Criterium Intervals

lorrod said:

Can anyone recommend any criterium-specific intervals that they do during the season? Anything unusual or anything that works particularly well for flat fast criterium races?

do 2 minute intervals (about 5% under your Lactic threshold), and then limit yourself to 1 minute recoveries in between. start off with 5 and work your way up. you can also do 2 minute intervals with 2 minute recoveries and within the intervals do 30 seconds of steady state, then 30 seconds of a harder attack pace, etc. . . the best thing is the 2 on 1 off because it limits your recovery

I would recommend a shorter interval system for criteriums because most of your jumping will be short and hard. You have to understand that, at 25 mph on a one mile course, you will be doing an entire lap in only 2:24. The jumps coming out of corners and attacks will only last about a few seconds and not minutes and will be much harder. You also have less time for recovery. On a four corner course, you will be doing four jumps plus attacks every 2:24. That adds up to a lot of jumping. In 50 miles, you will jump a minimum of 200 times, especially if you are more than about 25 to 30 riders back in the pack and can't just fly through the corners at race speed.

Therefore, I would suggest you do a simple 30 second interval system. You simply do three sets of three intervals with five minutes between each set. It would look like this:

Warmup
30 on, 30 off, 30 on, 30 off, 30 on
5 min off
30 on, 30 off, 30 on, 30 off, 30 on
5 min off
30 on, 30 off, 30 on, 30 off, 30 on
Warm down or finish your ride

This simple system will help develop more speed and strength that you need with crits and will more closely simulate crit racing. The goal should be to barely be able to complete the last two 30 second efforts.

after you get used to this system, you can play around with it changing the durations some. You will also need to do your speed work.

Coach Carl said:

I would recommend a shorter interval system for criteriums because most of your jumping will be short and hard. You have to understand that, at 25 mph on a one mile course, you will be doing an entire lap in only 2:24. The jumps coming out of corners and attacks will only last about a few seconds and not minutes and will be much harder. You also have less time for recovery. On a four corner course, you will be doing four jumps plus attacks every 2:24. That adds up to a lot of jumping. In 50 miles, you will jump a minimum of 200 times, especially if you are more than about 25 to 30 riders back in the pack and can't just fly through the corners at race speed.

Therefore, I would suggest you do a simple 30 second interval system. You simply do three sets of three intervals with five minutes between each set. It would look like this:

Warmup
30 on, 30 off, 30 on, 30 off, 30 on
5 min off
30 on, 30 off, 30 on, 30 off, 30 on
5 min off
30 on, 30 off, 30 on, 30 off, 30 on
Warm down or finish your ride

This simple system will help develop more speed and strength that you need with crits and will more closely simulate crit racing. The goal should be to barely be able to complete the last two 30 second efforts.

after you get used to this system, you can play around with it changing the durations some. You will also need to do your speed work.

Hi Coach! Okay, I have a pretty lame question here......What is the difference between the intervals suggested above and the "speed work" listed in the last sentence? How hard are the 30 second ON sections of the interval above.....and are these efforts all out of the saddle(jumps) or just increases in pace?

lorrod said:

Can anyone recommend any criterium-specific intervals that they do during the season? Anything unusual or anything that works particularly well for flat fast criterium races?

Although it is easy to assume that high intensity intervals may help the 'stochastic' demands of crit racing, it generally isn't the high intensity that causes problems, but the ability to recover from these efforts. During a 'recovery' phase (whether you coast or just lower the intensity) recovery is entirely dependent upon aerobic metabolism. Your aerobic power is determined by your LT and MAP, both of which are trained by intervals of several minutes to hours.

During some crits (and other races) where the intensity stays permanently high or where the intensity is on/off with short off periods (as in a crit), the demands are mainly aerobic such that it is still LT and MAP that is critical for vast majority of the race.

Thus, the majority of training for these events should be geared towards increasing sustainable power and VO2max, which can be done with intervals of ~ 15 to 30 mins and 3 to 8 mins respectively.

By increasing LT and MAP/VO2max, it makes the higher intensity portions easier as they go (relatively) less over these important markers.

Of course, generating higher powers and anaerobic capacity is important for racing crits and these can be done with 30-secs on/off intervals. however, these intervals are of less importance than the aerobic intervals above. Additionally, training for these can be done in a very short period of time (e.g., a couple of sessions/few weeks), whereas the above intervals need working over much longer time periods (e.g., several months at a time).

Ric