Golden hour on a northern fell, and forty sheep spread over half a mile of bracken.
You are the dog. Your watts are its legs — a steady zone 2 trot, hour after hour — and
the flock has to come down off the tops, through the gate in the wall, over the beck and into
the pen before the light goes. Push too hard and they break and scatter; sit up and the sun
beats you. This is the one you do the day after Turbo Outbreak: long, low and quiet,
with just enough sprinting to keep the legs honest.
Loading the fell…
The gather
Sensors
Smart trainer or power meterNot connected
Heart rate strapNot connected
Speed / cadence sensorOptional, for dumb trainers
You
Sustainable is about 60–70% of your FTP, and that is the pace the dog works best at all
evening. A sprint over about 120% sends it wide and fast round the outside of the flock — the only
way to head off a breakaway — but it gets hot, and a hot dog lies down in the beck and will not work.
How to work a dog
Pedal. Watts are the dog's legs. Sixty-odd per cent of your FTP is a working trot it can
hold all evening. Nothing in the legs and the dog stands about while the sheep graze back up the fell.
← → Turn the dog. Sheep run from the dog, so which side of them you are on decides
where they go. Get behind them and they walk on; get level with them and they turn.
Sprint over 120% for the flank — the dog runs wide and fast round the outside
to head off a breakaway or swing the flock across. Watch the panting meter and ease off in time.
Space whistles the next command: walk on (you steer), come bye (round them
clockwise), away to me (anticlockwise), lie down (stop dead and let them settle).
A flank is a move, not a setting — the dog runs round until it is on balance behind them and
then comes back to walk on by itself.
Don't thrash it. A sheep under too much pressure breaks and runs, and a broken sheep
near the boundary wall goes over it into the neighbour's ground. Lose more than a few and the
farmer is not pleased.
V changes the view, P pauses.
LIE DOWN
The dog is flat in the bracken watching them. Take your time.