performance oriented services for the cyclist.
Momentum Endurance LLC is your source for endurance coaching. Take a look through the pages to see how Momentum can benefit athletes of all experience levels. Don’t hesitate to contact us with questions or for additional information.
Thanks for stopping by,
Travis Woodruff
If you aren’t already training with power, perhaps this is the year to finally do so. Maybe you’ve been training with power for awhile now, but you’re growing tired of being limited to just one rear wheel with your current hub-based powermeter.
Either way, you should check out the wireless crank-based powermeters that are made by Quarq in Spearfish, SD. Quarq offers several versions so that you can choose the best option for your application. You can go with standard or compact chainrings on a SRAM, FSA, Rotor, Specialized, or Cannondale crankset. Also offered is a 2×10 SRAM MTB powermeter.
Quarq provides all of the performance and reliability of other crank-based powermeters, but at a fraction of the cost. All Quarq powermeters have a user replaceable battery too which means that with this system, you won’t have the expense/hassle of sending it away for service every year. This is the same powermeter that the pros use for road, cyclocross, and mtb racing. Check it out and let Momentum Endurance set you up with the best!
If you have any Quarq-related questions or if you might be interested to purchase, please feel free to contact us for pricing information. Thanks,
Plan to make your 2012 season the best one yet. Recently I wrote this article for MTBRaceNews.com. You can read the article as published here, or simply read below for the full version. Hopefully the article will raise a question or two, so let me know if I can help you further with more information.
Question: “I know I don’t need to be training on the bike right now but what are some things I should be doing to stay in shape and ensure that I have a great 2012 race season?”
Thanks for the question! The cross training that you are doing now likely won’t have a big impact on your 2012 race season. Cross training will help keep you generally fit and ready to train, but it’s not likely to help you in the going faster department – to get faster you have to ride more and ride faster. The ‘off-season’ is the single longest period of time that you can use to boost your fitness for the season ahead, but you’ve got to do this work on your bike. Don’t despair however, because it’s important to take a break too. As long as you’re having fun and keeping active your cross training will do its trick for the time being.
Now happens to be a great time to get away from the bike especially if your first high priority races might be sometime in the April or May window. There are some important things that you can (and should) be doing while you’re not turning the cranks. Let’s focus on what you can do while taking a hard earned break from the bike.
Outline the 2012 racing schedule
Outlining your race schedule is the basic first step. Which races do you plan to attend and which are those that you really want to do well at? Write them all down and make note of each race’s importance in the grand scheme of your season. This overview can always be adjusted, but it’s helpful to have a template to start with.
Evaluate and change your training routine
In order to maximize your bike training you need to take a close look at your normal day to day schedule. How well did you balance your training with your other responsibilities during 2011? Modify your weekly schedule so that both ‘real life’ and your riding can benefit. Perhaps planning for two or three days of no riding each week will allow you to train more and with better quality on the other days. If you typically ride in the evenings, consider doing some of your training in the morning. This can free up your evening (bonus family time and/or less stress about getting out of work late) or it can allow you to double up and put in a little more training volume, thus adding to the workload you’re able to do in a given week.
Plan for better recovery too
As important as it is to balance life’s responsibilities with training, it is equally important to plan for good rest and recovery. How much sleep are you getting each night? Chances are you’ll train and race better with more of it. Adjust your evening schedule so that it might allow you to have a consistent bed time and a little extra slumber time. Evaluate what might be some of life’s biggest stresses and put some time and energy into them so that they might become less stressful. Also, how restful are your ‘rest days’? Make them count just as much as your hardest training days do.
Kick start your bike season a little earlier
Use your off-season as a great opportunity to generally catch up, evaluate things, and then prepare to implement changes once you resume training. If your goal is to make 2012 better than the other years, I’ll encourage you to start your training a little sooner rather than later relative to what you’ve done before. The indoor trainer won’t replace singletrack, but it will certainly allow you to boost fitness for the season to come.
If you’re looking for an early season escape from the snow and cold, I’d encourage you to plan a training camp in a warmer location. After taking a wintertime break, a training camp is an excellent way to refocus and get things started right for the new season. This can be a great chance to put in some bigger miles and catch up on some extra rest and relaxation. Perhaps your teammates would be interested to do a camp with you, or you can consider joining Brian Matter and I at our Tucson Training Camp January 17-22, 2012. We’ll be doing some great rides and helping riders like you sort out their season plans.
Wrapping it up
The most beneficial things that you can do during your break aren’t cross training related at all. Invest the time to evaluate the bigger picture and figure out how your training and recovery might be able to work better with everyday life this season. If you can do this, your training and racing will be better than ever. While not training this time of the year, be sure to enjoy your time away from the bike. Keep active, have fun in the snow, and plan ahead for a bigger and better season in 2012. When you’re ready to go, all you’ll have to do is go for it!
