There is also a Thursday noon sprint workout as Evan has mentioned. We will meet at the PO and roll at noon so show up when you need to be ready then. If this is a problem, it can be changed but my approach to rides is to state when it rolls and then do it then not 10 or 15 minutes later. Most races end with a group together so a sprint finish determines the order of those who make the first group. If you don't sprint well, you will have to finish alone or hope those with you are also poor sprinters. If you want to win some races, being able to sprint is your best friend. Sprinting involves the ATP-PC system which can deliver ATP rapidly but only for a short period of time. For most riders, the peak only lasts about 5 seconds and the system is useless after 20 seconds. Sprinting speed in many cases is limited by muscular strength. Your slow twitch muscles are almost certainly about as well developed as possible. You use these all the time. If you go harder than your slow twitch muscles are capable, you will have to use the fast twitch ones. Unless you go 100%, some fibers never fire. Fast twitch fibers train fairly quickly but they also lose fitness quickly. Three months of nothing but base miles will substantially reduce your sprint ability. It will come back but I prefer to never let it drop off too much. You might be able to recruit these other fibers by going really long. Some fibers become exhausted so you start using the others. You would not be able to do many efforts like this. There is a place for them but it is the month before hard racing. If there are two ways of doing something, do it the easy way in most cases and training for sprinting is a good example. The other way to get all of the muscle fibers to fire is to make the effort really short so there is no doubt in your mind that you can go 100%. This is the approach I take. It is the approach weight lifters use to maximize strength. Very seldom do they do more than 5 reps. For the early season sprint workouts, we will typically use 10 pedal revolutions. We will start right at the base of the hill on Coyote Hill and roll into the sprint fairly slowly. I will mention what gear to use and whether the effort is entirely seated or is to be started out of the saddle. It is important to be fast both ways. We will typically alternate seated and standing efforts and start with smaller gears and progress to larger ones. The # of efforts will be less than 10 for now. We may also do some downhill spinouts to work on leg speed. I will be on a bike with 53 and 39 tooth chainrings and will specify the gears by # of teeth. For example, we will probably start with a 39/17. If you have different chainrings, be prepared to convert to an approximately equal gear. The workout will run just under 1 hour.

Mark Rodamaker
MCR Associates