Active Recovery Rides<\/strong><\/p>\nOn the first two days, Julie also led a late afternoon active recovery session; explaining that spinning out tired legs both aided recovery and added an element of endurance to the day.\u00a0 Those that joined these rides definitely felt the benefit leading into the following day.\u00a0 Not to exclude the social aspects of the sport of cycling, on the Saturday evening we all gathered for a team potluck meal.\u00a0 This was a great opportunity to get to know each other better and discover more about what each our cycling goals were.\u00a0 We had a wide range of cyclists present at the camp; from the Bike Like a Girl RAAM 2015 team working towards their massive task of racing across America as only the second ever 8-woman team this June, to experienced road racers and time-trialists, a couple of token mountain bikers, and a host of century riders with focused goals of increasing their endurance and skills as committed cyclists.\u00a0 The evening was relaxed and incredibly enjoyable, but petered out early with a third day of riding scheduled for the following morning.<\/p>\n
Metabolic Efficiency Training Talk<\/strong><\/p>\nDuring our off-bike warm up session for day 3 \u2013 an endurance focused day with some on bike specific strength built in \u2013 we discussed whole food diets and metabolic efficiency.\u00a0 Some in the group already ate \u2018Paleo\u2019 and\/or knew the concepts of metabolic efficiency, some had had great results already with dietary changes for themselves, while for others these were completely new concepts.\u00a0 It was a great opportunity to impart information and learn from others and everyone left on their bikes with new ideas and more questions on this and related topics.<\/p>\n
Day 3 – Specific Cycling Strength via Slow Frequency Repetitions and Endurance<\/strong><\/p>\nDay 3\u2019s ride began with some hills with a difference – so called SFRs (Slow Frequency Repetitions); performed primarily at endurance pace (for today anyway), in a big gear providing just enough resistance to slow rpms to between 40 and 60.\u00a0 The purpose of the workout being to highlight and work on weaknesses in the pedal stroke and to smooth everything out while performing what effectively is a functional strength workout on the bike.\u00a0 This was a new concept to some who hadn\u2019t been part of Julie\u2019s training programs already, while for the rest of us it was a good refresher on the focus of these weekly workouts.<\/p>\n
After SFRs were successfully completed, we split into groups for our endurance ride \u2013 one group was to hit a flatter rolling loop around beautiful Wahoe Valley, another to the top of Geiger grade (an 8mile 2200ft climb) and back, while the third would take Geiger Grade over the top to Virginia City, loop to Carson City and back to Reno.\u00a0 I joined the long ride \u2013 a loop I had never done, and with nothing I\u2019d rather being doing the rest of the day other than riding my bike, the longest loop possible seemed the way to go!\u00a0 A group of us headed out up Geiger (at a pace I\u2019d argue wasn\u2019t exactly \u2018endurance\u2019), and, leaving some to turn around, 5 of us headed over the top to one of the weirdest (sorry, I should say, most \u2018unique\u2019) destinations in Nevada, Virginia City.\u00a0 Virginia City is an original silver mining boomtown from the 1800s, which somehow has all the original buildings (and some of the people it seems to me!) from the era, including the Saloon; it\u2019s quite the tourist destination.\u00a0 Swiftly moving through the wooden boardwalks of the main street, we descended out of Virginia City with sweeping views of the Carson Valley, and before we knew it were pedaling through the back roads of Carson City (past some more very unique Nevadan landmarks!) on our way back to Reno.\u00a0 It was the perfect ride to end our 3-days of cycling immersion.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Contributed by Sian Turner, o2fitness and Silver Sage athlete, \u00a0her Spring Cycling Camp Diary below… The hidden road cyclist in me jumped at the chance to join Julie Young’s 3-day Spring Training camp in Reno this past weekend.\u00a0 Comprised of mainly Reno Wheelwomen, plus a couple of brave guys, and me, the 20 of us […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":3567,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletes-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3565"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3568,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3565\/revisions\/3568"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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