makes sense for just about anybody racing on the road. If you are just a track racer, probably less detrimental, but the weight that you gain from creatine, and I know this from experience, it can be somewhat large. I'm 183 pounds right now, and if I started supplementing creatine, I would probably be 187 to 190. Or not 90. Yeah, 190. In about a couple weeks. So, and if I were racing Chris that had any kind of hill in it, I'd be like, man, I don't want these extra pounds after I've been working so hard to get rid of them. So, and realistically, it doesn't help your sprints or anything like that that much, I've found. It helps more to do better specific practice. and not have the weight penalty. Like, if you are doing a bunch of strength training, in my experience, supplementing creatine will get you like an extra rep per set. And that's it. It's, you know, and if that is fine with you, then that's great. But otherwise, especially if you are like a road racer and you're doing any climbs longer than 30 seconds, It's probably going to be detrimental to your power-to-weight ratio. Not offset by fitness. My partner was trying, creating to see like, okay, do I feel significantly stronger? What are the benefits? Same, you know, reporting the same that you're describing. It's like very, very marginal gain. And also the weight gain was just, you know, like greater than what would be appropriate for a road racing. Yeah. It's just it wasn't worth a trade-off. So he discontinued using that. I was going to say, I've got a giant tub of creatine in my pantry. You could have it if you were still doing it. Fire sale. Yeah. No, it's old now. I probably should throw it out. Okay, so eight-week layoff for injuries. How to know when to move on from base to rebuild to threshold and VO2. Okay, that's more of like an early season thing, but let's say in-season. How would you bring somebody back to fitness? Let's reframe the question like that. Somebody's been off the bike for, somebody's got like a collarbone break. Knock on our water bottle over here. That doesn't happen to anybody. But if that happened, somebody's off the bike for, let's say, two weeks. Now they're spinning easy one arm for two weeks. And then they've got two arms, but they're on the trainer for another four weeks, let's say. I think I would start, you know, if they're able to do, if they're coming back with full health, and they have been doing a little bit of easy spinning, like you said, on the trainer, one arm, and then kind of biking around outside, I would start kind of What I would phrase is like the basics, like sweet spot and threshold. I'd be like, okay, let's start to gradually increase the amount of intensity that we're doing. Can we meet our power objectives or what does that power look like for you right now? And how long can we ride in that zone? What is our TTE available at this current? Moment in Fitness. And so I would start with that. I would do some threshold sets. I would do some sweet spot. How much work can we do in the week? Like, what can you handle at this time? And build from there. That would probably be maybe the first four weeks or six weeks. and then you need to start to do some more top end depending on whatever your goal races are but that really depends on how they're responding to that those first few weeks of like sweet spot and threshold and then we can say like oh that's they're great let's like add a little bit more maybe like no we need more time can we push this race back I feel like that two months uh should be appropriate to still be able to participate in the race it just depends how you respond for sure um Can we reframe sickness and injury as a mid-season break? It's like saying travel is your rest day. Yeah, I just flew internationally. I had two days off. Feel good to go. I barely slept on the plane on the red eye. I'm ready. I just broke my ribs and, you know, my lungs are bruised, but that was my rest, so now I'm ready for a big push. It is annoying because you're like, oh, I haven't really got to train, but like you were sick or you had COVID, it's like not necessarily that you're resting and you're not really having like a true break, I would say. So yes, maybe the break that you should take wouldn't be quite as long because you have had time off the bike and intensity, but kind of depends like, maybe if you had COVID, like that's not really a mid-season break, that's just you're sick. I actually do find that muscles can repair themselves quite a bit when you are sick or injured, as long as you are maintaining kind of neutral to slightly positive energy balance. But on the other hand, a lot of times you don't feel that good when you get back to it, even if you are fully recovered and even potentially stronger. You know, if you've still got that residual stress around, like your body's not ready for... And I would say, 9.9 times out of 10, that is a much better approach. I don't know what that .1 times would be, but I'm sure there's something in there where I would do it differently. But yeah, for the most part, it's like, if you get injured, let's say you pull a hamstring or something. Doesn't really happen in cycling, but if you decide to start running for cross-season and you run way too fast and way too hard to start with, it easily could happen. So, like, you pull a hamstring and you're like, I can kind of ride, I can't really run, I can't really ride that hard, how do I approach this? It's like, manage it with the injury. Like, if the injury doesn't