SBT GRVL: A Day for Hill Attacks

"Moving on...today was another recovery day from the #alptoc."

by Alison Powers, ALP Cycles Coaching

In February ALP Coach, Alison Powers, announced that she had signed up for SBT GRVL, a 141-mile race with 100 miles on dirt/gravel roads in Steamboat, Colorado. With race day approaching, she’s been blogging every day leading up to the race. She blogs about the specifics of her training, her preparation, headspace, etc. All the things that lead up to race day that not everyone gets to see or understand.

17 days to go - Friday, August 2nd

Yesterday, I blogged about how much sitting I do. Today felt like the exact opposite. The day started with coaching a 2-hour private mountain bike skills lesson. I very much enjoy this type of hands-on coaching and she was a strong rider so we got some solid pedal time.

Back at home was another dog walk (with 3 dogs there is a solid amount of dog walking per day and today was a little extra), and computer time. Come 2:15 pm, I had free time until another phone call at 4. If I wasn’t training for Steamboat, I would have used the free 90min to take care of house things such as vacuum, pull thistle, etc. But as race day is just over 2 weeks away, house things get put to the side (and dog fur piles up).

So, out I went for Hill Attacks (a simple, but challenging, workout that I often give my ALP athletes). I mentioned in an earlier blog post that my training has been lacking anaerobic efforts, so today was a day to get those efforts in. Before going out the door was a quick dynamic warmup as I had tightened up since riding this morning. I’m lucky in that I live on a fairly hilly dirt road. I warmed up, rode the 5-ish miles to the pavement, turned around and every time the road when uphill, I went full gas. By the time I reached the pavement on the other end, it had been 25min of intervals. The last time I did this workout (mid-winter) I was dead at the end and this time, I felt like I could do another set of 25min intervals, so that is promising. This is where, if I had a power meter, the data would come in handy. I could compare the power and time I did in the winter to what I had done today to track progress. All in all, I was out for just over an hour and I think that hour is the only part of the day that it rained…

Quick protein recovery drink, bike wash, shower, dog walk, and out the door to help build trail with NATO (Nederland Area Trails Organization). Building singletrack trail (by hand) is fun, rewarding, and hard work (manual labor). Like multiple dog walks, doing manual labor is not ideal for recovery, or training (but it’s fun and #happiness watts goes a long way).

ABOUT ALISON POWERS

Now retired from racing, Alison Powers is the only person, in history, to win all three road discipline National Championships in one year (Road, Criterium and Time Trial - 2014). These go along with two previous national championships (Time Trial 2008, Team Pursuit 2008), two National Racing Calendar titles, and a 2nd place at the Leadville 100 mountain bike race (2013, 7:26hrs). Today she is the owner of ALP Cycles Coaching where she teaches road, cyclocross, and mountain bike clinics, and high performance race preparation and tactics. Alison is also team director for ALP Cycles Racing, a professional women's road and cyclocross team based in Boulder, Colorado.

ALP Cycles Coaching

Colorado-based ALP Cycles Coaching has over 25 years of professional sports experience. Each coach brings specific strengths and personal experiences to coaching sessions while collaborating to create a training plan that works for each and every person. Learn more at alpcyclescoaching.com

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