This is my first year racing and the first year I've had a training plan (even if it is very rough)
this week I have as the rest week of my build 2 section then I have 2 weeks of peaking and two weeks of racing. Haven't planned the daily rides I'll do any further than booking on to a few races..... I'll reread my cyclist training bible sunday and try and get my plan together then.
any advice I won't get from the book, or thats really important, trade secrets etc would be much appreciated.

or any advice on what rides to do in-between the races.

heres what I have planned race wise. the ones in red I'll do depending how i feel/ enter on the line

week 1 peaking :-
tuesday 10 mile TT
thursday 35 mile handicapped road race
saturday 50 minute cat 4 circuit race
sunday - 50 mile 3/4 road race

week 2 - peaking
wednesday 10 mile TT
thursday 35 mile handicapped road race
sunday 38 mile 3/4 road race

week 3 - race
wednesday - 25 mile 3/4 circuit race
thursday 35 mile handicapped road race
sunday 70 mile 2/3/4 road race

week 4 - race
wednesday - 25 mile 3/4 circuit race
thursday 35 mile handicapped road race
sunday 70 mile 2/3/4 road race

THANKS

With that amount of racing I would advise rest/ultra easy rides in between.

_________________
"Physiology is all just propaganda and lies... all waiting to be disproven by the next study."
"I'm not a real doctor; But I am a real worm; I am an actual worm." - TMBG

so just recovery rides? or maybe some speed skills or zone 2 on a tuesday when I've raced sunday and had monday as a recovery day? or just take the tuesday off/do another recovery ride?

I could skip the thursday night races as i have a lot more chance of getting a result in the wednesday night races but I thought I'd be ok just sitting in or taking it at whatever pace I felt like.

doesn't look like I'll be doing the sunday race the first week now. only 2 places left in the race now

From what I've gathered from your posts you're relatively new to racing but have some good power, right? (correct me if I'm wrong please). Three races a week (give or take) is quite a high level of intensity and volume and should take the place of any speed work/intensity. Throw extra intensity on top of what you posted and you'll probably burn out quick. If any of the racing is to be replaced I would suggest some LSD rides.

After a couple of seasons of this sort of thing then there would be more scope for adding more intensity in days between races or tacking extra Kms after a TT for example.

_________________
"Physiology is all just propaganda and lies... all waiting to be disproven by the next study."
"I'm not a real doctor; But I am a real worm; I am an actual worm." - TMBG

1 +, listen to tapeworm he knows his stuff.

_________________
2 Serotta's, 1 Spectrum, 1 Van Dessel, 1 Parlee & 1 Carl Strong, & 1 Titus.

thanks for the reply tapeworm I will take heed of your advice and do very little in-between my races.

thought I'd post my ride data for anyone thats interested.

Monday - put a set off TT bars on my bike for the first time and went for a quick spin round. I'd normally do a recovery ride on a monday but I rode a bit harder than that and did some short bursts of threshold to see what it was like with the bars.
http://app.strava.com/activities/9023210

Tuesday - Rode the 10 mile TT, this was my 4th ever TT. the previous 2 this year haven't gone well, I missed a turn on the first one and the second one which was on this same course I was down on power and subsequently got a chest infection and had 3 days in bed and took a while to recover.
http://app.strava.com/activities/9110772
as you can see the course isn't very flat. bit of a headwind on the way out. I didn't pace myself very well and had to slow down a few times but I got on with the TT bars quite well. my time was 24:08

wednesday - recovery ride
it was sunny so I did my recovery outdoor. tried to keep my power and heart rate as low as possible
http://app.strava.com/activities/9196685

thursday - 61km handicapped road race.
I started in group 3. I thought the scratch group made up of cat 1s and 2s would catch us so I didn't have any hopes of getting a result in this race. rode how I felt doing as much work as I felt I could without blowing up and getting myself dropped.
the scratch group caught us with a lap to go and everything seemed to slow down ready for a bunch sprint.
I'd never rode the course and had been told by a team mate that on the last lap instead of going left at one of the cross roads on the last lap we went straight and the finish was 400m up the road. on the last lap I saw my team mate jump with not far to go till the cross roads. thought he must know what he's doing and stood up to jump across to him. turned round to check i wasn't dragging the whole peleton across and no one was following so I was all good. when I caught him he'd slowed down and I flew past him, got to the cross roads and had a look behind me and the bunch is out of sight. its a shame the finish was 1.6km up the road, not the 400 I was expecting. I completely blew up about 300-400 meters out at the bottom of the rise to the finish and the peleton came flying past me
really thought I was going to win. ah well at least I'll know where the finish is next time.

heres the strava link for my ride
http://app.strava.com/activities/9267585#

my solo effort starts at around 1 hour 57 and I think I got caught about 2 and a half minutes later

