Rest & Recovery, Motorpacing, Short Zone 2 Workouts & More – Ask a Cycling Coach 196

I see beetroot shots around in the states, but considering they taste like butt I don’t care about whatever marginal gain I get lol

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Hi Guys,
@Nate_Pearson @Jonathan Thanks for another great edition of the podcast. New user and feeling really excited as I start week 2 of SPBMV2. In the podcast, you discussed the difference between rest, recovery week, and taper. My question is: Does TR have a Taper Week (group of recommended workouts that would meet the requirements of a sufficient taper) that can be placed on the calendar right before my event? @mcneese.chad

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That’s usually the last week of the Speciality phase. For example, Week 8 of Criterium Speciality is a taper week.

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Yes, in some cases, even the final two weeks from the Specialty phase are part of a larger taper strategy.

I think, they are planning to add the ability to cherry pick weeks out of plans and place them on the calendar. Short of that, the work arounds are:

  • Manually add one at a time while looking at the desired Specialty taper week(s).
  • Add the entire plan later into the calendar, delete the unwanted weeks, then move the remaining week(s) to the right spot on the calendar.
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Thanks @mcneese.chad and @tshortt. Didn’t think about looking at the end of the Specialty plan.

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I bet they did, bummer!

I think Feedback Sports should pay you. Listened on Sunday, received the stand on Tuesday. Good product, good European distribution.IMG_20190212_094040|280x500

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So the guys were talking about rest and recovery on this podcast, what I want to know is should I structure my calendar so the my build phase starts directly after the rest week of SSBMVII?
Or the week after that?

Straight away :slightly_smiling_face:

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So the rest week / lower intensity workouts should be enough recuperation to then start build straight after?

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Oui :slightly_smiling_face:

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I suppose build is pretty short and sharp with a rest after three weeks of work.

I wouldn’t be afraid to shift the work/recovery weeks around. In the past I’ve done 2 weeks of work/1 week of rest (instead of 3/1 as prescribed). Takes a bit longer to get through the block, but I wasn’t pressured by time and came out of it in a good position.

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Where are all of these Cat 5 crits where you could be competitive at 3W/kg? I did my first crit last summer and was spit out the back at the second prime and pulled on the last lap. I was 4W/kg at the time.

*Excuses:
Probably could have cornered better in the pack (~50 riders)
Race was a week after my 3d MTB stage race - was a bit tired coming in
I’m only 62.5kg, so ~245W FTP @1000m el.
Maybe the Alberta Canada field is especially strong?

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That’s probably a big part of it. Hammering out of corners because of bad technique or bad placing is deadly.

Here is the power profile from a particularly pathetic crit performance I had riding at the back of a large fast field. The whip saw effect was crazy. This is a little dramatic but it shows how bad cornering can ruin a race. Us at the back were having to slow down to 18mph then accelerate back to 29+ while the guys at the front were doing a steady 26 for most of the race. You can clearly see the corners and, where I finally got dropped after I ran out of 500w matches . . . . :wink: I’m sure the power graphs for the guys at the front were basically flat.

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If it is a flat course then forget W/kg and look at absolute power. Posted this somewhere else, at a recent Cat 5 Crit in Northern California I did 250W the first lap and then dropped off the back due to current fitness level. A guy that hung on had these power numbers for each lap: 269W, 217W, 250W, 233W, 246W, 254W, 243W, 227W, 230W, 287W.

My rule of thumb here in NorCal is an ftp of 270+ to hang onto fast group rides and crits. I’m bigger guy and not as aero as smaller guys. For that crit a few weeks ago I did see some power from smaller, more aero riders, and they can get away with a lower ftp.

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I think both of these responses apply to me.
I’m going to go back to my XCMs in BC with their hour long climbs where I have a chance.

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One of those is one of my overriding experiences of my our first trip to the US. Just outside LAX stopping at a garage where someone filled two of them with Coke and put in the cup holders in their pick up. Suppose that all sounds normal the scale of all it was crazy to me

Just a thought that occurred to me doing Andrews tonight these long Zone 2 sessions are more like doing a big alpine climb. The 90 mins of Andrews was a very similar power profile to the Galliber during the Marmotte. Feels far better to think I climbed that after a day of work rather than a long zone 2 ride

As has been said, “by the books” you have the fitness. What you need to work on now is things like positioning, cornering in a pack, and conserving energy. I’m even lighter than you and have no troubles hanging with the field in almost any crit. Winning one is a different story, but that’s not the point of Cat 5, anyway.