Eric brought this up in another thread, but I think it deserves its own heading and discussion.

"Openers" I define as things you do to open your body for hard efforts. There are openers for the day before the race and openers the day of the race. They are often different in nature. In boht cases, you're doing hard efforts to prime both the legs and the mind for the rigors of racing.

when you're racing, rare is the occasion when the best way to prepare for the race is by rolling around as slow as possible the day before or just getting on your bike moments before the start.

Here is Eric's openers recipe:

Cat 3 and Cat 4 Crew - Regarding Friday's ride, my advice:

It's time to establish a consistent pre-race ride to open up your legs for the next day. We'll call this ride "openers."
Now openers can take on different forms based on what type of race you are doing the next day, but the basic routine to start with (you may find something else works well, but this worked for me and Mike last year):
w/u for 15-20 min
3x1,5 - so 3 efforts of 1 min each separated by at least 5 min of rest.
3x30s,5 - 3 30sec efforts with 5 min rest
3x10s,5 - 3 10 second sprints, 5 minin between.
Cool Down.

this should take 1.5 hours.

Now, how does it vary based on the race the next day? I like to think about what kind of race is coming and what I'll be doing in that race.
If the race is flat and hard - do the efforts on the flats (in P. Park - go from before the Temple until the effort ends, then cut through the middle road to the middle of the hill, roll back down and repeat).

If the race has a small hill or an uphill section you'll have to sprint or go hard up, then I say do your efforts with a slight hill (in P. Park, use the middle road for the efforts and then roll down the hill and back to the middle road to start again).

If the race is a crit where there will be many changes of pace, I'd suggest that the efforts be done in a lighter gear so that you're emphasizing spinning up and fast cadence - say a 53x19 or 17 and done on the flats. I don't know the gear yet because last year I think I did these too hard. The effort level is really hard, but because of the gear, you won't be able to go that hard.

Keep it very light and spinning on the rest intervals for the crit workout for sure. Light and then hard and fast. Light, hard and fast...

Good luck all, I'll be out in the park tomorrow at 4:30 (maybe sooner, but 4:30 is a safe bet) doing openers. Please come join me.

I don't like to be as focused as Eric for openers. I'm also not very scientific about it.

My in-season Friday rides on the day before a race usually consist of a mid-to-high endurance pace where we're rolling, but not killing it, and then I mix in a sprint, followed by rest. Then an all-out one-minute effort up 110berg. Possibly a second later in the ride. And then another two sprints later in the ride.

My in-season Saturday rides vary dramatically depending on the Sunday race. If it's a low priority, and I have a long road race the following weekend, I probably will ride 3-4 hours pretty hard, simulating race efforts in the midst. If Sunday's race is a high priority, or I'm pretty tired, I'll probably do two hours mostly rolling at a low endurance pace with some hard hills mixed in.

Day of race is different. It depends on where the race is and the specifics of the race. If it's Central Park, I usually spin to the race, which is about 10m. Then register, and ride another 15-20 minutes with a sprint or two thrown in. If it's Prospect, it's a 13-mile ride, so I typically put in two three-minute efforts at threshold on my way through Manhattan,and then another three minutes at threshold or above on whichever bridge I take.

Years ago, it was pretty common for 80-100 mile road races to begin at a fairly piano pace and it didn't seem that we needed much of a warmup. For at least the past six or seven years, racers have shown no fear of distance, and it became common for serious attacks to go from the gun. I've responded by doing at least 20 minutes of warmup in with a few hard efforts mixed in. Definitely a few sprints, but sometimes a few minutes at threshold as well.

BTW, Eric, how hard should those efforts be? Maximal for the time or within certain ranges?

Normally, I do maximal efforts. For the crit I am gear limiting them, so it will be sub maximal. Plus the crit is early.

The secondary benefit of the maximal opener approach is that it counts as anaerobic threshold work.

Race day openers are another story because I find that I go pretty well from the gun. I will experiment this year but think 15-20min steady riding and then 5min at threshold had worked pretty well this trainer season.

***nevermind, I see you addressed this JP*** What about openers for short vs. long races? What's the variance on warm-up/open-up for a 30 mile park race vs. something like Housatonic... or looming in our near future, Battenkill?

This is my preferred pre-race opener

http://www.amazon.com/Park-Tool-Bottle-Opener-BO-2C/dp/B006WLKP38

bump.

From Adam Myerson:

http://www.cxmagazine.com/technique-tuesday-opening-weekend-racing?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed:+CyclocrossMagazine+(Cyclocross+Magazine)