End the year with a five-challenge ride! You can use this one for your last ride of the year, or just drop the “2021” and use it whenever it fits your schedule. Five challenges, duration between 6:00-7:30, intensity from Moderate (Mod) to Very Hard (very hard = hardest for the duration shown). Use the warm-up to introduce the ride (5 challenges, alternating sets of flat roads and climbs and then the big finish – back-to-back, intense climbs). In the intro, you can prep riders mentally for the two back-to-back climbs by using a theme of tenacity. It’s probably been another challenging year for them – coach them to tap into the strength they’ve proven they have. And add your personal comments if you use this as your year-end ride!
Following the warm-up, where you’ve prepped riders mentally, use 3:00 of rollers to prep them physically (extension of the warm-up). Rollers emulate rolling hills on an outside ride so have them add gear (not big), remove gear, and I add a few brief standing flats (out of the saddle in hand position two).
I tapped into my “Your Top Songs 2021” playlist from Spotify for this ride. What better time to use it! You’ll see that for two of the challenges, I have a note to “use these two songs together”. This means the timing of the total challenge uses the duration of the two songs together.
As always, have fun, make it your own – maybe swap out my top songs for yours if you like!
Stay awesome!