We ask every guest of Fast Talk—coach, athlete, or scientist—to describe their favorite workout—the what, why, how, and when.
This episode, we share the favorite workouts of physiologist and Tour de France winning coach Iñigo San Millán, former professional cyclist Brent Bookwalter, coach Kendra Wenzel, coach and athlete Renee Eastman, legendary author Joe Friel, Zwift athlete Dr Jennifer Real, and tech legend Lennard Zinn.
In this collection of their favorite workouts we were surprised by how focused our experts were on keeping their workouts fun verses being overly structured.
For more workouts of Fast Talk All-Stars, check out part 1 part 2, and part 3 of this series.
Episode Transcript
Trevor Connor 00:04
Hello, and welcome to another episode of fast talk. I am your host, Trevor Connor here with my now regular co host, Rob pickles. How’re you doing today, Rob?
Rob Pickels 00:14
Oh, I am doing fantastic and can’t wait to talk about some workouts.
Trevor Connor 00:18
We’ve done this before. This is kind of a fun episode, we ask all of our guests, what is their favorite workout, we don’t try to direct them anywhere. It’s always interesting to hear what they have to say. We record what the workout is why you’d use it. And hopefully this gives all of you some interesting ideas of things you can throw into your routine, to maybe change it up to get that little bit extra or to hit a side of your energy systems you hadn’t hit before.
Rob Pickels 00:46
Yeah, I think it’s always interesting to hear what other people are doing. I know that I’ve come across some fun workouts definitely from listening to other people, a lot of different people a lot of different insights coming up here. But there’s a little bit of a theme around kind of some unstructured stuff this time around. Yeah, in
Trevor Connor 01:01
the past, when we ask people their favorite workouts, we got some pretty complex workouts. And boy, I think there was one from Neil Henderson, who was his kitchen sink where I had to actually sit down and listen to the recording and map it out. And training peaks even understand this thing was so complicated. But we got a lot of structure from people in the past this time around, as you said, we give no bias. We just ask people, What is your favorite workout? interests, and everybody just kind of went to Well, here’s something that I enjoy, but it’s not structured.
Rob Pickels 01:31
Yeah. I will say though, I think that there’s a difference between being unstructured and not having a purpose, right, you can go out and you can do an unstructured workout. But you can know what zones you’re trying to hit and everything else that maybe the difference here is that the terrain is dictating the length, you’re putting in the effort for a little bit more than the stopwatch is, but we’re out there, I think everybody has a purpose to why they’re doing these right.
Trevor Connor 01:55
And I think you’re kind of hitting on the key message, which is there’s a lot of different ways to get to the same place. And some of you can be like, I’ll do two minutes of this, and then a minute of that, and then 30 seconds of this. But you can also get to a good high level just saying, Well, if I use the train, if I use some hills, hit them hard. It might not be exactly two minutes, it might not be exactly one minute, but I’m still going to hit those energy systems, I’m still going to get the benefits.
Rob Pickels 02:22
Yeah, definitely. And absolutely no commentary on Neil. But what I’ve seen at times, I think is coaches who are maybe unsure of themselves, they write super complicated workouts, to really just lends some credibility. If you write something that’s so exact and so specific, then you must know what you’re talking about. And as we like to say, you know, energy systems ultimately are king here. So I think unstructured can definitely work. Yep. Listeners, since you listen to fast talk every week, you know that knowledge is power and power is the there’s no better way to get faster or to achieve your goals, then by training smarter, not harder.
Trevor Connor 03:00
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Rob Pickels 03:26
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Trevor Connor 03:41
So let’s dive into our first one here. And this is from Dr. Hugo som Milan no interest and this is almost a part two to our last favorite workouts episode. Because we had him on that episode and he talked about his absolute favorite ride, which is that zone too long ride right around your aerobic threshold. But this time around, he’s starting with the zone two and I think this is something that you do more in the season. But like combining his two favorite things, which is a zone to workout with some lactate threshold work.
Rob Pickels 04:12
Yeah. And he said, you know, this is something that he uses a lot with the pros in the pro peloton, right? And so these are big days with big climbs that everybody’s doing, and he’s getting them ready to take on that challenge.
Trevor Connor 04:22
Yep, so interesting workout, give this a try. But when you start throwing in some lactate threshold, work into a long zone to ride don’t plan anything for the rest of the day. It’s gonna take a lot out of you. Yep. So let’s hear from Dr. Salah Milan now.
