> 【答案带解析】阅读表达 （共10分，每题2分） Joe Brown has a shop. H...
阅读表达 （共10分，每题2分）Joe Brown has a shop. He sells meat in his shop. One Thursday a woman comes into his shop at five to one. “I’m sorry I’m late,” she says. “I need some more meat for my dinner tonight.” Joe has only one piece of meat in his shop. He takes it out of the fridge and says, “This is＄6.50.” “That piece is too small.” the woman says, “don’t you have for anything bigger?” Joe goes into the room behind his shop, puts the piece of meat into the fridge, takes it out of again and closes the door with lots of noise. Then he brings the piece of meat to the woman and says, “This piece of meat is bigger and more expensive. It’s ＄8.75.” “Good,” the woman says with a smile, “give me both of them.”Answer the following questions within 4 words.（每题答案不超过4个词）1.What does Joe Brown sell?________________________________________________2.When does the woman come to Joe’s shop?____________________ ____________________________3.Why doesn’t the woman want that piece of meat?_________________________________________________4.How many pieces of meat are there in the fridge?_________________________________________________5.How much is the piece of meat in fact(实际)?________________________________________________ 
1.He sells meat. / Meat.
2.At five to one.
3.Because it’s too small. / It’s too small. / Too small.
4.There’s only one./Only one.
5.It’s ＄6.50./ ＄6.50.
试题分析：短文叙述了一位女士在12:55的时候为晚...
考点分析：
考点1：人物传记/故事阅读类
人物传记故事类阅读理解：
& & 阅读能力是中学生学习英语应具备的一种基本能力。学习英语的一个重要目的在于获取信息。通过阅读这一重要手段，我们可以大量地获取知识，拓展知识面，还可以增强语感，培养敏捷的思维能力。
阅读理解也是各地中考试题的必考题型之一，在中考试题中占有较大比例，主要考查学生通过文字获取信息的能力。在中考中，阅读的篇数一般是三到四篇，选材范围越来越广，除故事、幽默、人物轶事外，科普性文章也多了起来。体裁也趋于多样化，有记叙文、说明文、应用文等。还要求学生能理解及解释图表多提供的简单信息等。三四篇短文中有的难度跨度较大，以便拉开档次，体现选拔功能。并且扩大了选材范围，主要考查考生阅读所给材料，理解其中词语、句子或片段含义的能力。有时涉及对全文意思和篇章结构的理解，对一些问题作出推理和判断。阅读理解的考核中包括了对词汇、语法等语言知识的考查，要求学生具备一定的背景知识、各种常识、科普知识和一定的分析及逻辑推理能力；要求学生具有归纳段落大意、中心思想的能力。测试的方向由时间、地点、身份、人物等一些细节问题，改为测试对全文整体意义的理解程度；由考查短文的表层现象改为考对文章深层含义的理解和逻辑推断能力。另外，任务型阅读形式灵活多样，内容丰富多彩，联系实际，易考查学生的灵活运用能力和对语言的综合运用能力。在中考中占30-40分。
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任务型阅读（共10分，每格1分）阅读下面的材料，根据其内容填空，完成后面的表格。（每空一词）Eating habits are different in different countries. The Chinese have a saying “Eat good things for breakfast, eat a big meal for lunch, but eat less at dinner.” Many people in the USA agree that people start a day with a good breakfast, but their ideas about lunch and dinner are different.Most people in America only have a short time for their lunch, so they eat a small lunch. After work, they can have more time to eat a big dinner. it is a way to take a good rest after a long, hard day of work,they usually have a quiet dinner at home with all the family members talking about their day.Eating at restaurants is also different. In China, very often you can hear people talking and laughing loudly, and they are just having a good time. In America it is not like this. They usually eat a good meal far away from the noisy places. If they are making some noise, other people in the restaurants will look at them angrily, even the manager (经理) of the restaurants will ask them to be quiet(安静).___1.__ eating habits in different countriesPeopleHaving three ____2.____ at home___3.___ at restaurantsChineseThey have a good breakfast.They eat a big lunch. XThey eat ___4.__ at supper.They often talk and __5.___loudly
when they are eating.They show they are having _6.__ if they do like this.____7.__They start the day with a good breakfast, too.They never have their lunch for a ____8.___ time.They like a big dinner at home, talking about their day after work.They enjoy their dinner in quiet __9.__and talk softly at dinner.If someone ____10._ some noise, others in the restaurants will feel angry. 