It’s helpful to check in and see exactly where your fitness is throughout the year. Testing doubles as excellent training too, so why not incorporate it regularly?
Having just wrapped up my cyclocross season I figured that it’d be a good time to test myself and see what my power profile is looking like. The screen shot above shows efforts that were done at five and 20 minute durations, (testing VO2Max and Threshold fitness accordingly). A second day of testing can be done to measure maximum one minute power and also your 10 second max effort, (which indicate Anaerobic Capacity and Neuromuscular Power respectively).
The collection of 10 second, 1 minute, 5 minute, and 20 minute data points is known as your Power Profile and can indicate where your unique strengths and weaknesses are.
Understanding what you can do for a single max effort is one thing, but how much fatigue are you able to withstand or how many repeated hard efforts can you serve out? We can also test your fatigue resistance with workouts designed specifically to do just that.
Testing on a regular basis is a great way to measure the effectiveness of your training and the results can help us determine what training might be most appropriate for the next phase. Test often and train well!
-Travis
Thanks to the votes received from other USA Cycling certified coaches, I was recently elected to the coach’s position on the USA Cycling Mountain Bike Committee. The committee exists to guide US mountain bike racing in the right direction and is comprised of eleven representatives, all coming from various realms within the sport.
I’m excited for this opportunity to serve USA Cycling members I and look forward to ensuring a healthy future for our sport. The first meeting that I’ll be attending will be October 10-12 in Colorado Springs. As part of my nomination, here is the statement that I included:
“As an active USAC Level I coach and professional mountain bike racer, I am interested in fulfilling the ‘Coach’ position on the Mountain Bike Committee. Having the opportunity to work with juniors, seniors and masters alike, all of who compete at various levels and in various disciplines of our sport, I am highly motivated to serve USA Cycling members and ensure a healthy future for mountain bike racing. It is important to me personally and professionally that USA Cycling serves the needs of its members and provides quality experiences for all of us to enjoy over the long-term. As a full-time cycling coach who participates in races across the country it will be my goal to provide feedback and direction as to how USAC can improve upon its own work. I am particularly interested in rider development and the pathways which exist for racers who are aspiring to compete on the National team. I appreciate your consideration and wish you the best of rides.”
And we’re not talking about the off-season type of cross training here… We are talking about cyclocross training! Local races are starting in Colorado, Illinois, and on the East Coast. Cross will be taking over the cycling world soon. With the first USGP and local races everywhere just a few weeks away, now is the time to start getting specific.
First and foremost I highly recommend going out and doing one or two easy runs per week. A lot of people think there is a lot of running in cyclocross, however most of the time this is not the case. On a majority of courses you are off of your bike for five seconds, you run 15 feet, and then you are back on your bike. In some races you may run uphill, while in others it’s flat over the barriers. No matter the particulars of the course, the amount of running is most often limited to less than 30 seconds per lap. This equals only three to five minutes per race. We recommend running in order to get the muscles prepared for the pounding they’ll experience during those first few steps off the bike. When dismounting for a barrier at 15 mph eccentric muscle contractions in the legs act as your brakes when transitioning into your run stride. To prepare the leg muscles for this type of stress, a little running will go a long ways. By building up your running and cyclocross transitions gradually, you’ll reduce the risk of overuse injury too. As you get further along into the season running becomes less important since you are probably racing on the weekends and practicing during the week – thus you’ll have plenty of cross-specific running built in already.
Secondly I recommend that you incorporate some cross-specific workouts into your plan. Nothing on the road can replicate the specific efforts of cross racing. Making big accelerations out of grassy corners, the transition over the barriers, dismounting and remounting are all skills that can’t be practiced on the road bike. Plan to get out to your favorite park for a midweek workout. Set up some barriers (easily made from PVC and portable too) and a short five to six minute lap so that you can race your buddies like there is $1,000,000 on the line!
The best part about cross season is that while the volume of training might be less, the intensity goes way up! Lots of AC (Anaerobic Capacity) Intervals, Micro Intervals, and VO2 Max Intervals help to replicate racing intensity. My favorite workout is the 30:30:30. Ride over to your favorite cross course and setup a 90 second lap. You’ll do thirty seconds at full speed on the bike, dismount, go 30 seconds full speed running (uphill), remount, do ten hard pedal strokes, and then 30 seconds of recovery. Repeat this cycle for six or seven laps. The more fit you are the more six or seven lap sessions you’ll be able to do. Building up to three is a great goal while starting off with a just single set works best for most of us.
Whether you are racing fast for the stars and stripes jersey or racing fast to make it to the next beer hand up, cross is here and the time to train hard is now!
