Freshen Up

With the last big races of the season upon us and some recovery in the bank it is time to make sure that we don't slip into feeling stale.

When you get some recovery in...

Don't go back to a totally easy schedule all the way up to the race. You feel more awake during the day and your energy stores are back up after you have had some recovery. However, when you get out and exercise you may not feel as fresh and ready to go as you'd like. This is because your body doesn't know the schedule, just your brain. If you continue to take it easy at the same intensity of a recovery week your body will adapt to the new level of training stress. Unfortunately that would mean that you would train your body to a LOWER level of fitness. Of course, this is only if you continue to train at the lower intensity. It is important to include some intensity within lower training volume after recovery but before the main event.

Do some more work...

After the final recovery phase but before the main race you need to do RACE INTENSITY in order to continue to send your body the training queues that it needs to perform at its best. So, you need to do race intensity, but you have to do LESS VOLUME. Volume is defined by duration times intensity (volume = intensity x duration). Since intensity is up that means that duration needs to be down. 2 weeks before the race a good volume of race intensity efforts is about 70% of what you do during a strenuous build week. The week before the race do about 60%. That means that if you were doing 6 repeats during a previous hard training week you might take it down to 4 then 3. The idea is that you keep exposing your body to the high intensity it will experience during the event, but in small enough doses that you don't get deep fatigue.

Don't go crazy...

In the final phase leading up to a big event you will have extra energy and enthusiasm. Interpret this as a sign that you are ready to use all of the fitness you have gained by training hard. Don't go out and do a bunch of hard riding just because you can. Anything you do at this point above the level of reminding your body what race intensity is will cause you to bring extra fatigue into the race. Enjoy the fact that you feel excited and alive. Don't go out and empty your tank. Be ready to empty it at the event.

This training tip also to be featured on: www.CenturionCycling.com/training