根据句意，用括号内所给的词的适当形式填空。（10分）1.This computer is our ___________(teacher) .2.How long do you spend
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根据汉语提示写出单词，完成句子。（5分）1.There are many _____________(餐馆) in xinghua, you can have a nice meal in them.2.Every student can wear ___________( 现代的 ) clothes in the fashion show.3.He takes his __________ and goes out of the shop( 找零).4.I think this pair of
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If you go to visit London，you will see a lot of buses and cars on the road，you will also see a lot of bikes because more people travel by bike．Why?There are a lot of reasons for this．First，it’s very cheap to buy a bike，and riding bikes is quick, too．You often need to wait for a bus for half an hour．When the bus comes，there are so many other buses and cars on the roads so the bus moves very slowly．The underground
train（地铁）is quick but very expensive．I travel to work by bus for about four years.I often arrive at work late and feel tired.Then one day , a friend of mine says, “I go to work by bike，why don’t we travel together？”“Because my bike’s old，”I answer，“and there are so many buses and cars on the road．I feel afraid…”“Don’t be afraid!”says my friend，“If you follow me and we ride slowly，you will be fine．”Two days later I buy a new bike．We go slowly, but we arrive at work quickly. I spend 40 minutes going by bus, but only half an hour by bike! Now I love riding a bike. And I feel healthy. Many people think my idea is good and maybe you’ll see more bikes on the road in the future.Many people think in the same way as I do．That’s why you see a lot of bikes on the road．Who knows，perhaps in the future we’ll have roads for bicycles only．I hope so!1.There are ___________ people travelling by bike now in London.A.no
D.a lot2. I travel to work by bus for ___________.A.a few months
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Do you know Eskimos? Let me tell you something about their lives.Eskimos live near the North Pole (北极). There are only two seasons there, winter and summer. There is no spring or autumn there. The winter nights are long. You can't see the sun for more than two months, even at midday. The summer days are long. For more than two months, the sun never goes down and there's no night.Eskimos have warm clothes. They make their clothes from the skins of animals. From skins (皮毛) they make coats, caps and shoes. Near the North Pole trees can't grow, for it is too cold there. The Eskimos have to make their houses from skins, snow or stone. When they got out in storms and can't get back home, they make houses of snow. They leave these houses when the storm（风暴） is over.Life is hard for the Eskimos, but they still like to live there.1. Near the North Pole there are _____ in a year.A. two seasons - winter and summerB. two seasons - spring and autumnC. four seasons – spring，summer，autumn and winterD. two seasons sometimes and four seasons sometimes2.How long does the longest day or night last (持续) near the North Pole?A. 24 hours
B. Over a weekC. A month
D. Over two months3.Eskimos use skins to make _____.A. stones
B. animals
D. clothes4.There are no _____ near the North Pole.A. days
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题型：阅读理解
难度：中等
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Thanks for your email. I’m glad to hear that you have high goals for the sport and dreams of becoming a pro. Dreams at your age are always the starting place for anyone who eventually becomes a pro. Otherwise, there are many differences in the backgrounds of the pros. But not when it comes to their dreams. There are a few other things they mostly had in common as juniors. Most had coaches. That is the best way, without a doubt, to pursue your dream. Someone who knows the sport and can meet with you occasionally and even ride with you. You didn’t say if you had a team to train and race with. That’s another thing that was common for most of the pros when they were younger. A team can provide much of the support you need in achieving your dream.
You mentioned occasionally missing workouts. It’s ok to have times when you don’t train. In fact, it’s probably healthy for you. But ultimately the key to success is consistent training. Missing workouts frequently is counterproductive and will lead to lackluster performance. But well-timed breaks from training are to be expected and good.
The bottom line for achieving your dream is a good coach and a supportive team. I hope you are seeking both of these. And, in fact, they may be overlapping. If you have a team you are also likely to have a coach.
I’d also suggest reading the biographies of pros from the last 40 years or so to see how they progressed as juniors and what worked for them in becoming pros. There are several such books out there on Merckx, Fignon, Lemond, Froome, Wiggins, and more. These will help with motivation while also offering suggestions on paths to take.
All the best for your success. Please let me know how I can be of help.
I received a couple of interesting questions about max heart rate (HRmax) this week...
Question: Does declining max HR with age affect max performance?