-Coach Brian
Motivation is a big part (the biggest part perhaps) of what we do on our bikes. We are motivated to keep fit, motivated to push ourselves and motivated to race as a chance to see where we stack up against the competition. Motivation is never static and it’ll certainly have its peaks and valleys over the entirety of a long season. For the most part, athletes (especially endurance athletes) are highly intrinsically motivated individuals. Why else would we voluntarily push ourselves so hard? This general willingness to ‘do the work’ is what allows our fitness to build and our confidence to grow.
Motivation to train and motivation to race are independent of one another. Knowing how the two correlate in context to your race schedule is very helpful. Consider how your motivation changes as the season progresses. It should go without saying that motivation to train is always helpful for building fitness while motivation to race is necessary for your best results. If and when you find a situation without any priority races in the near future and generally low motivation to train, it’s likely a good time to take a well-earned break.
If you’ve trained well, raced hard and had an excellent season then you’re likely due for some R&R this fall. It is important to recharge physically and mentally so that you can later kick off your 2012 campaign freshened up, motivated and ready to go. If your season didn’t go as planned or if you encountered some setbacks along the way and you’re still motivated to ‘get it back’ then this fall will be an excellent opportunity to rebuild some fitness while the weather and daylight still allow.
The right fall training can include a number of different options for an even greater number of situations. Consider your motivation and where things stand in the bigger picture. Be sure to talk to Brian or I and we’ll steer you in the right direction so that you’re making the most of your training time and energy. Riding is most fun when we’re doing it for all of the right reasons so let’s be sure that your fall plans are set accordingly.
-Coach Travis
With the huge growth of US cyclocross, the season arrives earlier and earlier each year. This year is no exception as the first cross race with big prize money has already happened. In the past cross has been dominated by the Europeans, but now Americans are starting to get some well-deserved respect. In January of 2013, for the first time ever, the UCI Cyclocross World Championships will be held in the United States.
Cyclocross originated in France in 1902, but today Belgium is the home to the world’s best cyclocross action. Races typically take place during the fall and winter and last for one hour or less. The intensity is high from start to finish and it is common to race in what many might consider to be inclement weather. Races consist of many laps of a short course usually starting on pavement then transitioning to trails, grass, sand, or mud with barriers or steep inclines that require the rider to quickly dismount, shoulder the bike and then remount. The cyclocross competitor is tested in many ways and must not only be fit, but also skillful and tactically ready to go.
We at Momentum Endurance love racing cross. It’s great for road racers who want to maintain fitness in the off season and it’s excellent for mountain bikers who want to improve speed and skill. The atmosphere at most cross races is second to none – high energy, but low stress. Beer and waffles, cowbells and costumes are all part of the fun. You name it and it’s probably been done at a cross race.
If cross is your main objective or if you’re wrapping up your road or mtb season, then now is the time for a little break from the bike. Start some running and plyometrics, glue up your tubulars, and get ready to hang on tight. Rest up now because the US cross season officially starts in six weeks and goes through early January. I can almost smell the waffles now!
Now is a great time to start up a cyclocross specific training plan. For more info e-mail bmatter@momentumendurance.com.
You have likely started the race season and many of you are in the heart of the road or mountain bike calendar. Some of you might even be just weeks away from your most important event of the year. So we thought it would be a good idea to give up a few of our favorite tips on race preparation.
Race preparation doesn’t start Sunday morning when you wake up and pack your race bag. Race preparation doesn’t start Saturday night when you decide to eat pasta for Sunday’s main event. Race preparation goes all the way back to the beginning of the season when you first laid out you goals. The daily training rides, all the hard work, and all the sacrifices are the beginnings of the preparation. Following those training plans and knowing you’ve done everything in your power is what brings you the mental confidence heading into the week before your race.
As you get closer to the event you can start to be more specific. One week away from the event you need to start going through the checklist in your head. If you can’t keep it straight in your head, it’s a good idea to write it down. Everybody has a slightly different checklist, and part of being prepared is having your own. Is my bike working? Have I done my research on the race course? What time does the race start? Is my hotel reservation confirmed?
Two or three days away from the event I fine tune it just a little more. I’ll be riding my race bike making sure it’s dialed and making sure my body is used to the geometry. It’s key to preventing injury if you do all your training on one bike, but are racing on a different. I start thinking about hydration, food intake, and start thinking about the race course. I like to visualize the race course during my last few rides before the race. I take a little time to come up with a plan of attack for the race itself.
The night before the race I like to pack my bags early and have a relaxing evening. If everything is done right the morning of the race can be very relaxing and low stress. You’re now ready to go! Just don’t forget that post race recovery drink because next week’s race prep starts just as soon as you cross the finish line.
