Punxsutawney Phil (I had to reread his name about 15 times to remember how to spell that one!) popped up out of his hole and saw his damn shadow - so now we're "doomed" to 6 more weeks of winter. Who the hell died and left him chief weatherman anyway?

I have limited time to ride, so I've been trying to figure out just what kind of workouts are going to give me the biggest bang for my buck without blowing it some how. I spoke to my friend Bill, down in Pennsylvania (near our furry friend - Phil the furry weatherman) who has been extensively involved in every aspect of the sport for quite some time. In fact, make sure you check out his race - The Turkey Hill Country Classic being held on May 6th. If you've never been to this race, it's definitely worth the drive. Bill puts on a classy, well run event. The course is fun too - the best way to describe it is as a rolling road race criterium. It's fun.

SO ANYWAY - In talking things over with Bill, he made me realize something that I guess I already knew - a HUGE portion of cycling performance is based on the riders' lactate threshold (LT).

Instead of getting into a drawn out explanation of what lactate threshold is, let's put it this way...it's the point where your body is unable to get rid of the lactic acid that it is producing as a result high intensity work. A.K.A. "My quads are on fire". Ok, so really simplified, but if you really want to learn more about lactate threshold - here is a link to a fairly technical article about Lactate Threshold. To relate this to bike racing, and show just WHY a riders lactate threshold is such an important predictor of his performance, I'll explain two examples:

FIRST: How hard do you ride in a time trial?
If you answer is "I have no idea.", well, you couldn't even come up with "very hard"?

If your answer is "At my threshold." - you might as well stop reading, because I'm pretty sure you have a good idea as to what I'm going to say. Ok, well, you can read, but remember, I was a communications major, not a bio major in college.

If you are time trialing correctly, you will spend the entire time trial at or just above your anaerobic threshold. The amount of time spent above will, of course, depend on the length of the time trial. Trained riders riding in shorter time trials typically spend nearly 100% of the race above the lactate threshold.

Obviously the point is that if you train your body to more efficiently remove lactic acid when riding at lactate threshold, you will be a faster time trialist.

SECOND: What other disciplines require an efficient lactate removal system in a rider?

Climbing: Climbing is very similar to time trialing, it's just that gravity plays a much bigger role. A full-out climb will be typically done at or just above your lactate threshold. Of course, during attacks and what not, you will reach WAY into the red - something you shouldn't be doing in time trials - but, when you bring it back down to your lactate threshold, you're body needs to be efficient at removing the Lactic Acid that was released during that effort.

Criteriums: Again, being efficient when riding near your lactate threshold is important. Criterium races will typically be very sporadic as far as speed goes. This means at times you'll be riding WAY above lactate threshold, and at others you'll be riding well below lactate threshold (well, ok in SOME crits). The time you ride below the lactate threshold is the time your body needs to be efficiently removing the Lactic Acid that built up during the speed-up. Of course, you'll also find lactate threshold to be useful when bridging gaps to breakaways, riding in a breakaway paceline, chasing, etc. because many times these are done in the same manner as a time trial. It seems to me that many times a criterium is nothing more than a time trial with corners and attacks.

CONCLUSION
So my conclusion here is that, with all things being equal, if you have a very well trained Lactate removal system, you're going to be a pretty good all-around bike racer. If you are looking to get the most bang for your buck out of your training time, try focusing on lactate threshold 2-3 times per week. You'll be surprised how fast it makes you fast.

CALCULATE YOUR LACTATE THRESHOLD
First, as I mentioned before, I'm no scientist! The calculation methods shown below are known to vary quite a bit in accuracy. The proper way to figure out your lactate threshold (LT) is to have a skilled trainer test you in a controlled setting. But for sake of conversation, these numbers will be good-enough for guv'ment work.

An untrained person's Lactate Threshold is typically ballpark 75% to 80% of their maximum heartrate (In-precisely calculated by taking 220 and subtracting your age, so if you're 30, it's roughly 190bpm.), let's say it's 190. So your lactate threshold would be in the ballpark of 143 to 152. This means that when your heartrate exceeds 152 bpm, lactic acid starts building up faster than it can be removed.

With proper training, an athlete can push their lactate threshold into the 90% range or higher. This means, the untrained 30 year old athlete mentioned above with an lactate threshold at approximately 152 beats per minute, will now be able to cruise along at 170 or more beats per minute before lactic acid starts to build up. I'm sure by now you can see the advantage here. The cyclist can have a HIGHER HEARTRATE for a LONGER amount of time - meaning: they are faster.

A SAMPLE LACTATE THRESHOLD WORKOUT
These intervals are done at just below lactate threshold. So if you've determined your lactate threshold is somewhere around 165, you'd want to do these intervals in the 5 beats below 165.

3 x 7-10 minutes @ lactate threshold-5 bpm, 3 minutes rest between.
These are a standard interval used to increase your efficiency when riding near your Lactate Threshold. You would want to start off doing these two times per week, 7 minutes, 3 times, 3 minutes rest between each one. Then, as you see improvement, add time to each interval. So say, by the fourth workout, you'll be doing maybe 3 intervals of 9 minutes each. Once you reach 10 minutes for all three intervals, add another interval. Once you can complete four 10 minute intervals, you'll be training your lactate threshold for 40 minutes during each session.

So, like I said before, the idea here is not variety. The idea is to use your limited training time making yourself faster and more efficient so that you'll be as competitive as possible. There REALLY is nothing like 4 and 5 hour rides to make you a super-strong efficient rider, but most of us just don't have the time to do these epic rides on a regular basis. Lactate Threshold training is a great way to give yourself the edge that you'll need when racing against the people that do!

Thanks for reading! Thanks to Bill L. for getting me thinking about my lactate threshold. Don't forget to check out the listing for the Turkey Hill Country Classic.