First, there is no research I’m aware of on exactly this topic as it relates to aging. So this is my opinion only. Something related we do have research on has to do with short-term changes in HRmax due to performance changes (Zavorsky 2000). This is, in a way, a reverse of your question. We know, for example, that as VO2max (aerobic capacity) increases HRmax decreases—as much as 7% according to some research. The more aerobically fit you become the lower your HRmax becomes. And the other side of the same coin is that as aerobic fitness declines HRmax increases. In other words, it is not a foregone conclusion that a decrease in HRmax means a decline in performance. That’s a very common but unsupported view of athletes who are ill informed about the science behind heart rate. They assume a high HR means a high level of performance. Not true. For example, I once coached a cyclist in his 60s with a HRmax in the upper 140s. He broke the US record for the 40km time trial despite his relatively low HR.
But your question has to do with declines in performance related to changes in HRmax. First of all, we don’t know why HRmax changes with age. It appears to, but those studies were done almost entirely using aerobically untrained subjects. Not only had their HRmax changed but they also experienced many other changes with aging such as a loss of muscle mass. And since all the heart does during exercise is respond to the demands of the muscles (for O2 and fuel, primarily), if there's a loss of muscle power the demand will be low so the HRmax will also be low. Maybe. Again, no research.
So does performance decline with age? Definitely. Exactly why that happens is open to conjecture. One of the most common explanations is a loss of VO2max power as a result of the heart’s stroke volume (blood pumped per beat) declining. Why does that happen? We don’t know for sure. Perhaps, among the many possibilities, it has to do with a change in lifestyle as we age. As a young person the athlete may have done highly intense training. But as he/she ages there is often a shift toward long, slow distance exercise with less intense training. We know that such a shift causes a reduction in stroke volume (along with decreased muscle mass—the demand thing again). So the physiological process of aging may not be the culprit at all. It may simply be lifestyle.
My guess is that HRmax has nothing to do with performance. Unfortunately, that thought is totally rejected by athletes who see their heart rates as the end-all and be-all of training. That’s all they know how to measure (“for a hammer the whole world is a nail”). So it’s not a popular position to take if you want to win support for a different way of training—such as power- or pace-based training or something else.
Question: What considerations should a woman in her 50s, for example, have regarding the Fitbit training zones (which are based on set percentages of a 220-Age Max), compared to someone in her 30s (recognizing that the formula may be off due to individual differences, are there age-related differences as well?)
That's correct about such formulas. Research has shown the 220-age formula may be off by +11 to -11 (Robergs 2002), which makes the formula pretty much unusable. A 22-beat per minute range is gigantic. Personally, mine is off by about 33bpm. A guess would be at least as accurate—probably more so.
I believe it’s far better to base zones on
as it is much more easily determined and less dangerous to discover. It also reflects more about one’s fitness (Faude 2009) than does HRmax. How fast or powerful one is at a sustained threshold HR speaks volumes about the person’s fitness. The gap between threshold and HRmax also indicates a great deal about aerobic fitness. If you and I have the same HRmax but you achieve threshold (go anaerobic) at 85% of HRmax and I do that at 65%, you are much more aerobically fit. I’ll be suffering at 75% while you are just cruising along. That's why I believe threshold is a better metric for setting zones than is HRmax.
Additionally, a true HRmax requires the motivation accompanying a gun to the head. Most people, including athletes, are unable to push themselves hard enough to see a true HRmax. It’s much too painful. They get a moderately high number after a few minutes of suffering and assume that’s it. They’re nearly always wrong as this commonly results in a much lower number than they are physiologically capable of producing under the right circumstances such as a short, all-out race or perhaps a clinical test. And not only that but it’s also dangerous to suggest to untrained people who aspire to set up HR zones that they exercise to a maximal HR. I would never suggest that.
Finally, there is absolutely no reason to compare HR zones. It tells us nothing about either person as far as fitness, health, or performance is concerned. It’s like comparing shoes sizes to determine how fit people are. There is little in the way of an absolute and direct relationship between the two.
Last week I received an email from an athlete who was concerned about her training for the coming year. She had wisely decided that she needed to include a rest and recovery week every third week. But she was concerned that this would reduce her volume and therefore her race performance. That caused me to look back in my blog archives to see if I had a post on this topic. I did. That
was originally posted December 9, 2007. While that’s a long time ago, very little has changed.
But back to the email…
Her concern about decreasing volume set off a couple of alarms in my head. There’s no question that taking one’s training volume very low will have a negative effect on race readiness. (Volume is the combination of workout duration and workout frequency.) If an athlete has been training with a volume of 10 hours per week, cutting that to 5 would certainly have negative consequences. Given unique physiologies and lifestyles, every athlete has a sweetspot when it comes to weekly hours or miles or kilometers. I have no way of knowing what that may be for the athlete who contacted me.