Dr. San Milan 04:38
I love obviously the zone two and I love the lactate threshold. Those are the two main pillars for me and even combined in both real life both combined them in the same session.
Trevor Connor 04:50
So how would you combine them in the same session? So do
Dr. San Milan 04:53
like zone to day and halfway through and at the end to like 1520 minutes climate zone for To create great training quick session, and you can see the capabilities of that athlete, because sometimes you have like, zone for days or intensity days where they’re isolated. They’re shorter sessions. And yeah, they can put out great amount of power output. But then, yeah, it’s just like you have to do that was four hours in your legs, right? For five hours. And this is where those those days, they they can really tell you a lot of, of what’s going on with that asset. I really liked those sessions.
Trevor Connor 05:28
So what is the benefit physiologically of combining those two?
Dr. San Milan 05:32
Well, you’re stimulating both energy systems within one day. So yeah, some days you have to, you know, split them. But other days, you can combine them. And it’s a good way, because it might simulators more competition pays, you know, I see, you know, many of the competition pays the average is could be at the protocol level, 3.74 watts per kilogram, right. And then at the end, they have to go at 6.2 6.3 or six watts per kilogram, right? So that’s what I like that to go, Hey, God, 3.74 watts per kilogram. And then at the end, do a six watts per kilogram interval and see how it goes. Right? So it goes, Well, I think we’re on the right track. And if you can’t keep up, okay, we have to revisit things.
Trevor Connor 06:17
And let’s also just point out that is top pro numbers that you just quoted, most people doing zone two right at four watts per kilogram is not.
Dr. San Milan 06:27
Yeah. These guys that their numbers are believable. Yeah.
Trevor Connor 06:33
That’s pretty impressive. When would you do this? Is this something you do all year round? Or is this something more and as you get into the season? Yeah, I will
Dr. San Milan 06:41
tell them more as you get into into the into the season. Yeah, it’s quite demanding. But I will do more like cleanser getting almost prep to start the season. And during the season here, there. Yeah.
Trevor Connor 06:53
Alright, so this next one is from Brent Bookwalter. And when we talked with him, he had just retired from professional cycling. So I actually did push them a little bit and said, now that you’re not a pro, what do you like to do on the bike and he brought up he loves to just go out and use the terrain around them use these loops, where he throws in some climbs, different lengths, different intensities to hit multiple energy systems. And Rob, I’m the guy that I’m big on, go out and hit one energy system on a ride. So I’m interested in your take on a workout where you’re hitting a whole bunch?
Rob Pickels 07:28
Yeah, you know, I think that what’s interesting, we just heard from Dr. Sen. Milan, who’s looking at multi energy systems may be racking up a lot of a big TSS sort of day. And now we have a former pro who’s ultimately talking about the same thing, you know, so I think that maybe different people need different things. But I can see Brent’s workout, you know, building up a lot of training stress on the body, hopefully a lot of adaptation. But maybe there’s specific to certain individuals that can take this on. And maybe the rest of us, Trevor need to be one energy system. Let’s hear from Brent.
Brent Bookwalter 08:00
For me, the things that were a little more dynamic in nature and different sort of the varied pace hit multiple energy systems in a ride, maybe maybe I said this one before, but one of them that I loved is, like I said, I always throughout my whole career. And still now I love loops. That’s one of the privileges of living. I think in the East Coast, you know, there’s just tons of roads out there. And whether you’re doing a, you know, an hour ride or six hour ride, I can do all sorts of different little loops. But yeah, make a loop with three or four climbs, say 20 minutes, and do a little bit different work on each climb. So like the first climb, I would do just like a gradual progression up to a threshold. And then I’ll hold it a threshold for a little bit. The last few minutes. The second climb, I would ride it like a tempo like zone three kind of pace. And I would every few minutes, I would throw in like very length accelerations, so like, some real hard but really short like six to 10 second ones. And then you know, maybe a couple of ones that are like 30 seconds to a minute a little longer. And then on the last time I would do like like an over under basically like a Yeah, two or three minutes above threshold and then like two or three minutes right below and then like a little squeeze at the top kind of like a race simulation. Yeah. And then the the modification to that would be like in testing phase. Like if I was out on the road and I’m feeling good and things are lining up and I’m like I want to push myself then I would do like a then I would do one more climb and just just empty the tank that way that that workout like you really rack up quite a bit of energy expenditure as well. Yep, rack up a lot of accumulated climbing, hit a bunch of energy systems, and you can do it in a loop. So takes a lot of boxes for me.
