The Workout: Bookend Rides

With the nicer weather and a number of places easing lockdown restrictions, it’s been a great time to get in some longer rides.  At the time of writing this, we’re still unclear as to when racing will resume so balancing training load and mental fatigue is essential.  With that in mind, I thought I’d share one of my favorite training rides that provides a strong training stimulus while also incorporating the stress relief you get from an unstructured cruise. 

The bookend ride is really straightforward: you do some efforts early in a ride and then again at the end.  The efforts you do really depend on the time of year and the goals you’re trying to achieve. Some examples include tempo, threshold, VO2, or speed work.  In other words, any type of effort! Recently, the early and late efforts I’ve been getting in are VO2 efforts that are 3min -> 2 min -> 1min with equal rest. 

The time between the efforts is unstructured endurance pace with some time in tempo if you’re feeling frisky.  This lack of structure means you can do some fun exploring. Always wondered where that one road goes?  Want to get in a bit of gravel riding?  Been meaning to try that newly paved climb? This workout lets you do it!

The beauty of this training ride is that it can be done on any bike.  Want to ride the mountain bike? On your ride to and from the trailhead, get warmed up then crush some VO­2 efforts.  It’s the same if you’re trying to get in some good gravel miles.  You can perform the efforts on paved sections where you can focus on the efforts and then once you’re done you can hop on the dirt. 

One of the main goals of the bookend ride is to increase fatigue resistance. Although that time between efforts is unstructured, you’re still building fatigue.  The late efforts build off of that fatigue to prepare you for those fast finishes on race day (or just finishing any ride strong).  Of course, to get the most out of this ride, you’ve got to make sure you’re staying up on fueling.  So, this type of ride also provides a great opportunity to make sure you’re eating and drinking right on the bike. 

Especially with the current uncertainty, it’s important to keep riding fun and that’s the other great benefit to this ride.  I love this ride because even if I’ve been stressed, there’s only a few minutes of intensity while the majority of the ride can be devoted to just cruising and enjoying the scenery. That allows the stress to fade away so I can get back to baking bread and writing blogs.  Thanks for reading!