Taper week for 13 year old junior

Training
1

Is this too much 8 days before junior XCO A race my gut says it is WAY to much I have never raced a day in my life, but she relies on me because she also doesn’t have the knowledge and I’ve just been relying on TrainerRoad, but I feel like it may be not serving her well

VO2 45 min / 63 TSS / .92 IF

Anaerobic 45 min / 68 TSS / .95 IF

VO2 60 min / 74 TSS / .86 IF

Endurance 30min 25tss .7 if

She could barely finish the first one ( that I already reduced) about 8 days out because I think the recent training stress has caught up with her. Maybe I’m wrong but that just feels like too much this close to an A race, especially for a junior.

She’s relying on me for advice and I’ve just been relying on the plan so I’m trying not to mess this up. Would y’all follow this or cut it way back? What would you change these workouts to if so?

I’m not trying to start the whole debate about kids, structure, and fun. We’re very much on the same page that riding should stay fun, and outdoor rides/skills/fun always come first for her. TrainerRoad is more of a fallback tool for structure when it makes sense. I guess my question is just whether AI Adapt should have backed things down more after a big stressful weekend, especially going into taper week

IMG_4748
IMG_47481320×2868 225 KB

image
image1320×2868 426 KB

This is an idea of what it was giving her for her weeks in the past I think this is the only week that she did all three workouts inside because of the weather the rest of the time there might’ve been one or two a week.

image
image1320×2868 411 KB

2

Tapers typically reduce volume and keep intensity. That’s why you’re seeing those “short” 45-minute workouts.

When training young athletes, it’s important to be careful, though. That’s still a lot of structured work leading up to a race.

I’m not a coach, but I’d reach out to someone who has good experience training youngsters to get some advice. :+1:

3

I ignore TR’s taper structure as I find it too hard, you have to find what works for them. My typical approach for a Sunday race is:

  1. Reduce volume by 50%
  2. Tues: Short but high intensity workout, event dependent (e.g. short VO2s or over/unders)
  3. Wed: Short endurance ride
  4. Thur: Short recovery ride or travel day
  5. Fri: Course recon with openers
  6. Sat: Easy spin, bike check
  7. Sun: Race
4

Uh, yes. Holy smokes.

If this is the week of her race, she should be doing a few relevant efforts each workout and keeping volume low. That means maybe a 3-min threshold effort and one or two “punches” for 10-15s, then riding endurance pace to shake her legs out.

Race weeks before important events are all about doing just enough efforts to stay sharp and otherwise resting and REDUCING fatigue. I don’t know what TR is giving you there, but it’s wildly inappropriate IMO.

Being delicate here given whose forum this is… but there is no way I would prescribe a 13-year old a TrainerRoad training plan.

5

Thanks, that confirms what my gut was telling me. I was already thinking something similar — a couple short punchy efforts just to stay sharp, then mostly easy/endurance riding. I’m going to adjust it that direction. And yeah, I’ve struggled with the 13-year-old/TR thing too. She loves it, the older kids she rides with use it, and honestly she rarely follows the plan exactly anyway. It’s more of a backup for bad weather than the main thing.