Trevor Connor 09:42
That’s cool. So what would you feel is the benefits of this workout? What would you use it for?
Brent Bookwalter 09:48
Well, I think it’s quite race specific. Yeah. In terms of the climbing and accumulation, the varied intensities. You know, probably the hardest of those climbs the last one, which is often also like a race. It’s not not necessarily good for just dreading your best ever power numbers, but it’s, yeah, it’s it’s a great workout for that bridging a gap between races or trying to push myself into this first races of the year.
Trevor Connor 10:12
So this is a workout they do to us. Right before the start of the race season or you do use us during the race season. What would you do? Yeah, yeah,
Brent Bookwalter 10:18
both. Yeah.
Trevor Connor 10:20
Yeah, actually do a similar workout. That’s actually it’s a lot of fun. But you get you get a lot of work and you come home tired.
Brent Bookwalter 10:27
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, that’s the best. And then, yeah, I just, I love the loop nature of it, because I gotta get around. Like, there’s no, there’s no turning around. You get over that second climb. And it’s like, alright, well, you gotta go over this next one and get home.
Trevor Connor 10:41
Yeah, isn’t that great? When that’s actually been in Colorado, it’s actually hard to do loops. So that’s the one you when you’re hurting, you’re always 20 minutes from home. It’s easy to get close. There’s pluses to that too. Yeah. But I missed the workouts where you’re suffering you’re like, and it’s gonna be two hours to get home. I got no choice here.
Brent Bookwalter 11:01
Yeah, yeah. Get endorphins off that. Yep.
Trevor Connor 11:06
So our next workout comes from Kendra Wenzel, and this is possibly the most structured of all the workouts we’re gonna have in this particular episode. So she uses a hill for this, but this is 35 to 45. Second, all out sprints. So I think this is something that you’re doing in season to really bring about that race farm. But Rob, any thoughts you have here,
Rob Pickels 11:28
just that she’s a woman after my own heart with these really hard steep 35 to 45 second efforts, you know, this is bread and butter. For me, I do think that it’s really important for acceleration, even if you’re not a sprinter, right, there are times that you have to attack there are times you need to break away from the group. And so yeah, I think everybody can benefit from this. And, you know, it’s pretty easy to pull off,
Trevor Connor 11:49
but she gives a good explanation. So let’s just dive into hearing what Kendra has to say about this workout.
Kendra Wenzel 11:56
So my favorite workout is a workout called killer Hill sprints, the idea is to come in at a slow roll into a steep hill, and looking for a sprint that’s going to last 35 to almost 45 seconds. So it’s gonna be longer than the sprint that most people like to do. And then ideally doing it with a group. I like to do this with a group at a park here in Portland, Oregon. And what we do is that we handicap it, and my my goal is that everybody is coming to the line sprinting to the line at the same time, so that people are not quite as sprint specialists are going to take off first. And then the sprinters are going to have to come last and try to catch everybody. And then we usually do those in restricted gears, for the first couple, they are not able to shift. So what happens in a sprint like that, is that you are at first probably under geared and then that gears gonna start to bite and the athletes gonna feel really good and they’re gonna feel like they’re really accelerating. And then they’re that feeling of acceleration is going to wear off and they’re going to feel like they’re going fast. And then they’re going to hit about that 32nd mark and they’re going to feel like they want to stop and at this point they should be out of the saddle going as hard as they can still all the way through the line. And usually when I teach this, this workout I am standing on the line so there’s no cheating. And you know I’m encouraging them as they go across and so as to push through that absolute complete maximal work. And usually when we do these we’ll see the fastest Sprint will come on the second one was they’re entirely warmed up, you people will warm up I’ll have them do a couple of shorter Sprint’s before we do it but but they’ll on that second one, when they really get it, that’ll be their best effort. If you do these right, usually the you do can do about four, well sometimes we’ll go into five, after that’s pretty useless. It’s not going to be as much good work, but it’s a great workout in that people really really have to push themselves harder than they ever thought they could and when they show up to these workouts, even if they’ve been doing it at their own at home. We’ll see 30 to 40 Watt higher efforts than they’ve been doing for that you know 35 second and those these Sprint’s will generally be where we see their their minute highs for the year.
