I had a noticiable l loss of fitness in the past three race weekends (cyclocross). I have been racing off and on since the spring (XCO and then CX). I felt good (and did well) at the start of the ‘cross season but now I feel blunted. I can’t put out the high power numbers anymore. At the race today I didn’t even feel super tired at the end of the race, I just couldn’t put down the power needed. It’s like my body is not responding. Overall my max HR decreased more than 10bpm in the last three races compared to the early ones, my max Power and normalized power decreased too.
Has anyone experienced this before? Could it be due to racing for too long? I had a brief reset in the summer but it was short and I was racing again pretty soon.
I have a break in racing for a bit now before the last few races of the season. Is there anything I can do now to improve for those races?
Sounds like you’re tired and need a break. Maybe have a week off from training, only do easy rides, or none at all. Then maybe a week of endurance work.
Most cross pros have one or two breaks in the season, where they have a couple of days off, and then a training camp somewhere warm. It’s too difficult to keep fitness all the way through the season. You also notice that those that race at a high level in the summer (either road or XC) start their CX season late, so they can have a break and also train a bit. You probably need something similar.
Depending on the gap between now and those upcoming races, do a recovery week or even two, drop the volume a bit, and then carefully build some intensity back in without searching for volume. Almost like a minimum viable dose/openers approach.
Plan your loading better - Use a coach, use planbuilder here and put in events, improve your listening to the body and mind, signs you might be in need of small breaks/unloading.
Well you didn’t mention your age but I think your central nervous system is burned out. You should not do any hard training during the week and save your matches for the races on the weekend. I don’t know your time schedule but I would suggest Monday off, and easy recovery ride with some skills work on Tuesday, 2+ hours of zone 2 on Wednesday, Thursday off, an easy ride on Friday with a few 15 second 95% efforts (you should not max out in training…save your best efforts for the races) then race on Saturday and/or Sunday.
To add more info: I’m in my 50s, have been racing for ~10 years. But this is by far the longest I’ve been continuously racing within a year.
Last week was a rest week (three easy workouts during the week and race on Saturday) but this weekend showed that it wasn’t enough. My next race is in three weeks.
From what I understood so far I plan to keep volume low and only add short but intense workouts, twice a week. Honestly, if I don’t fully recover for the last few races of the season so be it, I’ll race as hard as I can and see where it gets me as long as that doesn’t cause any long lasting damage.
How long is the break? How many more races over what time period are we talking here?
Probably just manage your season better, don’t train as much/as hard when racing week after week. Focus more on recovery between events. Maybe don’t race for quite so long, or accept that it’s part of the deal. We can’t stay at or even really near peak fitness for months on end. I usually have my athletes get to a pretty good spot for 6 weeks, take a transition and reset with some training and then drive again to be good again for 6 weeks or so a second time. I think that’s pretty realistic.
Added after reading the second post:
Take another easy week, then do some “freshness” checking at the end of the week, meaning a 10-min FTP interval and see how it feels and how HR responds, and then some sharp efforts to see if you have the snap back. If you don’t take 3 more days off or very easy, check again. Repeat till you feel pretty good.
Frankly, if you’ve been racing since spring, you probably aren’t going to be able to “Get it back” at this point. You’re cooked, need a proper offseason to shed some fatigue (and therefore some fitness) so you can build back up again.
Your best bet right now is to bank on your existing fitness, do as much recovery as you can, and just enough effort to sharpen up before your races: so race-like intensity but in very small doses.
So you might just essentially ride very easy for a few weeks, then the week before your next race, do two short “race sim” type rides. By “short” i mean just a few relevant efforts several days out to sharpen without carrying fatigue… then race.
If your races are consecutive weeks, do no more than one “opener” type workout the week of. Focus on recovering from the race before the next one.
Most important thing is when your season is finally over, put the bike in the corner for at least two weeks and do something else. In your case, probably more like a month.
With my crit and XCO racers who have a high number of races, we focus on recovery in-season. We do a lot of SST maintenance work during the week (by a lot I mean like once a week), and then their snappy stuff comes from their weekend races. We do a little bit of anaerobic/repeatability work leading into their first important races, but then it’s really all about maintain and recover. A typical in-season race week for a crit racer racing a few times a month:
Monday: Off
Tuesday: Easy Endurance
Wednesday: 2x20 SST w/ 10s spin up bursts every 4 min
Thursday: Recovery ride or Off
Friday: Easy Endurance
Saturday/Sunday: Openers/Endurance + Race
We squeeze in long endurance maintenance rides on non-race weekends.
Thank you @kurt.braeckel , very thoughtful response. What you proposed makes a lot of sense.
I have three more races: a double weekend, than a weekend off, and then the final race. If fitness doesn’t return with the rest so be it. I had a good season.