-Brian
Writing up a race report is an opportunity for reflection: what went well, what didn’t, and how do I go about using the experience to pull together a better race next time. So I’m going to briefly reflect on the past two weekends of racing, the good, the bad, and what’s next. The first race was the second UCI MTB World Cup held in Yorkshire, United Kingdom. I raced with the US National Team, so the race support was superb and my teammates were, well, mostly my BMC Mountainbike Development Team USA teammates. Plus, cyclocross superstar Amy Dombroski who is now sprinkling in some mountain bike races with her ‘cross. I can’t thank our race mechanic, USA team manager, or travel companions enough – all fantastic people!
We arrived near Pickering, UK on Thursday morning. On Friday, I got my first couple laps in on the race course. There were two notable spots on the course where I had to stop, consider the lines, and watch some riders negotiate the sections. I had a solid day on the course, the tricky sections dialed, and a World Cup Sprint Eliminator to look forward to that evening. A what? The Sprint Eliminator is formatted with multiple heats – first a qualifying run, then brackets are set up with heats of four riders, semifinals, quarterfinals, etc. The top two riders from each heat proceed onto the next round – until all but four are eliminated before the finals. The course was less than 2 minutes long with three short climbs, a stairway drop, a sketchy dirt corner, and an uphill sprint – my kind of race! I qualified 8th of 20+ racers and went on to finish 8th. In the Small Final, I was on the line with Katerina Nash, Tracey Mosley, Cecile Ravonel (Top-10 World Cup racer, Downhill World Champ, Top-10 World Cup racer) – whoa! I learned that while I can start fast enough for a US ProXCT race, I was left on the start line before I even realized the whistle sounded in every single heat. I need to work on that.
I was confident coming into the cross-country race on Sunday. I felt good, I had trained well, rested up, and was ready to race. My start was good despite a 71st call up position. I lined up along the right barrier, so I was outside of the first sweeping corner—right where I wanted to be. Halfway through lap one, I was riding in 45th. Beginning of lap two, I felt my tire give way on a root and I ‘burped’ some air out. What could have been a minor quick fix with a Big Air (throw in a little extra air so it doesn’t happen again) essentially ended my race. I mentally checked out. I rode the “B” lines to the pit, lost too many positions, took a wheel change I didn’t need, had some shifting problems, had too much tire pressure, hurt my back, and let too much air out only to be back where the problems began . I got pulled before completing my final lap. Ugh, that was not how things should have gone. I let a minor problem end my race.
Monday we traveled to Oberried, Germany (near Freiburg in the Black Forrest region). Freiburg is one of my favorite cities in the world and the riding in the region is incredible. We stayed at Steirebarlehof, a farm with two cats, two pigs, dairy cows, bunnies, ponies, and Emma (the farm dog). Fresh eggs, yogurt, frankfurters, steak, and veggies almost every day—yum! Two good days of training—you would be jealous of the roads! The week was very therapeutic, to say the least. I put Dalby behind me and looked forward to the Offenburg World Cup.
Offenburg is a keep-you-on-your-toes kind of course with lots of euro chutes (steep downhill drop-offs), some good climbs, and technical sections with names like, “Wolf’s Drop” and “Snake Pit.” Spectators pay 15 Euro a piece to watch the race! The course and atmosphere were just that good. I only pre-rode on Friday since we had over an hour long commute from Freiburg. I rode two laps of the course. For the first, I tagged along with the junior and U23 women who were in Freiburg for a USA Cycling Development Camp. We took our time and talked over all the tricky sections. It was very inspiring to see some of these girls muster the courage to try some of these sections which were the most technical trails they’d ever seen. I warmed up for the second lap and then rode a lap near race speed. I pieced together the technical sections fast and flawlessly—I think the talking over the tricky sections helped tremendously. On race day, I rode one of the most consistent races of my career. Every lap was within seconds of each other and my last lap was the fastest. I had no mishaps, was on the verge of cramping for the final two laps, had fun, smiled at spectators who were cheering on the last lap (which always gets more cheers)—I loved it! The first lap was a cluster—and I’ve never been yelled at more in my life. I could probably fight for positions a little bit more, dig a little deeper on lap one and take some more chances. That’s what I’ll work on for the next World Cup in Mt Saint Anne. Until then, I’m happy with my 49th place.
Enjoy the ride,
Chloe
Many cycling related products on the market make claims for how drastically they’ll improve your performance. Most of these claims are not warranted by science; however people still tend to perform better when using them. How can this be? The power of what we believe cannot be under-rated as this video outlines.
Momentum’s advice? Steer clear of the bogus claims and put the same confidence into the tried and true. Training hard(er) and recovering will improve your performance. Believing that your training will drastically improve your performance will allow you to bump your performance up to another level. Train well and put your mental stock where it is most warranted. Banking on placebo alone might work for some, but the same confidence put into something sound – such as a well thought out training program, a balanced diet, or more sleep at night will bring you the biggest dividends. Work hard, know that you’re going for it 100% and enjoy the experience.