OK friends, talk me down or give me your endorsement here:
I’m 4 weeks out from my ‘A’ Race. Just did a ‘B’ race of about half the duration, now got a recovery week, then 3 weeks of the tail end of my specialty phase and my taper.
The ‘B’ race at the weekend and a longer race-simulation and partial recce of the ‘A’ course the weekend before have made it abundantly clear that my biggest limiter right now is my ability to spend long hours in the saddle, so I’m considering patching the bulk of my specialty ‘training’ in favor of more ‘race preparation’ type riding roughly as follows:
- Week 1 (this week) - recovery as scheduled. Possibly ending early to put in a big day or two this weekend.
- Week 2 - high volume. As much as I want to / can handle outdoors, off road, and replicating race conditions.
- Week 3 - balance/taper. Still doing bigger/harder rides but scaling things back and making sure I don’t feel too much fatigue, getting more conservative towards the end of the week.
- Week 4 - taper/rest. Follow TR planned workouts if I feel up to it but don’t be scared to do short recovery spins instead if I still want more rest. Make sure there’s at least one ‘opener’ or ‘taper’ type workout in the 1-2 days pre-race.
So, basically following the same pattern that TR has given me but swapping structure for volume and off-road conditions - a no-no at a larger scale but possibly an ideal pivot for a short specialty/taper block?
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Background:
Long rides aren’t a new challenge for me - I’ve done big ultras the last 2-3 years and had the postural stamina, adequate bikefit, etc. for those - it’s just that this year with a lot more ‘life’ stuff going on I’ve chosen to give up a lot my big weekend days out and instead try to be much more disciplined and diligent about following my TR plan. Thankfully that’s brought me pretty close to my all-time highest FTP both earlier in the season and on less hours than I’ve ever done before, but it’s also made it more difficult to optimise body composition, so my w/kg is nowhere near that same all-time peak. Frustrating, but nothing to fret about, and still a good position to be in long-term since my main focus is on 2026 when I’ll move up an age category for the first time since I started racing.
The real issue, though, is that I just can’t do a long hard ride on the gravel bike right now. Even when pacing more conservatively than I should need to, I’m coming apart at the seams after about two hours. By the three-hour mark I’m struggling to even hold my position on the bike, and I’m also really feeling a lack of confidence in technical riding ability. This was all stuff that mostly took care of itself by this point in previous seasons just because I loved getting out for huge adventure days for fun whenever I could. And I also rode with others a lot more in previous seasons which meant I was better at being able to recover from going a bit too hard to follow a wheel (and also knowing which ones not to follow).
I also have a good history of getting a decent fitness bump over the course of about 1-2 weeks following one of those big mad all-day epic rides.
So, with 4 weeks left til a projected ~9hr ‘A’ Race, I’m looking at the rest of my specialty phase and thinking it’s probably not going to move the needle in any meaningful way in terms of FTP, it might make a bit of difference in terms of repeatability, and it’s going to do almost nothing for my stamina. On the other hand, I feel like if I focus on riding big hours outdoors in real world conditions then I won’t gain but also probably won’t lose any FTP, I may or may not improve repeatability, and I’ll very likely make a huge improvement in on-bike stamina. The big hours will probably even mean dropping a kg or two (but not all four). I think the risk I’m taking is in terms of injury or illness - and making sure I rein it in soon enough to shed enough fatigue - but otherwise this is seeming more and more like the best course of action.
I’ve basically talked myself into it, but I’m still hearing all those voices and anecdotes reminding me to ‘trust the program’ and ‘don’t change all your training based on one race’ and other familiar phrases, so I want to hear what some of you think before I start digging myself into a hole I can’t get out of!
Any thoughts appreciated, thanks!