Trevor Connor 14:13
So what’s the recovery length between each sprint,
Kendra Wenzel 14:17
so usually we’re you know, milling around coming down the hill, ascending again for about three to five minutes, I’d say probably between each one is about on the low side. You know, if it’s raining and everyone wants to get it over with it’d be five minutes and on the high side it’d be 10 It really depends on you at the end. We’re always checking with everyone Are you ready to go because we’re trying to extract the best hardest the best performance out of every single sprint in that workout.
Trevor Connor 14:45
So what is the reason? What are the benefits to these these sprints?
Kendra Wenzel 14:50
Yeah, this is putting on a lot of pure power to sprint power all the way through their game. There’s a race called the Mount Tabor series here in Portland that happens at this same park that starts well that we time these four, and almost always comes down to how you can climb the short hill and how well you can sprint. And this kind of we put this to this workout together aimed at this kind of Sprint racing, road racing ending in a sprint. And a long sprints do almost always a very extended sprint. So just being able to hold that sprint. And it’s also another reason that we had put this together was that a lot of people aren’t quite sure when they should move into the saddle when they’re sprinting. So what we’ve done with this is keep people out of the saddle all the way through the sprint to see where that slowdown kind of starts to come or where that leveling out might come in on a course like this to you just you just wouldn’t sit you’d be standing the entire time pushing all the way through line so as to train just that, that maximal push through when you want to give up.
Trevor Connor 15:59
So this next one is really interesting for me, because I am definitely all about the polarized training. I do give some sweetspot work to my athletes, but this is a true pure wheat spot workout. And the only thing that kind of bothers me about it, but Rob, let’s hear what you have to say as she calls it her bread and butter workout meaning this is core. This is foundational.
Rob Pickels 16:22
Yeah, you know, for me, I think it depends on the athlete. We just heard about those hills springs from Kendra, which are the things that you know, they play to my strengths. I think two by 20 ultimately plays to my weakness, you know, and for someone like me, I do see some big benefit from doing these longer more sweetspot effort rides, man, but that’s that’s who I am, you know, maybe everyone should give a give a chance to see if they benefit.
Trevor Connor 16:46
I definitely agree. I think there is a value to this. I actually really like on long rides, giving my athletes some of these longer sweetspot efforts towards the end, when they’re a little bit fatigued, you get a little bit of what it’s like and races where now you’re gonna have to be in that slightly uncomfortable zone, but maybe not all out. And just learning some of that stamina.
Rob Pickels 17:05
Yeah, there is definitely a mental component to just settling in and being okay with that slow burn for an extended period of time.
Trevor Connor 17:12
Well, let’s hear what Renee has to say about these.
Renee Eastman 17:15
My go to workout might be a two by 20 sweetspot workout because it’s, you know, kind of a bread and butter workout you can do when you’re not too tired. But it’s a pretty good stress. It’s a good workout to get people like back into training or it’s a good like midweek workout when you’re, you know, racing. So I guess that’s my favorite workout. He’s like 20.
Trevor Connor 17:43
So how would you execute this? Obviously, it’s to 20 minutes, sweetspot efforts, but what’s the recovery in between? And does it matter if you do it on a climb or a flats, or? Well, I
17:53
live in Colorado, so we’re doing it on a climb. Personally, I’m doing a climb because again, nice 20 minute climb about three miles from my house. And so it’s the only place to really do a 20 minute continuous effort here in Colorado Springs anyway, recovery for me on on sweetspot I always tell people that it’s not the biggest factor, because it’s a lot times controlled by like your terrain, if you’re doing it outside, and you got to get to where you can do your two by 20. You know, as long as your recovery is not 45 minutes long, you know, if it’s five minutes, 10 minutes, I don’t think that impacts the workout dramatically. But I would prescribe it with about five minutes recovery, because you shouldn’t need that much recovery from a sweet spot. You can get that done in you know, if you’re quick about it, you can get that done by an hour.