Here’s the first alarm: I’m not convinced that by reducing volume every third week that the reduction would significantly impact her race performance. I’d suggest that it may actually help performance when compared with no R&R in order to keep volume high.
It’s also important to mention here that an R&R “week” doesn’t mean it has to be 7 days long. In fact, it may only be 3 to 5 days of reduced training load as 7 are seldom necessary, I’ve found. When you honestly feel like the fatigue is gone following a break from the normal training routine it’s time to start back at it again. If the fatigue is only slight coming into the R&R week and, especially, if you normally recover quite quickly, then 3 days is probably adequate. On the other hand, if you’re really tired or if you tend to recover slowly then 5 days is likely to do the trick. With a day or two of testing following the R&R break you should be ready to get back to serious training.
Another alarm had to do with her emphasis on volume—with no apparent concern for intensity. Intensity wasn’t even mentioned despite the fact that reducing her training load in a R&R week also would reduce intensity. Nope, volume was her only concern. That’s quite typical. It’s rare to find an athlete, even a highly experienced one, who doesn’t also share that same worldview about the volume-intensity relationship when it comes to endurance training. They tend to believe that volume is the key to performance, in fact, the most important key. Why is that? There are a couple of reasons for this, I think.
First, in the early years of an athlete’s training it soon becomes apparent that increasing volume improves performance. There’s no doubt that it does, especially at that stage of experience. That mindset stays with the athlete for years.
Second, volume is easy to measure and talk about. Intensity doesn’t easily lend itself to weekly, cumulative measurement. Volume does. That doesn’t make volume more effective for race preparation, however. There are many research studies showing that intensity is at least as critical for race preparation as volume, and most found intensity is more important. You can find a list of such studies below (if you go to , copy and paste one of the references from below into the search function, you can read the abstract for yourself).
A good example of this high emphasis on volume in training takes me back to a runner I coached many years ago. If I scheduled a 45-minute run on mountain trails and she got back to her car in 42 minutes she’d run laps around it for 3 minutes. That’s a quite common mindset. Most athletes see workout duration, and therefore volume, as the golden chalice. It must be achieved at all costs.
So that’s what I think about volume. But what about intensity? For the purpose of this discussion I’m taking high-intensity training to mean doing workouts at race intensity or higher. If your race will take an hour or less then the average intensity will be quite high—probably near your anaerobic threshold. As the race gets longer the average intensity decreases. Road cycling, however, presents a slight contradiction to this rule. While the average intensity may not be higher than what would be common for a steadily paced event such as a running race, the bike race will typically have many brief episodes with extremely high peak intensities. Training for such a race means you must focus on these peak intensities. The race outcome will be determined by them.
The longer your event is the more likely I believe you’ll benefit, at least in the long term, from doing workouts near and above your anaerobic threshold. So, for example, if I were training a triathlete for an Ironman, even if it would take 12 or more hours to finish, I’d have them do a bit of anaerobic threshold interval training throughout the seasonal preparation. Because of this they would not only produce better results than if they only trained slowly, their fitness (VO2max, threshold, and economy) would be easier to maintain at high levels for several years to come. Otherwise, I would expect to see these physiological markers of fitness decline rather rapidly with age. (There was a nice study a few years ago on this topic that compared the race fitness of otherwise similar triathletes who focused on training for either Ironman- or Olympic-distance races, but I can’t seem to find it. If familiar with this please send it my way. Thanks.)
Also, the more your available time for training is constrained by career, family or other factors, the more important high-intensity training becomes. If you’re short on time, doing intervals will bring better results in the long term than doing short but relatively slow workouts. It just comes down to how often you do the short but hard sessions.
So how relatively important are volume and intensity for the advanced athlete (“advanced” meaning more than 3 years in the sport)? I’d suggest that on race day 60% of the athlete’s race readiness is determined by the intensity of their training. The remaining 40% is a result of volume. If volume was high but intensity was neglected then I wouldn’t expect a good race performance. However, if volume was low but intensity high I’d expect a better race performance. I’d rather err on the side of too little volume than too little intensity.
I should also point out here that when I'm promoting intensity as the more critical of the two variables when it comes to race performance, that doesn't mean that all of your workout intensities should be pushing your limits. There are times for high intensity and there are times for low intensity. That blend is entirely determined by your unique capacity for training.