I'd personally do some kind of opener ride Saturday, Fridays being recovery spins or off. Same for Tuesday almost. At your level you stand to benefit a lot more from learning strategy and your limits than trying to squeeze tons of shit in in between your races. This is my 2nd full season and I generally can handle a training crit Wed (ride to and from so 3.5 hrs total) and 2 crits or an RR on the weekend, but not for many weeks in a row and not necessarily while peaking. I did about 30 or so total races last year and have averaged 16 hrs/week over those past 2 years so its something I've built up to over time.

cheers for the reply kwalker I am considering doing some moderate tune up rides on the days before races when I've had a couple of easy days previously. but this week has gone great doing just recovery rides in-between my races. yesterday after the road race the previous day I couldn't tell I'd done it, where as when I've done similar races in my training period i definitely could.
I out in a lot of hours over winter with an average of 15 hours a week and 3-4 hard rides a week so I'm quite used to a heavy training load now

today/ saturdays race - I WON!

heres the write up I did for my club forum, hope thats ok for anyone reading this joke nobody reads this


3 of us made the journey up to sunny blackpool for todays race, Ben Lain, Alex Obradovic and me. was very warm but also very windy today, the course was a short 1km simple straight - corner - straight - corner affair with a head wind down the start/finish straight.

The race from where i saw it-

I did a few warm up laps, practicing the 2 corners which I thought I had sussed and got to the front of the start with the idea of riding as close to the front as i could for the race. second lap in i was on the front leading through the hairpin corner and I went in with too much speed and over cooked it. I lost my back end and hit the deck

Luckily i only had a few cuts so I realigned the front wheel back up with my bars, pulled my shifter back into position, got my chain on and by then a race official had made his way over and allowed me back into the race with 2 laps out.

I jumped onto the back of the bunch and rode there for a few laps to get myself back into the swing of things then I started to move up into a better position. wasn't feeling too confident so I kept losing places through the corners and was up and down through the bunch a lot but the pace wasn't very high so all was ok.

4 laps to go I moved up to the very front, nobody seemed to want to come round so there I stayed for a lap and ben and alex got on my wheel and into position for the finish. 3 laps to go still on the front, upped the speed a bit and stood up putting the power down out of the corners to try and put some hurt in the riders behind, ben and alex still on my wheel. 2 laps to go same again.

1 lap to go and I'm still on the front with nobody looking like coming round. out of the corner I really put the power down trying to get as much of a gap as I could into the last corner. I didn't look back but I knew nobody was close so I slowed right down for the last corner not wanting to crash on it like I had earlier. sprinted straight out of the corner into the wind AND WON WITH ABOUT A 10 METER GAP!

didn't see much of what happened behind as I was deep in the pain cave but ben was second out of the last corner and thinks he got 10th, alex finished in the middle of the bunch.

so I got 10 points, £25 and a bit of road rash not a bad result.

Congrats mate, sounds like a real solid win!

How did your power compare to that in training/testing?

Also just be mindful of training load a couple days after. If you've hit power PBs you should a have few days of easy riding/rest to allow full recovery before smashing it again.

_________________
"Physiology is all just propaganda and lies... all waiting to be disproven by the next study."
"I'm not a real doctor; But I am a real worm; I am an actual worm." - TMBG

cheers tapeworm

it was hard to put a lot of power down because the straights weren't very long and the 2 turns were low speed. so no new power PB's but my heart rate was right up for the last few laps so i can tell i was giving it some.



heres the strava file for the race
http://app.strava.com/rides/9381641

I have to help marshall a club TT today so I will be just rolling the 20 miles over to that steadily and then the same back.
tomorrow i will do a 30-45 minutes on the turbo at around 40% FTP so 120 watts. Not certain if I'll be back from work in time to do the TT on wednesday so not sure what my plans are for tuesday yet

I'd say this depends. I hit several PBs during testing in my base period, but being as how I test at the end of my rest week generally I follow it up with getting back into the swing of things if its a normal training block. I've hit PBs in races, but don't alter my rest because of them unless the effort took a lot of out of me and sometimes it honestly doesn't. 2 min power bests from a crit do not seem to fatigue me and don't change my TSS for the day noticeably. A few other riders I've worked with have accidentally hit PBs during training blocks or taper weeks and I'd say the same goes for those situations. Of course, they upped those PBs during the races.

Great job on your win! If you start feeling stale and getting diminishing returns, don't be one of those people that tries to drag the peak out a little longer. I've had people get that "one more race" mentality in their head and it messes with their morale when they become a bit too overcooked to truly call it much of a peak anymore. Its best to realize that timeframe is over and then move on with your training as planned then add on another 2-3 weeks and let CTL drop too much and get in that fresh, but not rested zone.