let you train hard, the same way that stress would not let you train hard, don't do the hard stuff. Just period. You know, potentially, hopefully, you've got a doctor helping you out, or a PT or something, and then work with them. So like, you know, if you're sick, listen to your doctor. If you're injured, listen to your doctor or PT or whoever. And don't train harder than feels good until you are absolutely confident that you are ready to like dive headfirst into it. And even then, I would say, put a toe in the water. Don't dive headfirst. Yeah, I have an athlete who unfortunately was in a crash this summer, and that's how we've been operating on his transition back to riding. It's like he had time off the bike completely because of the injuries, and now each week and throughout the week we're commenting back and forth on training peaks, like how did this feel, like, you know, how was your energy afterwards, like what was your pain level, and, you know, obviously... Depending on what the injury is, like, consult a PT, consult your doctor. But for him, it's pretty straightforward, and we just need to manage it by his energy levels surrounding that. So, yeah, just a slow progression back in, I think, is always a wise decision. Yeah, I mean, because you and I, we also know somebody who got COVID, what was it, last year, and was, like, out for, like, 24 hours, and was like, all right, I'm back, I'm fine. What the heck? Unfair. Very unfair. And then, and that person's partner was down for quite a while, sadly. And missed intelligentsia. Never forget. Yeah, yeah. So the severity of the illness or injury really kind of determines how, whether you can determine it's a break. Because if you've got like a 24-hour bug, okay, sure, like maybe another day off of easy riding, maybe two. Most of the time you're like, I'm back. Okay, cool. No problem. It was just some food poisoning. But yeah, like if you got a bad case of COVID or a bad flu or something, yeah, take it easy. Okay, two left. Kids racing full cyclocross season and full, oh, sorry. Yeah, full cross country season and full cyclocross season. When can we actually give them training? You work with quite a few juniors. So, how would you answer this question? Oh man, full cyclocross season. They're saying cross-country mountain biking, not cross-country running. Yeah, it's XC and CX. And so, yeah, a lot of what we're going to, what we talk about today applies to cross-country as well, and I'm probably going to title the episode to include that as well, so. Yeah. Oh man, when do they train? Yeah, I think if you have such a full season, The pre-season preparation is important. I think August is a good time to think, like, okay, what do we need to focus on for form? And, like, again, like, what are their goals? And what do their goals fall? And, like, what does that require? You know, do they need a lot of threshold work? Whatever specific to them I think would be good for August. And then in-season... In season, it's sort of the same for everyone, right? You're racing, and at some point, it sounds like these kids' schedules are pretty full, so I would suggest maybe like a, maybe not fully off, but like a few days off, and then like an unstructured weekend, like in the end of October, because that's a long push. I'm assuming that their cross season is the normal cross season, like September to December? I'm not entirely sure. Who asked this question? Oh, I know this person. I will follow up with them. But at the same time, one of the things I think about training juniors and kids is that, number one, it has to be fun. Yeah. And one of the biggest things that contributes to a kid's longevity in a sport is doing multiple sports. And making sure that they don't burn out is like fun. Variety. Like, you don't want to take a 10-year-old and be like, wow, this is like the best 10-year-old in the country. I've got the next REMCO. Like, no, you probably don't. And you don't want to have them doing like a full training schedule all through high school, middle school, and then high school. What do I call it? Junior high? I call it middle school. I think so. You still have middle school, yeah. And that's one of the things I would watch for is that, especially with the kids, I don't know what age they are. They could be eight. They could be 18. I would say you want to focus more on skills and the basics and management of fatigue. And then if you get a chance to do some structured training around that, I would actually consider that a bonus. Because otherwise, if their schedule is so packed, I would say you probably don't want them doing much structured training. Yeah, I think. I heard this a long time ago, and maybe this is fake news, but the Swiss Federation for Mountain Biking, they produce a lot of great riders, and I think what they were doing for their under 17, 18, juniors, they wouldn't do structured interval practices, they would do skills practices, but within those skills practices, you have to be riding at at a high speed to practice those skills. So in itself, there was intensity and they were building fitness, but in a fun way that wasn't super like, now you have to hit this number and you need to ride for 15 minutes and all these things. So I think it keeps kids in the sport when they become adults, which is probably their prime. Time for Good Results is like in their 20s instead of their, you know, like your example, like the best 10-year-old or, you know, young kid. And so, and I think doing other sports