Too many days off before race
 

This was a different week. I took a day off from work on Tuesday and went for my longest ride ever - 138 miles with 9,173ft ascent, easy pace, with one more rider only. Then on Wednesday, I did my normal relatively fast 36 mile 19.3mph with some climbing group ride after work. My legs were NOT ready for that.

I rested on Thursday and Friday - did other stuff- gym, core, beers...

I have a Cat 4 -20 mile Crit tomorrow (Sunday) and planned to go ride some today but it's raining.

Given my legs have gone through enough this week, will it be ok to just warm up and race tomorrow, or what's the deal with too many rest days and not loosening up on an easy spin the day before a race? Never quite got that.

Thanks.

Longer warm up than usual would be the call for me. I'd need to blow out the crap before I could race.

YMMV.

After your long day and a not-real-recovery day, you'll probably want to do a spin before the race, 30-60 min (if your crit is typical and 45-60 min long). Focus on cadence, being smooth, and making sure you have no weird wrinkles in your chamois. After 15 min of racing you'll be fine.

crits last longer than 15 minutes?

Thanks guys. Feeling good. Looking forward to the final sprint.

Keep your arms down until after you cross the line.

hahaha nope, didn't win this one. legs felt ok, but I felt like $%#$ right from the start. Borderline blown up just hanging in mid-pack, where I finished. :/

Don't want to be a d-bag but have to say something. 138 mile ride with ~9,000 feet of climbing? That is a big ride. Rather than train like a pro, train like a cat 3 and prepare yourself to race in the Category that you are racing. If not you will end up burning way too many matches before race day.

I think it's good to do big rides, just maybe not so close to a race. I spent a year doing "pro" miles, rode 10k mi (so 40% pro miles I guess) and finished 1 or 2 races of the 40 or 50 I started. It was my first year racing as a Senior (i.e. not a Junior) and I still believed training actually improved potential (not just fulfilled it). My main goal was to be competitive in the state road race, but I basically got lapped on a 23 mile lap. The killed my dreams but I kept at it for the rest of the year.

I believe that long rides are essential for rider development. When I'm beyond fatigued I start riding and pedaling a bit more efficiently, and I start recruiting muscles I didn't know existed. I also realize if my saddle is too high or low or whatever, and minute differences in position become pretty significant. I tell everyone to go ahead and do those long rides. I also tell them they'll need a bit of time to recover from the first few. After that either they'll just become stronger and stronger or they'll start riding flat.

I'll do major miles at different times of the year, if I have time. In the past - Jan/Feb I prefer to get in a few century type rides (in SoCal, typically riding to Palomar and back, 100 mi ea), and a slew of consecutive 3-5 hour rides. Of course it doesn't help me do well at the Red Trolley Crit at the end of my trips, but the race is for fun, the training is for March/April racing back at home.

to go along with what CDR is saying, I've found myself training significantly less this season (hours wise, in season. my base was the biggest it's been), but doing more focused training and racing more often and I'm much stronger than I've ever been before (I'm at the pointy end of cat 3 races as opposed to getting dropped in the 4s). granted, some of this is probably due to having another year of training under my belt, however, i also think reducing my hours during race season helped significantly.

I do rides like that, in the offseason.

yeah i am a big fan of targetted monster rides...

specifically at the ends of training phases- right before a rest week.

i do a winter camp at new years before i really dive into structured base, 4 days - 3 progressive length and then last short and hard.

then at the end of base i do an all day in the mountain 6-8 hour slog and try to finish hard.

then at the end of build, same thing.

using TT and HC times as a metric, i always come out of them considerably stronger, (after a week of rest, that is)