September Sprints

My racing season is over, so I've planned an experiment for the last 6 weeks before my October break: sprint training.

I rarely do sprint intervals -- partly becasuse I can't sprint, so I figure why worry -- and partly becasue they can be rather painful. But in looking at my 2006 data, I've noticed that even without any anaerobic-specific training work (except for what I get accidentally on Tuesday nights and in races) my maximum 5-second wattage has climbed from about 810 watts in 2006 to about 1000 watts in 2007. Maybe more importantly for practical application in racing, my maximum 10-second wattage has jumped from the mid 800s to 930 watts in the past couple of months.

Although I'll never be considered a sprinter, I want to find out how 6 weeks of sprint-specific training will affect my 5-second, 10-second, and 15-second maximal wattages. If I see a significant improvement by the end of September, I'll make sure to include sprint intervals in my training next spring. If my numbers don't move much, I'll leave out the sprint intervals next year and spend that time on hill repeats and TT threshold intervals.