Originally Posted by
Myosmith
The last week before an event (that is challenging for your level of fitness) should be a taper and recovery week. Eat well, sleep plenty, and ride at a recreational pace. Hard training right before an event is like cramming all night before your college finals, it really costs you as much or more than you gain. Now if you ride a century every week and they are like a Sunday stroll to you, then just continue training and make the day before the event a recovery day.
Not sure what you're saying. I don't ride a century every week but I also don't think it will be that challenging, either. A 44 mile ride with a few thousand feet of climbing would be about half my recent normal distance (ie for the month of Jan). The two interval sessions are my normal weekly sessions which are planned to continue through Feb.
I guess what I'm asking is: should I be doing two low effort rides (for me this would be keep HR at 135 or less) or is it ok to do one harder (ie more intense) ride at half my normal distance? My pace won't be fast but because of the duration of the climb, it won't be a 135HR ride, either. Ave HR will be around 145 with peaks in the 160-170 range, which for me is a solid effort punctuated by periods of hard work.
Im ok with skipping the interval sessions, but it is not my impression that a Thurs interval ride (my normal second interval day of the week) has any negative impact on my Sat ride (Fri is always off). I thought moving it to Wednesday would be better with the century, but honestly I think even a Thurs interval session would be no problem. But then again, I don't really know, having never been in this exact situation before.
H