Most likely you've not been riding much over this dreadful winter. Most likely when you have ridden it's not been very vigorous (you know, the cold and all). Most likely you're still doing a lot of gym pedaling, be it in spinning classes or slogging out 40 minutes on a LifeCycle, or you've closed your eyes, grimaced, and shut down your brain for yet ANOTHER session on your dungeon trainer.
Well, to paraphrase Bob Dylan, the weather it's-a-changin'. Soon enough, brothers and sisters, you'll be out there trying mightily but futilely to fend off the repeated attacks that have become endemic to every Saturday "Sig Ride" north of the 15s. You will pay for your season of sloth.
Time then to make your gym time count, and have some fun ("fun" a highly relative term here) atop a LifeCycle, or at home straddling your trainer. Time to try out Uncle Norris's "Simulated 3-Rider Time Trial" where you do 1 hard "pull" for every 2 "drafts". I understand that the concept of a "pull" is alien to you legions of inveterate wheelsuckers out there. Look it up.
Okay, you can do this either of two ways, so mix 'em up for max variety as well as a bit different kind of applied stress to legs and lungs.
- Do 10 minute warmup (5 minutes of gradually increasing resistance, but still in the mild-to-moderate range, 5 minutes of alternating 30 seconds of high-rev/low resistance work with 30 seconds of easy recovery spinning.
- Now the red meat. Option A: Find a resistance level that feels moderately hard (say, 6 or so on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being flat out sprint). Stay there for 2 minutes, then kick it up to level 7 or 8 (but nothing higher) for 1 minute. By the end of this minute, your legs should be most warm, and you should be breathing hard, even very hard, but not gasping. Repeat this cycle 3 to 8 times (for a 9 to 24-minute 3-Rider TT), however many sets you can handle. BUT always finish feeling you could do one more set. Just don't do it. Get off the bike tired, not trashed. Unless you really want to. Digging deep once every 10 days or so is fine.
- For variety, alternate 40-second drafts with 20-second pulls, using the same warmup and exertion levels as described above. Do this for 12 to 24 minutes.
- Cool down with at least 5 minutes of easy spinning.
Try it. You'll like it.