How to train week before a race
 

I was just wondering how you train the week before a b/c race? It will be my first race so I don't want to be burnt out going into it. I didn't know I was going to be able to make this race so I just finished a little recovery period yesterday. I dropped(raised?) my TSB from -50 to -15.9. Should I go hard sun/mon and then recover z2ish tues/wed/thurs? Go hard sun/mon/tues recover wed/thurs and friday recover with some race like intervals (race is sat)? I'm not worried about getting dropped because of lack of fitness I just don't want to get dropped because of too much fatigue (I can control that at least).

I read the stickied posts, but they were mainly about race day tips. I'm not positive on training peaks numbers, but my TSB seemed really low. If thats the case I haven't done an outdoor FTP test so that may be why.

TL;DR: What #'s indicate your rested enough for a b/c race? TSB or some other number? I know thats not perfect and it depends on the person, but its the advice I'm willing to pay for right now :D

I wouldn't bother tapering before a B/C race. If getting stronger for the rest of the season and you "A" races is a priority, just think of the race as training and experience.

For me general approach is if I want to rest I'll rest two days or more before the race. If I've been doing shorter rides (under 2 hours) then 30-45 min is good the day before the race. I try not to do anything too major.

The first day back on the bike after any days off is pretty slow/boggy. Don't want that on race day.

If I'm off the bike a lot for whatever reason, like I haven't ridden for a week, then I try to get in two easy days before the race. The key for me is to avoid succumbing to temptation. I'll stop if I start "feeling good".

At the same time I try to spin. I find that whatever I do when I get back on the bike is what I do for a while. If I pedal really slowly I end up pushing huge gears until my next break. If I spin then I'm much better for the next bit of riding.

Rest-easy-race
Rest-rest-easy-race
3xrest (or more) - easy - easy - race

I don't taper much for B/C races. I pretty much always have Mondays off. Tuesday and Wednesday will be normal workouts, wherever I am in my training cycle. Thursday will be off if I'm doing the smallest of tapers. Friday is openers. Saturday race (usually Sunday race too). Often my coach has me doing 2hrs of endurance after Sunday's race, too.

You do NOT want to feel totally rested on race day. You want your legs a little short of 'fresh.' If they feel fresh, you over-rested.

I think B/C races involve different preparation. Cause otherwise why bother with a B category if you're going to treat it just like your C races? Basically, if it's a C race, I'll train right through it. The race is just another workout, but with a bunch of friends and a finish line. For a B race, I'll do a very mild taper to come in a little fresher than just training through. We're talking Thursday and Friday for a Saturday race. Basically an easy day and some openers. That's not enough to really bite into your overall build plan, but it will help you be reasonably sharp and ready on race day.

I categorized them together because I would consider it a "c" race if it wasn't for the fact that it was my first. Assuming I have enough fitness to make it to the finish in the main pack I don't want to miss that because I'm too fatigued from previous training. I want to use this race to learn what happens in races. I know that includes learning how much training I can handle before a race, but I would rather make an educated guess.



Thanks for all the input everyone. I think I'll probably do a rest day on Thursday and then openers on Friday. What are openers? Now I'm off to google that.

Here are what my openers look like (FTP = 250):
Warm up 15-20min
1x8min@220-240w (90-100rpm)
Easy 10min
1x9min with 3min@220-240w, 3min@245-265w and 3min@270-290w. Sprint at the end.
Easy 10min
1x5min@245-265w (90+rpm)
Cool down

Thanks

Is there an accepted definition of openers? I've seen all sorts of things described as openers, from 15" standing starts to 1' repeats to 5' repeats.

It's kind of an individual thing and mine vary depending upon how I'm feeling the day before a race. In general though it involves going sort of hard at interval lengths much shorter than I'd normally be assigned for the efforts I'm given. Instead of 20 or 30min tempo i'm given 8min at the lower end of the zone, instead of 5min vo2 things they're 1min. Just enough to remind my legs they're supposed to function, as typically the day before openers I do an easy spin.

For openers, I typically go ride...then tell myself I did some openers.

Ive also done Mexican food openers and sushi openers.

I don't believe this is supported by either logic or fact. Having sub-optimal recovery means you're sub optimal. That premise would make a "no chain" day a bad day.

"Openers" is "open" to definition. Ideally it's an effort that loosens up whatever tightness might have developed on a day off (presuming you took a day off), allows the rider a chance to prepare mentally and visualize, work on form such a sprint timing or TT pacing or position, and has little/no impact of fatigue or muscular integrity. How you go about that is individual.

Most the team rides. My son rides, but the goal is to get his morning resting HR down and sleep. So the intensity is less and there is no weight lifting or Z4+ stuff a couple days before.
His pre-race night before meal is spaghetti and meatballs - no veggies (and we will sometime spend hours getting it). While I think that is less than ideal it is tradition and the head matters an awful lot - so that is what it is.

4-5 days before life is as usual.

For several years I took two full days off before a race. I'd warm up lightly on race day and go. My win % wasn't statistically any different than using any other method. In the end having a system that works for you and doesn't over do anything will work best. I've seen guys totally burn themselves out in the parking lot, and guys do centuries the day before a crit and wonder why they didn't have any snap on the last lap.

every race is an A race. monday intervals, tuesday easy, wed easier intervals, thursday off, friday openers saturday blast em, sunday blast em.

on the other hand I've had some of my best races the day after a very hard race...

usually I just do a recovery ride with a couple 30-second effort. I go like 90% and then stop as soon as it starts to feel hard.

This is often true if I'm racing the same folks. It's why I hate omniums where fresh legs show up for the crit on the last day.

Lots of time spent in the evening with tape on the stem of who matters and who doesn't. That is why I think in stage races and omniums the winners are quite a bit different than in a single day race.

omniums are cool as it allows for consistency rather than some tt beast to tail gun the RR and crit to victory

omniums suck because they're basically a tt beast tail gunning the tt to victory. or maybe the omniums are different where you come from

while that may be true I guess it's a function of where your numbers are, motivation etc. I think if you expected to have your bestest races all the time right after really hard races the wheels might come off that theory.

I’ve only done a couple omniums, but both were scored based strictly on finishing place, not time. Tail gunning the crit/road race will put you way down the standings.

where i come from, a distant land on the east coast, they are scored by finishing place. 1st = 1 point, 54th = 54 points. After the end of 3 stages, winner is the one with lowest total score. TT Sat morning , Crit Sat Afternoon, and RR Sunday morning. Imho it rewards consistency and encourages racing. Not sure how you can tail gun a TT in omnium (im actually not sure what you mean here)

The thing I don't appreciate about that is it encourages dudes in the middle of the field to sprint as if they're sprinting for 1st place. If everyone in a group save for like the first 5 across the line got the same points, I'd feel much more comfortable with Omniums. Like if there are 50 people in a field and it's split into 2 groups of 25, have points in group 1 go 50-49-48-47-46-45-45-45-45 etc, and points in the second group go 24-23-22-21-20-19-19-19-19.

there are pros and cons to both. i raced both without any hesitation. Just saying that Omnium can be exciting.... and i've found that dudes still have similar discretion, at least in my race, of where they will be at the end. Example, noone without a sniff of realistically top 10-ing, made risky moves just because of it. Once some of them placed 50th in the second stage's crit, no amount of 1-20th places on the final RR was going to get them further up the placings. Now, points are points right? so someone has the full right to search out points for an individual stage regardless of their GC placing too.