Trevor Connor 18:47
Right? And what do you feel are the benefits of this workout. It’s
18:51
a form of FTP training, FTP maintenance, upper end robic, which is, you know, kind of the mainstay of what we need as a cyclist. The other thing is that it’s the type of work that people might not do on their own, you know, especially people who, you know, might be heavy into racing and group rides and things like that, that they don’t do those long, sustained efforts.
Trevor Connor 19:20
Right. Right. And then final question, is this a workout you would do all year long? Or is there a particular time that you would prescribe this
19:27
just about every phase of training that you could, you know, do sweetspot work in, I like it as a go to when somebody’s in a heavy like race phase, where they just kind of need some high end aerobic or or threshold maintenance is they’re racing a lot but it’s not so tacking that it’s going to overload them. And then you know, the winter in the early preparation phases is a building block it’s a two by 21st before uh you know three by 20 or two by 40 fives or or whatnot so you know a building block and maybe the the only time we’re not giving it to somebody is in their, you know transition phase we’re not giving them any intervals at all
Rob Pickels 20:14
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Trevor Connor 21:23
Yeah, I found that really interesting. That’s certainly something as I’m getting older, I’m finding really valuable about riding with other people, I used to have no problems riding by myself and do an ever pace I want to go. But I now more and more, find it hard to go out and say, Okay, I gotta go with this intensity. I’m just not having a good day, it’s harder to find that motivation. And I think going out with people and having them drive the pace, it forces you over that, whether you like it or not,
Rob Pickels 21:48
oh, no doubt, you know, and for me group rides, oftentimes I try to go in with a purpose, you know, where, you know, you can turn a group right into intervals, if you’re rotating on the front, and whatever else, you can turn them into a recovery ride, depending on the group, if you’re sitting in the pack. You know, there are definitely some group rides around that are just making you know, you’re bouncing on that threshold or super threshold the whole time. It’s almost like motor pacing. So a group ride could mean a lot of different things, depending on the group and how you look at it.
Trevor Connor 22:15
But I don’t think I’ve ever done a group ride and called it a recovery ride. Probably not depends on the group, though. Well, let’s hear from Joe.
Joe Friel 22:24
You know, sometimes this is the result of what’s your sport is, so it’s not always gonna be the same for every for every sport. I’m a road cyclist. And my favorite workout is the one I dread the most, which is a group workout, a group ride, I ride with guys who are young enough to be my children. And I’m old enough now that I can no longer drop people. I used to be the kicker now of the kicky when I go on a group ride, and, but I find that to be it, it brings out all the things in me that I know I could not accomplish all by myself, I’ll climb hills harder than I normally would do. I’ll hang on longer than I would normally do if I was all by myself to all these things. So the group ride and cycling is one of the key workouts that has to be there for the athlete. It’s got to be periodized. Also, so I’m not talking about doing these year round, like that. But it’s got to be periodized. But when you get to the period where you’re doing race specific stuff, this is the race specific workout, I no longer race. So now my race is my Sunday morning group ride. And just like you, you know, when you’re coming up to a race, you dreaded, everybody dreads going to race because you know, it’s going to hurt, it’s not going to be easy. If it’s easy, wouldn’t be fun. So I come to those workouts every week thinking, Is there any reasoning any excuse I could use to avoid this workout, maybe it’s too windy today. Or maybe it’s threatening rain. Or maybe traffic is too heavy today to be riding down that highway. So I’m always thinking, but some way to get out of this, but I know what’s going on. I’m simply dreading the workout because I know it is going to be very, very difficult. But I also know it’s going to be very, very good for me in the long run. And so rarely do I miss one of these workouts because I enjoy them so much, especially when they’re over.
Trevor Connor 24:09
So what is what do you feel is the greatest game that you get out of doing that group ride?
Joe Friel 24:15
greatest gain is knowing that I’ve accomplished something that I could not accomplish by myself. If I was going to do hill repeats, for example, which I said the last time was one of my work favorite workouts which which is still to this day, one of my favorite workouts. I know I could not push myself hard enough as I would do with a group from doing anaerobic capacity intervals, short hill repeats, you know, I’m able to hold on to it for 3040 50 seconds, extremely high power output, very high heart rate is starting to race to come up rapidly. The legs are aching and your mind is saying why the hell are you doing this? It hurts. I’ll back off. I’ll stop before it becomes overly painful. But if I’m writing to the group, I will do it anyway. I will hang in there all the way to the top of the hill and I’ll do that over and over and over. Ever again, with them, even though it’s much more painful than anything I would do by myself. But I know that I’m accomplishing something by doing that. But that’s also got to be balanced by all this other stuff I do to rest. That’s when I talked to athletes always talking about doing too hard workouts a week, that’s one of mine. And five easy workouts a week one of those five easy could be a day off. But five easy and too hard. And, as always, the two hard workouts should be workouts that you dread that you don’t look forward to. Because you know, they’re going to be not only uncomfortable, but even painful perhaps. So that’s, that’s my favorite workout to this day.