So what’s the bottom line here? I’d suggest you do as much volume as possible so long as it doesn’t interfere with your readiness to do high-intensity workouts. If a regularly scheduled long workout or an emphasis on successive moderately long workouts leaves you too tired to do a subsequent high-intensity workout then I’d suggest cutting back on the long duration or the weekly volume and allowing for more recovery between sessions. This also includes frequent R&R weeks. Whatever you do, don’t place so much emphasis on volume that you are too tired to do intense training. That’s counterproductive.
I might also suggest here that the ultimate solution may be found in thinking about your training in terms of —the combination of duration and intensity into a single number. It will change your training mindset for the better.
References?
Costill, D.L., et al. 1991. Adaptations to swimming training: Influence of training volume. Med Sci Sports Exerc 23:371-377.?
Gomes, P.S. and Y. Bhambhaniy. 1996. Time course changes and dissociation in VO2max at maximum and submaximum exercise levels as a result of training in males. Med Sci Sports Exerc 28(5):S81.?
Fry, R.W., et al. 1992. Periodisation of training stress–a review. Can J Sport Sci 17:234-240.
Laursen, P.B. and D.G. Jenkins. 2002. The scientific basis for high-intensity interval training: Optimizing training programmes and maximising performance in highly training endurance athletes. Sports Med 32(1):53-73.
Lehmann, M., et al. 1996. Unaccustomed high-mileage vs intensity training-related changes in performance and serum amino acid levels. Int J Sports Med 17(3):187-192.?
Midgley, A.W., et al. 2006. Is there an optimal training intensity for enhancing the maximal oxygen uptake of distance runners?: Empirical research findings, current opinions, physiological rationale and practical recommendations. Sports Med 36(2):117-132.
Mujika, I., et al. 1995. Effects of training on performance in competitive swimming. Can J Appl Physiol 20(4):395-406.
Seiler, S., et al. 2009. Intervals, thresholds, and long slow distance: The role of intensity and duration in endurance training. Sportsci 13:32-53.
The emailed question…
I have been training for triathlon since 2010 and I use the concepts of your book for planning my annual and weekly training. I have a fundamental question about that. I'm an executive and usually travel internationally at least once every two months. When it happens, I try to keep up my training at a hotel gym, but it's definitely not the same. The consequence is that it's difficult to keep the training as it is planned especially if it coincides with a high volume training week. Any suggestions?
My reply…
I understand your dilemma. I also travel quite a bit. I’m currently in the UK for 2 weeks and just returned from 3 weeks in E Europe. I’m gone, on average, about a week in every month. So I miss a fourth of my training. It isn’t so bad for running and swimming - usually. But cycling is nearly impossible during such trips. I’m sure you can relate to that. I’ve had to give up racing in the last three years mostly because of this. Before the last three years my travel was much less than one week per month on average. Then I was able to keep my training going ok if I tried to work everything - travel timing and training periodization - out well in advance of trips. The idea was to arrange it so that the travel time coincided with a recovery week. That worked usually pretty well. But not always. There really is no simple solution for my current level of travel when it comes to race prep. Missed workouts can’t simply be “made up.” Inconsistent training has a greater impact on performance than any other training errors one can make. I’m sorry to tell you that there is no easy solution. About all you can do is 1) try to make travel weeks coincide with rest weeks, 2) do as much as you can before leaving on the trip, 3) do all you can when on the road, and 4) get right back to it as soon as you return home. “Crash” training, which you can read about in my Training Bible, may prove helpful for #2.
from some time back may also prove helpful.
The following is a list of the biggest changes in the . It really is “all new.” That’s not just a marketing ploy. The only thing that stayed about the same was the chapter topics. But even that changed a little. Writing it took me a year and half. That’s because it is almost twice the size of the original going from about 75,000 words in the first edition in 1998 to more than 140,000 now. I’m pleased with how it turned out. But the most important thing is that I hope you find it helpful for your training. That was my motivation for taking on such a huge task.
Here are the biggest changes.
The single most important change is that it is now easier to personalize your training with several periodization options for planning your season and workouts based on your unique needs and preferences. The original Training Bible offered only one way of doing everything. This alone makes the book a much more valuable reference when preparing for a triathlon.
The increasingly popular technologies of power- and pace-based training are discussed from various perspectives such as understanding how they can be used to improve race performance and how they can be blended into your seasonal planning.
The science of training has expanded considerably in recent years and you will learn how to apply the newest of the proven concepts to improve your race performance. This includes TSS-based training that is becoming quite popular among serious endurance athletes. And with good reason: It’s a much more effective way to gauge training load.