and like learning body coordination and movement and teamwork, I think just like I have raced with road teammates who played team sports when they were younger, like soccer, and they were such. Better teammates for road cycling because they understood like this is a goal for the team and each person has their role and it's okay not to be the person finished, you know, crossing the line first. So I think there's so many different like with juniors, yeah, it's like physical and mental development and just being exposed to a lot of different activities. So less structure, I think, is good. We were talking about group rides earlier, maybe less group rides when you're old, but a lot of group rides when you're a kid, because it's fun to ride with your friends and learn and watch others and make it fun. Yeah, I completely agree. And also, I would say you probably want to make sure that the kids get in some kind of impact loading, just to make sure that they don't turn 20 and have... You know, brittle bird bones. You want to make sure that people are staying healthy, too, because, you know, we hope everybody stays in the sport of cycling, but if they don't, you want to make sure that they're not going to have osteoporosis by the time this guy's like 28, you know? And so, like, you know, doing, I would say doing strength training. would probably be a good use of time as well, like getting these kids into the gym and showing them proper deadlift form, proper squat form, like this is how to do a bench press, this is how you do lat pull-downs and pull-ups, and just showing them the ropes, and that can be actually a really good, fun way to do something else. And maybe we should, because somebody asked another question that I'm going to nix for our last question from the listeners, and I'm going to ask my own listener question, because I just brought this up. Where would you put strength training into all of this? And there's a squat rack behind you, so maybe we could do a couple example squats. Pull-up competition right now. Oh, I'm going to lose. Strength training, yeah. One, I really like your comment with kids, like teaching them. How to Be in a Gym. But that's such a cool, lifelong skill, where you're, like, not embarrassed as a kid, because as a kid, you're like, I'm not supposed to know anything, and I have this coach. And so they could bring that information in college. Maybe they're not in a sport, and they could still go to their college facility and, like, feel comfortable to go in there. It's intimidating in a gym. So that was a really cool idea. Yeah, very large dudes around the free weights, just kind of. stare at you when you walk up to the squat rack and you're in your regular sneakers and you're like, can I do some squats? And they're like, oh, sorry, I got 405, I'm in the middle of the set. You're like, can you help me take this weight off the bar? Strength training, it's hard. It's hard to mix it in to a season. I think keeping it away from your most specific races, your goal races, I should say, is probably best, ideal. I think off-season, it's a really good time, especially if you live somewhere where there's a winter. It's nice to not have to be always on the trainer for every single session and mix it up and be in the gym. I, because I was racing two seasons, like cross and road, I didn't have a lot of time for strength training. I think I missed maybe some opportunity to develop as an athlete there, but I also really struggled to fit it in to the schedule. So I think being a little bit more making time for it would be good, but... At the end of the day, like our focus is cycling. So I think that if you can make time for it in an off-season setting, that would be ideal. It's hard. I think it's very dependent on like what you're trying to do. Yeah. And what your fitness goals are too. Because one of the things about strength training is that oftentimes the intensity of the strength training, even if, because In my experience, what a lot of people would consider maintenance is way more than maintenance. It's still hard training. And a lot of the time, that's going to add fatigue where there does not need to be fatigue anywhere. And so if you race Saturday, Sunday, let's say you do a crit on Saturday and do a road race or even a cross race or a mountain bike race on Sunday, and you're like, man, when do I fit this strength training in? Go to the gym Monday. You may still be tired for high-intensity Wednesday, so that means Thursday, but if you've got a race next Saturday, you don't want to train hard Thursday. And so now, okay, where do you put it in? So maybe I put it in, maybe I'll do my hard training like Tuesday or Wednesday, and then maybe I'll do... Strength Training, Wednesday or Thursday. Okay, but now you're going to be tired for your race Saturday. What do you do? I mean, so a lot of people need a lot less intensity in the strength training than they really think they do. But one of the other common comments I have heard, actually probably the most common, is that if I don't keep up lifting heavy, I lose strength. And realistically, I would say that this is probably just using the wrong metric to gauge what you mean strength. Because in my opinion, strength, well, not in my opinion, in actual fact, your strength as measured by something like a squat is determinant on how much squatting you've been doing. Because if you stop squatting for like four months and you get back under the bar, what's going to happen is you've lost all of your