Trevor Connor 25:36
Okay, and you said you don’t do this all year round. So when would you do this? Well,
Joe Friel 25:40
if I was racing, I would only do these, they’ll say the last 12 weeks before the race, that’s when I would really focus on on the group rides. I’m not racing anymore. So I get together with a group every Sunday, they they do some races, they’re still racing throughout. Like I said, they’re all younger than me. But I’m not going to tell them not to do these workouts now, you know, wait until it’s spring to do these workouts. And I’m not going to tell them that because I want them along with me to kind of push me on these workouts myself. And I’ll miss some of the workout slip, and I travel quite a bit. And when I do I miss the some of those workouts and that’s fine. That’s That’s good. That’s healthy to miss some of those workouts. But when I’m home, I always want to do those workouts because I know that I’m going to find my limits that day. And I enjoy doing that the young guys I ride with, they can find those limits when they do their racing. But they’re nothing they’d have. No, they’re not. It’s not hard workouts for them. It’s only hard for me.
Trevor Connor 26:35
There. So final question, any tricks, tactics to make sure you get the most out of that group ride?
Joe Friel 26:43
Yeah, can I convince yourself that if you want to you can quit. You know, there’s nothing here that says I’ve got to get to the end of the ride with this group. I can say Sayonara, guys, I’m on my own left, I’ll let you go today. As long as at the back of your mind, I can quit anytime I want. You will keep on going. If you try to convince yourself you cannot quit, you have to hang in there, it becomes even worse it becomes now punishments that are just a hard ride. And CFD, always bear in mind that you don’t have to do this you can stop anytime there’s nothing is saying you got to do it. You can just say guys, I’m just not my day, I’m heading back. So turn around and go the other direction. No loss of face whatsoever. You know, they have bad days also. So they understand. So far, I’ve never done that. Because it’s always in the back of my mind. If that. Like I said, if that was not in the back of my mind, I probably would have quit a lot more workouts.
Trevor Connor 27:29
So this next one comes from Jennifer reel who is on a swift racing team, and is actually manager of a swift racing team. So I think you know where your this is going. There is a bit of a bias here, but I am gonna say I do think train races hopping on Zwift and doing some races. It pushes you hard, it can be really great training. Rob, what do you think?
Rob Pickels 27:53
Yeah, I fully agree. I actually wrote an article about using Swift racing as training and similar thought that we just had with the group ride, you can turn this race into motivation for you to do different things, right, you choose a crit course maybe you’re getting that repeated sprint, you use one with a climb, maybe you’re getting that longer threshold, the sort of effort, but you have all of these people around you and you have that motivation. I know I personally, you know, I dig deeper on Zwift race than I ever do in a workout. And I always hit peak powers there. So it’s pretty powerful. Well,
Trevor Connor 28:25
let’s hear what Jennifer has to say.
Jennifer Real 28:28
My favorite workout is lift race.
Trevor Connor 28:31
Okay, so why is that your favorite,
Jennifer Real 28:34
because I will hit higher intensities and as lift race that I’ll ever hit in the workout. I mean, every time I get a peak power, you know, for the year it’s an as whipped race. Because I’m not sitting there staring at a power screen. I’m staring at a wheel that I’m trying to stay on to or, or something along those lines. So I just perform better that way.
Trevor Connor 28:54
So how often do you do is with races?
Jennifer Real 28:57
Usually once a week, probably every I’m doing this I do this with Racing League every Tuesday with with my team. And that’s that takes a break every now and then. But yeah, in general once a week.
Trevor Connor 29:09
Okay, and do you just race them and try to perform your best or when you’re using the more for training? Do you try to do anything particular with it?