Skill development, especially for swimming, is one area where age group triathletes typically are overwhelmed with overly granular information—most of it intended for elite athletes. In this latest edition swimming skills are simplified to four basic movements that you can easily master and result in faster swimming immediately. Illustrations accompany the discussion of this. Bike and run skills are also included.
The strength program is updated to provide more options on how to best develop the functional strength to swim, bike, and run more efficiently and more powerfully. If you are time-constrained, as many triathletes are, you’ll find that not all strength training needs to be done in the gym. Much of it can be done in the sport without the need to lift weights. That greatly decreases the training time needed for those who are already very busy. For those who want to follow a gym-based strength program the exercises are updated to provide the most benefits for the time invested along with alternatives when time and energy allow for them. All of the options are explained with both the pros and cons along with illustrations.
The unique recovery needs of the busy and serious triathlete are described in detail to help you design a personalized plan for bouncing back after challenging training sessions.
The effective analysis of training data is critical to the continued improvement for the triathlete who has high aspirations for the sport. In this edition new ways of looking at training information are discussed with an eye to examining just the right workout data to more precisely train for high performance while limiting the time for analysis.
The swim, bike, run, and combined workouts in the appendices are expanded to include power and pace in addition to heart rate along with simplified explanations. Options for how they may be used in your training program are also included.
I hope you like my newest book. Please let me know what you think of it.
Muscle cramps are one of the most perplexing problems endurance athletes face in training. I get several questions on what can be done about them every year. Here is such a question I just received.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I have recently purchased the Fast After 50 book and currently working through it and trying to come up with a training plan for an up and coming mountain race (running) & 4hrs in about 9 weeks. I have pretty good base fitness and have completed similar races already this season. I have one question. I suffer from cramps in long races, which I think is related to muscle fatigue, and basically I think the issue is that my race pace is much faster than the my long run pace I use in training. So the advice I have seen is that I need to train nearer my race pace. So would I make my long aerobic threshold run at a pace closer to my race pace? But if I do this will I lose the advantage of &teaching the body to use fat fuel& as part of my long run? So not too sure what to do but need come up with an approach to sort out the cramps.
Any  feedback greatly appreciated.
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Thanks for your note.  Good question. I agree with your conclusion - it’s probably neuromuscular fatigue that triggers leg cramps. Recently a couple of new products have come to market that also agree with that assumption and may offer a solution. I really don’t know if they work or not. They are based on research in the last few years showing that the nervous system reaction that causes cramps can be interrupted by stimulating nerves in the mouth. That research was done using pickle juice. I don’t recall what all of the new products are called but one of them is explained . 
The question you pose about training is also a good one. I’d suggest you need both - aerobic threshold long runs (easy - zone 2 using my heart rate system) and also race intensity (or slightly greater) runs. The latter would be done as tempo intervals such as 5- to 20-minute work intervals at just above race intensity (preceded by a warm-up and followed by a cool down). In my pace zone system this would probably be zone 3 for your type of racing. The recoveries between intervals would be about 1/4th as long as the preceding work interval. As an ultra-runner you would probably need to gradually increase to about 40 minutes (possibly to 60 minutes depending on your capacity for training) of total work interval time in a workout and probably do this once weekly in the Build period starting about 12 weeks before the race. These should be done on a soft but firm surface such as a track or trail. And if you mostly tend to cramp on hills then these intervals would probably best be done climbing. This should stimulate greater endurance at race pace and may help prevent fatigue and therefore cramps. But then, some athletes are so prone to leg cramps that they experience them even when it great shape. I’m afraid we just don’t know a lot about them, unfortunately.
You can read more about muscle cramps , , and .
Good luck! 
Since I wrote
I’ve gotten lots of queries from aging athletes about how to set up nine-day training “week” as I describe in the book. If you’ve read it you know that I suggest this for athletes who find they aren’t recovering as quickly as they did when younger—which is most all 50-pluses. With the standard seven-day training week typically only two hard training days can be included due to the need for extended rest. Whereas when younger the athlete may have done three hard days in a week. So, essentially, by going to a nine-day week you can do more high-quality sessions throughout a training period and still get plenty of recovery time. The downside is that such a training schedule may not fit into your lifestyle, especially the common Monday through Friday workdays with weekends off. The first day you have to do a long training session and be at work by 8 a.m. you’ll fully appreciate the dilemma. So the nine-day week works best for over-50 athletes who are retired or have a flexible lifestyle.