squat technique. It realistically takes me probably And so if you measure your... Quote-unquote strength, just by how much you're squatting, what you're really doing is you're just looking at a metric that doesn't actually measure your strength. What you're measuring is how good are you at squatting. And so are you maintaining muscle mass is probably the biggest thing I would say that determines whether you are maintaining strength. And not only that, look at your sprint numbers. If your sprint numbers are fine the same way throughout, you're probably maintaining strength. It's just that when you get back to the gym, You've lost that motor patterning of the squat. Also, if you gain weight, like I said, lean muscle mass, if you gain weight and muscle while you are lifting, let's say you gain four pounds or two kilos or something like that. If three months into the season you've lost that two kilos, you've probably lost that muscle mass unless you've got a good way to measure it. So there's a little bit of nuance in this, but realistically, you don't need to lift as hard as you think you do in season. So I do have some people who I have strength training longer in season than I normally would, but oftentimes it's because we, number one, find it very helpful for injury management because it really lowers the incidence of injury. Um, or if they're, like, over, like, 45, 50, I want somebody lifting longer into the season, just for health, and we'll do, um, you know, we'll do, well, we'll do blah, blah, blah. We could do a whole other podcast on that stuff, but, um, I think we have, actually. Anyway, so, yeah. So. Yeah, lifting, especially for women. I think it's really important. Like as I get older, it's just like for, like you were mentioning like bone density earlier and just like muscle mass, like continuing to like keep some amount of muscle mass, super important. Yeah, it's literally use it or lose it. And one of the things that I've learned over time of seeing all these studies on like Because I'm not a big health and longevity kind of coach. I'm a performance coach. But when I do run across that health and longevity stuff, there are two things that are highly correlated with longevity, VO2 max and leg strength. Life Strength meaning just being able to get up off the toilet or get up out of your chair or go to your grandkids' baseball game or something like that matters hugely. And it determines whether people move around more. And even that level of low-level activity is exercise enough to keep you alive a lot longer. And so, yeah, so it's really use it or lose it with muscle mass. And if you lose it, it's detrimental to yourself in the long term. You know, even with the professional cyclist I coach, I'm always considering, is this person doing enough for their long-term health? Well, and if you're traveling to Europe with two bikes and a whole bunch of wheels and luggage, you should start working on your upper body now. Because it's really exhausting carrying those bags around. So I literally one year I was like, to suitcase my bike, like while running in a race, I should really be doing more arm strength. Alright, we'll do a podcast on upper body lifting for traveling cyclists as the next one. Any other thoughts before we wrap up? I feel like we covered a lot of stuff. Cool listener questions. Yeah, I think managing winter and summer discipline for cycling is hard and challenging and I think like It's definitely possible. And I think each year you can dial it in, which is like one of the exciting things that I think we all keep racing every year because we see like, oh, I could do this better. I could time my break better. I'm not going to do this many races or I could do more races. Just like seeing progress every single year with the process of how you're approaching training and how you're scheduling is a fun thing to think about. And it's a fun thing to see progress in each season. Alright, thank you Erica for coming on to the podcast and sharing such excellent wisdom and having such a fun conversation with me. I always love talking with her. But I always love talking with all the people that we have on the podcast, in case you cannot tell. But yeah, I'm super happy to have Erica on as a coach. And as you can tell, she's extremely experienced and knowledgeable. And if you'd like to work with her or any of our coaches, please don't hesitate to reach out to empiricalcycling at gmail.com and we can get a conversation started. And if you would prefer to stay self-coached, we can always do a consultation. So that is, of course, all individualized training and recommendations. And if you want to just kick us a couple bucks because we're ad-free, go to empiricalcycling.com slash donate. And if you want to follow along in the Instagram, we can amaze at empiricalcycling or to ask a question for our podcast guests, that would be where you do it. So hopefully coming up very, very soon, we'll have the next Wattstock coming up. And I've been working on this one for several months, and I'm super, super excited to finish it up. and record it and get it out. So other than that, if I haven't asked for this in a long time, if there are any topics you would like to hear us cover, please email me and let me know. I'm happy to add that to the long list of things that we have. But it's been a while since I asked for listener topics. And so whatever is on your mind, we will try to go to it. So all right, everybody get out of here. We'll see you next time. Thanks.