Tapering

portuguese mike

I'm doing a 115 mile sportive on the 30th which will be the furthest i've ever ridden.

i have been upping my training to inlude some 80 mile rides on the weekends which has gone well. My question is on what sort of riding i should do this weekend.

My original plan was to do an 80 mile ride this saturday at my normal intensity level (80% MHR) and have a recovery ride on Sunday then take it very easy on my commute until thursday before having a couple of days of the bike.

After having read the article in cycling plus this month on tapering i'm now not so sure i should do such a hard ride on saturday. unfortunatley i found the article quite hard to follow and it has left me a little confused. Any advice would be much appreciated.

BTW if it matters i normally do about 170 miles a week with one or two rest days

Thanks

binlinus

Well I didn't read that article, but I suggest you keep the volume of riding low but do some high intensity rides every other day.

I would say you are better off doing a shorter faster ride on Sunday -- say 2 or 3 hours at a brisk pace -- then get back home eat, shower and go to bed for an hour or so.

Do your commutes as normal but ride easy on Monday to recover from Sunday, ride hard on Tuesday, easy Wednesday, hard Thursday, then easy Friday and Saturday. Do some sprints to add variety but don't try to do extra distance.

Get plenty of rest, eat well and relax. This should consolidate your fitness. Doing a long ride on the Sunday would do more harm than good.

On the day of the ride make sure you eat a good breakfast, take food with you. If you stop on the ride don't make it longer than 5 mins. Drink plenty. Don't set off too fast.

HTH

Bin

binlinus

Sorry, just noticed you said a long ride on Saturday. In which case do the brisk 2-3 hour ride on Saturday, then the same again on Sunday. On both days after the ride get back home eat, shower and sleep. Then follow what I suggested above for the rest of the week.

Why not do the 80 mile on the Saturday and easy on the Sunday? Well the long ride will just drain you but doing the shorter, faster rides will give you a good workout but also give you time to recover.

If you wanted to get a longer ride in, then a fortnight before the event would probably be better.

Bin

portuguese mike

thanks, i'll follow your advice. Fortunately i did manage some fairly long rides on the last two weekends so hopefully i'll be well prepared

binlinus

You'll be fine. I'm sure you'll get some more advice either disagreeing or agreeing with what I said

Enjoy the ride.

Bin