Late Season Peaking

[Deleted]

I've had a wee lay-off, lost some form compared to Spring, and thinking about getting back to a training regime on the turbo and road for a few weeks to get my form back up for some of the late season races.

Anyone got any tips on how best to structure the training, and the turbo drills to do. Is there any point in strength training just now...?

[andyw]

more than turbo drills, I'd start going into races looking at them as non-priority races. Try something different, rather than putting pressure on yourself to do well. Categorise them as A, B and C and treat the C's as real training. Try some daft attacks. Don't worry about finishing. The goal is to learn something, and to practise riding at race pace. If it's a short race, even think about adding some extra km's on the end, and chuck some hard sprints in that post-race ride.
Category B races you should be aiming to finish strongly as well as being active. The result still isn't important, but it's time to employ a bit more patience, using what you learnt in the cat C races.
Category A races arrive at your peak after a couple of months of B's and C's - so how does the end of August, beginning of Septemeber sound? These races are about using all the form you've accrued over the past 6 weeks or so, as well as the tactics you have developed over that time. It's all about the result.

I've totally nicked Joe Friel's terminology there without ever having read his book, so I don't know if he says the same thing. But yeah, the idea of building your form back up through racing is a good one imo.

[Deleted]

A good one from one of the Dynamo girls!!! Turbo session: 15 mins warm up...then 8mins at 85-90% of maximal...3 mins recovery x5...then 15 mins cool down...this i did for 2 months over the winter, 2-3 times each week. It is a hard session, but it works. Cut it down to a single month and do 3-4 days a week! That is 1hr:25' 3-4 days a week!!!! You should be really fit by the end of this!!

[Deleted]

It looks like a good drill. But if I did it more than once a week I'd have to kill myself. Surely better to mix it up a bit... this regime only trains one aspect.

[daniel]

Here is my 10 cent for what it's worth.

I think it slightly depends on what your goals are, which is probably the best place to start. This could be getting a win, getting points, to simply being active within a race.

Generally speaking though in my experience of races the most effective way of getting results is by getting into breaks as this then puts you in a situation where all of the above (win, points, being active) can happen. So I would train towards this.

Again for what it's worth I do a series of different intervals on the turbo.

One is a series of 4 or 5 intervals of 5mins at a cadence of 100+ at my power threshhold/max sustainable power output. I then have 5 min recovery after each interval oh with a 10 min warm up. This is based on a tt interval but I use it for either bridging to a break or for when you are in the break and it's going hard. I've found that often when a break has just formed it is going quite hard (to get a significant gap on the pack) so you need to be able to cope with that.

The other main one I do is a series of 10x 2 mins max power intervals at a cadence of 90 with a 1 min recovery after each interval. This is taken from a crit interval session but I use it for those points when you are attacking or bridge across to a break.

It's a bit too late in the season for me to start now but in the winter I am going to introduce a sprint interval session as well as I am really quite bad at it and need to improve a lot. I think this is the other main element which is worth training for as it can often be the difference between winning a race and coming 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc... as I have discovered on many occassions.

Anyway I would agree with Andy and set out a plan for a number of races, and in each one focus on a certain aspect of the race such as getting into a break, or starting one or bridging across to one. If you can do this in a C cat race where the overall result is not important to you then by the time it comes to the A cat race everything will be a lot more natural and your body will be trained to deal with such a situation.

Good luck

[Deleted]

I am also looking at peaking late this season. After 2-3 weeks away on holiday away from the bike I need to get back into the swing of it all, especially as I just need 5 points for a 2nd cat licence. I am trying to keep to short sessions on the turbo of about an hour and working on sprints and hard 8-10min efforts. I'm struggling with my confidence to try racing again, I worry I'm not in form to yet although i'm probably ok.

[andyw]

"I'm struggling with my confidence to try racing again, I worry I'm not in form to yet although i'm probably ok"

Which is why you should categorrise your races. You can't expect to rock up to your first race in 5 months and win. To even be competitive would be a victory.

Set yourself realistic targets for a series of races over a number of weeks and see how it goes - see my post above for examples