Carter Lake Tempo Workout

Here is my new favorite tempo workout for the winter season.  Those familiar with Hunter Allen know he likes to add “bursts” of hard effort into his tempo workouts.  This is a fun way to accomplish this.

Basic Ride:  About 3 hours in total length.  Warm up with easy ride to 75th & Hwy 66 (just north of Hygene).  Do 3 x 40 (+/-) minutes blocks of tempo riding with bursts at or above threshold (FTP) on the up hills with 3-10 minutes (+/-) rest between. These are done on the route up to Carter Lake and on the route back to Boulder via 95th street, Hwy 66, and 75th street to the Diagonal. CD 5-15 min. The keys are:

1. For the tempo blocks, ride steady in low tempo zone between bursts.  No time intentionally spent below 80% of FTP.  I.E. No time in zone two.
2. Up hill burst need to be smartly executed such that you go hard on the very short rollers (i.e. 150% of FTP for 15-20 seconds) and pace your self on the longer up hills. Its important that the efforts are not so hard that you require even a small amount of recovery after.  You want to settle right back into low tempo.  Also, you don’t want the efforts so hard that they ultimately bring the average power for each tempo block too high!
3. Also, do 5-8 second “sprints” to get back up to speed after corners or stop signs.
4. Ideally, I recommend that the average power for each block end up in the middle of your tempo zone and perhaps the normalized power will be at the tippy top of your tempo zone.
5. Bursts should be done only on OBVIOUS hills/climbs and out of corners or after stop signs.  One goal is to have be riding tempo between these efforts.  If you are pushing it on every little 1-2% incline, you will miss the objective of the workout.  Also note, there are places where you may want to forgo a sprint out of a corner because its too close to an upcoming hill.  We don’t want to have TOO MANY bursts too close together.

The Details:

1. Warm up:  Basically warm up with easy riding at 60-75% of FTP power from Boulder.  Make your way North up past Hygene and cross over Hwy 66.  This ends your warm up, so here is your chance to pee or change layers or whatever before the focused work starts.
2. Tempo Block #1:  From somewhere just north of Hwy 66 on 75th street, ride on the low side of your tempo range (80% of FTP +/-) on the stander route all the way to the Damn at Carter Lake (north on 75th, east on Woodland, north on 83rd/CR 23, east on RD 8E).  Attack each up hill section at 100% to 150% of FTP.  On this section, there are basically 3 short steep little up hill bit that you can hit pretty hard for 20-30 seconds (120-150% of FTP).  This first block of tempo finishes with the 4-7 min climb up to the damn (depending on your power to weight).  Climb this from the park entrance to the damn just a touch above your FTP.  The key here is to be sure to enter the final climb with an average power for the 35 minutes of tempo so far at the lower end of your tempo range.  That the final climb does not drag your overall average for this 40 in block too high.  Finish at the damn.  This section is the longest and will take 40-45 min depending on where you STARTED back on 75th and how powerful you are.  Take a very quick break on the damn and then descend back down the way you came up.
3. Tempo Block #2:  Once on the valley floor after the descent, begin tempo block #2 and ride tempo all the way to Hygene via CR 21/95th st. (east CR8e, south on CR23, east on Hwy 56, south on CR21/95th st, west on Hwy 66, south on 75th street to the town of Hygene).  While there is one little roller on the road out of Carter Lake, this section is dominated by the long rollers while headed south on CR 21/95th st.  There are not sustained climbs like the climb up to the damn in section 1, but these can get kind of long, so hit them at 105 – 110% of FTP.  Remember, to ride in low tempo on the down hills and flats between each roller.  These section ends with pretty flat riding on the last bit of 95th, Hwy 66 and 75th as you roll into Hygene.  This section is the shortest and a strong rider might make it to the stop sign and country store in Hygene in just under 40 minutes.  Take a quick break at the store if needed.
4. Tempo Block #3:  Head south on 75th and start this final block just after the railroad tracks outside of Hygene.  Ride tempo South on 75th to Niwot road.  Go west on Niwot, south on 63rd, southwest on the diagonal and finally west on Jay until you hit 40 minutes (can even continue west on hwy 36 if needed).  This section is characterized by flat steady riding. There are only a couple of very short rollers, so hit those pretty hard and really sprint out of any corners and stop signs.