Jennifer Real 29:18
Yeah, so the team time trials are great for like an over under type workout where you are doing the high intensity for 30 You know, the the anaerobic co2 When you’re on the front for 30 seconds and then you’re recovering at tempo in the back and I think that’s a great workout. That’s one of my favorites. But also I will go on go into races like this week, you know in my build up to Belgian waffle for the next few weeks, like the races on the lift, and I can use them but they have to be hard. So with this what my coach will tell me if if the race isn’t hard enough, you go make it hard. Yeah. So a lot of times we’ll try kind of like crazy team tactics. So are attacks you know, that may have don’t have a prayer of working, but it just keeps it fun and keeps it hard.
Trevor Connor 30:07
That makes a lot of sense. So what are some examples of just like attack and put your head down until somebody catches you or attack and then sit up or
Jennifer Real 30:17
so a lot of the good graces will have a client who have climbs in a bit, make it hard enough in those races, but some of them are more flat, where there’s really it’s just a matter of like you sit in and sprints, and that’s really not a good enough workout. So in a race like that, you know, I’ll try we’ll try it. We’ll try attacking and going off the front and seeing how long you know, we can stay away for or try a long range attack going into the finish line and see if we can hold it
Trevor Connor 30:44
in do you do this all year round? Or is this something that you just do at a particular point in the season,
Jennifer Real 30:49
I pretty much do it all year round, is the first thing you’ll probably back off in the summer, I probably won’t be racing much at all over the next couple of months just because the is with Racing League takes a hiatus and then it probably won’t start up again until until the fall. So it will probably in the last four in the last year season right now is with Racing League until until the fall. So it’s probably good timing because when when in life racing really heats up in the summer. It’s it’s it’s hard to mix in the desert racing as well but in the in the winter, definitely doing it every week.
Rob Pickels 31:26
Leonard’s Ian is a guy that knows a lot about riding bikes. But interestingly, Trevor, when we asked him about his favorite workout, it had nothing to do with bikes,
Trevor Connor 31:35
which really surprised me because around here Leonard Zinn is famous if not infamous, for his long rides, particularly his birthday ride, he used to do these epic 1011 hour rides 200 Miles climbing up Mount Evans to 14,000 feet. So I was fully expecting Leonard to talk about that epically long, crazy ride. But he got a little more Zen,
Rob Pickels 32:01
he got a little bit more Zen and he took it into the backcountry with some backcountry skiing. So let’s hear him talk about that.
Lennard Zinn 32:08
backcountry skiing. It’s walking up to the top of a mountain, and then skiing down that’s like, you know, I, I’ve had a personal trainer, working with me twice a week, for 15 years, religiously, and I love those workouts and everything but if I have to choose my favorite workout, it would be something that I’d be doing outside where I actually get somewhere and some someplace beautiful. And for me nothing exceeds that backcountry skiing that the solitary experience being up with just a few friends at the top of beautiful mountain in the snow and and then getting the payoff of skiing deep powder down the other side.
Trevor Connor 32:56
So is it purely experience? Or do you think there’s anything that he gained from it that helps elsewhere?
Lennard Zinn 33:02
Oh definitely helps elsewhere. For one thing, when you’re going up, you’re going at a slow speed and you’re having these incredible conversations that you learn stuff. And then with backcountry skiing, there’s also the other aspect of making sure that an avalanche doesn’t kill you. So there’s, you know, you’re constantly learning about the snow and the conditions and, and all that sort of thing that that then makes a difference in how you make decisions related to dangers and risk levels everywhere in your life. It’s very informative. One of the things that super important as a human is to have as much beauty in your life as you can that feeds your soul. And to be at the top of a mountain on a bluebird Snowy Day, hard day exceed that for beauty.
Rob Pickels 33:56
That was another episode of fast talk. Subscribe to fast talk wherever you prefer to find your favorite podcast. Be sure to leave us a rating and a review. The thoughts and opinions expressed on fast talk are those of the individual. As always we love your feedback. Join the conversation at forums dot fast talk labs.com to discuss each and every episode. Become a member of fast talk laboratories at fast talk labs.com/join and become a part of our education and coaching community. For Dr. innego San Milan Brent Bookwalter. Kendra Wenzel, Renee Eastman Joe Friel. Jennifer real Leonard’s in Trevor Connor. I’m Rob pickles. Thanks for listening.
