Pre-race training

[Harry Potter]

Hi clever heads

 

Can you give me some pointers as to how I should ride the day before a race? Some club mates say not more than 1 hour easy, some training programs say rest and some programs say 1:30 pre-race warm-up, or even GB hard 2:30.

 

What do you suggest? Or give me the link if this was on the hub before

[Tankman]

As you can see there are many different opinions already.

Experiment with them all and stick with what works for you.

 

There are a lot of factors that come into play with pre-race training. Not just the day before the race.

How hard did you train in the weeks prior to the race?

For how long?

When did you start tapering down?

How long and hard will the race be?

 

Personally, I like to ride the day before a race, high cadence with a couple of sprints here and there, just to keep the legs loose. Sometimes I go for 40min others 2hrs, dependent on how I feel on the day. Other times I have done 100km plus the day before a race.

 

Depends on your own fitness and what your body is saying to you.

[Minion]

It also depends on what priority the race has. If it's your most important race of the season you'll do things very differently to what you'd do before a race that you're doing just for fun/training.

[Harry Potter]

I Did the Harties over the weekend, the day before I did a 2.30 with a HR max of 98% and HR avg 75%.

 

I was scared that I will be stiff or feel tired on the day of the race, don’t you stuff up your carbo loading if ride the day before?

[Minion]

You don't really need to carb load too much for a 3hr race. So long as you replenish the carbs you used during the ride the day before and don't start the race with a carb deficit, you likely won't run out, so long as you have your normal pre-race breakfast and have something during the race.

 

My personal experience is that if I do a normal, hard training week leading up to a race my legs will feel 'flat' during the race. If I have a proper taper then I feel good and 'fresh'. The actual power difference between the two is probably only 5-10%.

[Harry Potter]

You don't really need to carb load too much for a 3hr race. So long as you replenish the carbs you used during the ride the day before and don't start the race with a carb deficit, you likely won't run out, so long as you have your normal pre-race breakfast and have something during the race.

 

My personal experience is that if I do a normal, hard training week leading up to a race my legs will feel 'flat' during the race. If I have a proper taper then I feel good and 'fresh'. The actual power difference between the two is probably only 5-10%.

Thanks I will experiment a bit. I guess for a hilly race one will go a bit easier on the legs the week before.

[perry]

I would say rest the day before the race but it alll depends on how long your body takes to recover from a ride.

[The Saint]

Depends on you as an individual - personally I like to do my normal ride on a Saturday if I am racing on a Sunday. I find I am sluggish on race day if I don't do this.

 

Of my training group 1 guy likes to rest the entire week before and do a short 20km ride on the Sat at almost walking pace. The others train normally until the Wednesday and then rest until race day.

 

In short see what works for you and stick to it.

 

Just by the way I beat all of them in the races so I'm not really saying my method is right

[Harry Potter]

I would say rest the day before the race but it alll depends on how long your body takes to recover from a ride.

this is actually a good answer, for recovery differs from person to person