Peak Week / Taper suggestions for 200 Mile Road Ride

Training
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Hey TR Forum,

I’ve been prepping for a 206 mile(5k ft climbing) road ride known as the Seattle To Portland. I’m not as experienced with tapering or peak week protocol for a true A event. I’m curious what the community would suggest in my situation? I have an extremely flexible schedule and can fit in nearly any suggested format of prep. I’ve been following AT through trainerroad with random outdoor rides sprinkled in because the weather has been too nice to just sit on the trainer.

I’m curious if you’d suggest I follow the prescribed 10 days of riding scheduled for me (of 12 until event) or take a different approach. I’ve included the TR plan as well as my current standing CTL form from Intervals.ICU for reference.

My AI FTP as been inching closer to 300 with each update, and i’m certainly getting stronger with training while slowly losing weight. I have my nutrition to a point i’m pretty happy with spending long hours on the bike. I did a bit of a practice ride last week that resulted in 132 miles self supported and avoided bonking and was able to fuel well enough with what I brought with me. This ride was the day after setting a new half marathon PB and intentionally done to ride on ‘tired legs’. This was something I learned through marathon training last year to simulate the end of an event without having to actually get to mile 200 in training. I’m confident in my ability to finish the distance and feel good about the effort, i’m just at the point of wanting to maximize what I can over the last few weeks to ensure i’m my best self the morning of the ride.

Thanks in advance,
James

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Hey there!

Nice work prepping for the event! I know some folks who have done the Seattle to Portland ride – it sounds awesome! It’s on my list of events to check out someday.

At this point in your training, you’ve put in the work to prepare, so now it’s all about freshening up before the ride. You mentioned wanting to maximize what you can over these next couple of weeks – what we’d recommend maximizing most is your recovery so you can be flying for the STP ride.

We’d advise sticking to the plan that AT has prescribed you as closely as possible. Your volume will taper down while you maintain some intensity, which will allow you to shed fatigue while staying sharp. Try to eat well, hydrate, and rest up as much as you can over these next couple of weeks. Tapering can be tough, but we really want you to be doing less now going into your A event so you can be at your best for it. Feeling itchy to get after it is actually what we’re looking for here!

This TR article has some more tips on tapering and peaking that might be useful for you:

Hope this helps – good luck at the event and feel free to let us know if you have any other questions!

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