"The 33"-Road Bike Racing - 4 races in a weekend

I am trying to figure out my racing sheudule for the next few weeks, and I have come to a desicion.

On the weekend of the 20th/21st, there is a crit on sat and a road race on sunday. I am an 18 year old cat. 5 who normaly races with the cat. 5/4's.

I want to qualify for going to a USA cycling junior development camp, and I need to do some juniors races soon in order to do so. However, I also want to race with the cat. 5's for real pack expierence and some mass starts to count towards an upgrade.

So I'm currently thinking of regging to do both the crit and the road race in both the juniors and cat. 5's.

Is this a good idea? Is there any chance that I won't completly burn myself out doing 4 races? Is there any way I can modify my training in the next week and a half to prepare for this?

I've done 4 races several times this year and three several times.

What I've done is to temper the effort. If I'm not in contention for a top spot, I don't sprint for say, 15th. Also try to stay out of the wind as much as possible.

If you're a 5 all that matters is the start, so don't blow yourself up unless you're going for a good prime or a podium.

Hi,

Are you regularly winning or placing in the top 3 of your Junior races? If not and the Junior races are important (as you suggest) for going to a USA Cycling Junior Dvelopment Camp, then I would not ride the Cat 4/5 races.

If you are cleaning up in the Junior races then you might want to do just the Junior race on Saturday and both on Sunday for the experience and training.

As for your training over the next 1-1/2 weeks, if anything I would taper a bit before the races if these are key events. If you feel like you are not adequately trained then do only the Junior races and keep training at your current intensity.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

do um all. You're young, shouldn't be a problem.

By the way, USUALLY the jr races are harder because there are less racers and sometimes you get a cat 2 or 3 jr who makes you work.

A lot of Masters racers do this, I used to regularly do Masters & 1,2,Pro. In my experience the schedule really determines how well this works. You want the races to be either far apart (>2 hrs) or close together (< 30min). In the first case you get off the bike, take a break, maby a bit of massage & something to eat. Then start your regular warmup routine for the next race. In the second case just keep riding, stay warm, maby an energy gel & fluids. You need to learn what works for you.

In between these two times for me usually caused problems and I would struggle early in the second race. Never really felt overextended doing this and IMO it greatly improved fitness.

I'm sure you could do it. An old man like me did the Masters 4/5 back to back with the Cat 5. Of course I was totally shagged out for the rest of the day, but it can be done. Just stay up front but not too up front.

Besides tapering, I don't think there is too much you could do to improve your fitness in 1.5 weeks. However, there is a lot that could mess it up. So don't make any drastic changes, just keep thigns status quo and taper like one of the other posts said.

Some of the juniors can be scary fast. One guy on my team is 17, CAT2, and is killing the adults in the P/1/2 crits. I think he's beat some of the pros.

Yeah, you can do both the Juniors and cat-4/5 races without any problems. Just pace yourself and hide. :)

So today was the first of the two days in my 3 (formerly 4) race weekend. It's going quite well so far. Two crits today, and then my road race tomarrow.

Cat. 5 was damn early in the morning. I sat in the whole ride being a bum until my teammate said he though he could win on a solo. At the begining of the last lap, me, and two followers, attacked off the front and held off the pack for about a minute. Just as we were getting caught my friend jumped off the front to try his solo to victory. It worked pretty damn well. Four guys tried to chase and one of em beat my teammate in a sprint, but he took second, which is his best result yet.


The juniors race was quite different. Out of a field of 12 a group of 4 of us formed pretty quickly and we pacelined pretty hard for 4-5 laps until we realized we were about to lap the rest of the field. So we decided to just take it easy and chat, as there weren't any primes and we weren't gonna get caught. Our laqsidasical pace promted a teammate of mine to put up 5 bucks for a prime. I won the first prime, but when someone else put up a 10 buck prime I couldn't win it. It ended in a sprint between us 4 and I took second, a result I am quite satisfied as I'm a pretty terrible sprinter.


So all's well so far, but we'll see how my legs perform on the climbs tomarrow.