Most of the inquiries I’ve gotten on how to do this have come from triathletes. Setting up a nine-day training week for a triathlete is a challenge. The bottom line for most triathletes is that it comes down to doing two high-intensity (HIT--near and well above lactate/anaerobic threshold or FTP) workouts in two different sports every third day with two light (very easy up to aerobic threshold which is about the bottom portion of HR zone 2 using my system) workouts on the two days in between. So the pattern could look something like this:
Day        Workouts
1              run HIT
                bike HIT
2              swim easy
                run easy
3              bike aerobic threshold (or easy)
                swim aerobic threshold (or easy)
4              run HIT
                swim HIT
5              bike easy
                run easy
6              swim aerobic threshold (or easy)
                run aerobic threshold (or easy)
7              bike HIT
                swim HIT
8              bike easy
                run easy
9              bike aerobic threshold (or easy)
                swim aerobic threshold (or easy)
The easy days following the hard days may be changed to one workout only on a given day to allow for even more recovery time if you find fatigue is quite high with two easy sessions on those days.
After 18 days (two of these weeks) it’s likely time for an extended period of recovery before starting the next period with a slightly increased training load. For most over-50 triathletes five days of such recovery is adequate, although some may be able to get by with four or even three. Notice that days 8 and 9 are already easy-session days (which could each be made into single workout days). By adding another three days of easy workouts (usually one each day) a five-day R&R period is ready to go. After that you start back over with Day 1.
Of course, this isn't meant to be a plan designed specifically for you or anyone else. It's just a sample of one way of doing it. I'm sure that with some thought you can come up with something that better fits your unique needs.
I often get questions about cross training. This is one that came in today from “Jack.” Most of it had to do with the athlete’s advancing age and having read my new book, . I’ve omitted all of that, but I’m most appreciative of his kind comments. Here is the focus of the email that gets at his question about cross training…
“I continue to train and ride, seeking the next sportive challenge.  I’ve got my eye on the  in 2017 (May timeframe).  That will be at age 53.  I know, I know, I’m still a young pup. Anyway, I do have a question for you if I may.  Although the book was quite extensive, I wish to know more about benefits of cross training.  As I’m still working (Mon-Fri), I have a limited amount of time to spend training and therefore, devote almost all of it to cycling or the gym (two to three times per week).  I don’t see a lot of room in my schedule for something else, but if there is a benefit, I’m willing to reconsider.”
And my reply…
Thanks for your note.  And for your kind comments about my book. 
Cross training is an interesting topic. Many do it who have “health” goals instead of “performance” goals. It’s great for health in part because the variety makes for high motivation and since many who are focused only on health are limited by lack of motivation for such a vague goal. 
In answering your question I’m assuming that you are quite serious about cycling, as your email suggests, and that performance is your primary focus. If that’s the case then in order to reap a benefit from cross training the other activity you choose must overlap considerably with the physiological demands of cycling to prove beneficial. There are two broad categories for these demands—cardiorespiarory fitness and muscular fitness. Essentially, any mainstream endurance sport (swimming, running, cross country skiing, etc) will benefit the heart and lungs. This is actually not much of a challenge. The muscular system is a big challenge. If you’re not using the muscles in the same way they are used when on the bike then there is no significant muscular benefit. It may even be a waste of training time for achieving a high performance goal. For example, while you may use your legs quite a bit while running, the two movements are not even close in terms of the muscles. One relies on eccentric contractions of the calf muscles primarily (run) while the other calls for a great deal of concentric contraction from the quads primarily (bike). One of the best cross training activities for cycling has been shown in research to be weight lifting—especially heavy loads with low reps. But even then the movement must simulate cycling. Doing curls or even knee extensions won’t be of much benefit. Compound (multi-joint) strength-building exercises such as squats, step ups, and lunges come quite close to replicating the muscle activity on a bike.
The other issue is periodization. When should you do cross training activities and to what extent? There’s nothing in the way of research I’ve seen on this. My 35 years of experience as a coach and athlete tells me, however, that the closer you get to a targeted event, the more like the event your training must become. So the other side of this coin is that the farther away in time your event is, the less like the event your training can be. All of this suggests that cross training is best done many weeks and even months before the event. In common periodization-speak that would be the “base” period. But in the “build” period (last 12 or so weeks leading up to the event) you should make your training increasingly like the demands of the event. That implies cutting back on cross training in the build period. How much you do of it is determined by how lofty your performance goals are. For example, I can guarantee you that you won’t see a pro Tour de France GC contender running, swimming, or XC skiing in the last few weeks before the event starts. It would have to be an extremely unusual circumstance (perhaps an injury that precludes riding) for that to happen. And it would be a sure death knell for his race performance with such a lofty goal.
