Focus your riders on the total power output for this ride. There are seven pairs of songs. Use the first song to challenge riders to go big and to use the second song to explore what their bodies are telling them they need to do to refuel, recover, regroup. Riders own whatever intensity and movements feel right to them for those songs.
Knowing that how they use the “space between” the big efforts impacts not only performance for the next challenge, but their overall power output for the entire ride can motivate riders to be mindful of how to optimize every minute.
The warm-up song is one of my favorite Dead Can Dance songs and I use it purposefully to support/introduce the message of mindfulness.
Several riders told me after class their total power output numbers for this ride surprised them and it came from the mindful recoveries.
Gotta love that!