So bottom line is, some cross training is ok, especially well in advance of a high-goal event, but less so in the final few weeks.
of this two-part series on setting up a Performance Management Chart on
for strength training I only got as far as describing why you should only have one combined chart for all sports reflecting your total fatigue. All of the other sport activities should have separate PMCs since fitness (CTL) and form (TSB) don’t significantly cross over between sports.
It isn’t really necessary to have a separate PMC for weightlifting, but knowing how focused some athletes can be on quantifying their training, I understand the request for how to do it. (It is possible to get carried away with tracking data. For example, I’ve also been asked if a stretching PMC would be informative. No, it wouldn’t.)
To have a useful PMC for strength training requires having a Training Stress Score (TSS) for every workout. This reflects how hard the workout was. For endurance sports the two components of TSS are workout intensity and workout duration. But in weightlifting, which isn’t an endurance activity, duration doesn’t play a role in the outcome. It’s strictly intensity that determines how hard the workout was. So you need to come up with a method of gauging only intensity for a weightlifting session.
That could be done simply with a rating of perceived exertion. But that’s quite subjective. Serious lifters do it by tracking “tonnage”—how much total load they lifted in a workout. Tonnage is based on the load lifted multiplied by the number of reps, times the number of sets. This is done for each exercise and then the totals are added together for a tonnage score.
An endurance athlete would do something similar—but with a new wrinkle to get TSS. After determining the tonnage for the session you’d have to decide how hard that was relative to what you normally do. If it was an average strength workout for you it could be given a TSS of 50. As the tonnage increases or decreases from the norm with each session you would assign a new TSS number either higher or lower than 50.
For example, you may find that your average weightlifting session is 3.5 tons. That would yield a TSS of 50 and would mean 14.2 TSS per ton (50 / 3.5 = 14.2). So a harder 4-ton session would be a TSS of 64. An easier 3-ton workout would have a TSS of 36.
Of course you must also realize that the fitness changes reflected in a PMC don’t say anything about what you’re fit for. If you’re a cyclist and spend all of your time running the PMC may say your fitness is quite high. But it’s doubtful that this would be reflected in your bike racing. In the same way, if you’re a runner and all you do in the gym when weightlifting is arm curls then you can’t expect to see much if any improvement in your running. Whatever you do in training, whether endurance training or weightlifting, must be specific to the sport for which you are training. But that’s a topic for another blog post.
I’ve been asked a few times recently how to set up a Performance Management Chart on  for weightlifting. It’s that time of year when strength work is a major focus of training for many athletes. If you know what you’re doing in the gym it’s a way of developing greater muscular force for the coming season. That force can eventually be converted into power as your sport-specific speed skills should also be rounding into shape now. So it’s a good question.
Let me start by saying that if you do decide to track weightlifting that you do it with a PMC separate from your others. In fact, all PMCs should be for a single sport only—except for one. I’ll come back to that one shortly. So, for example, if you’re a triathlete and manage your performance in this way you might have four separate PMCs—one each for swimming, cycling, running, and weightlifting. If you’re a cyclist or runner you’d have two PMCs. These PMCs would primarily reflect what’s happening to your fitness (CTL), fatigue (ATL), and form (TSB) in each training mode.
But, as mentioned, I’d suggest you have one that shows only fatigue (ATL) for all stressful training activities. That would be five for a multisport athlete and three for single sport athletes. Why not combine them all into one chart showing everything you do? Because the fitness benefits are not equal across the board. Let’s say you’re a triathlete. You may do a lot of running, riding, and weightlifting, but never swim. How good do you think your swim fitness would be? Poor. Right? But a combined chart wouldn’t tell you that. It could say that, in general, your fitness is great. But specifically, it isn’t when it comes to swimming. A combined chart is simply too general. It doesn’t tell you what’s going on with each sport.
So what I’m suggesting is that fitness (and also form) is specific to a sport. You can get into great shape with other sports, but how great is the benefit for a sport you never do? That brings us to the topic of specificity of training that I’m not going to get into now. It’s covered in some detail in my Training Bible .
The one PMC that combines everything stressful that you do, including strength training, is only effective for one of the three metrics—fatigue (ATL). You can do a hard bike ride today and be tired tomorrow no matter what that day’s activity is. So this would make up the fifth PMC for a triathlete who lifts weights and the third for a single sport athlete who also lifts.
That brings us back to the topic of charting weightlifting with a PMC. I’ll return to that topic in Part 2 of this post.
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