How best to taper for a Sportive

robrauy

Hi all,

I'm doing a 150 km sportive on Sunday. I did lots of hill climbing last week, and a hard 100k on Sunday. I've been out this morning, and my legs feel like lead now!

Just wondering what people would recommend for the rest of the week ? I'm mostly commuting, but don't know whether to add some hills in between now and Friday, or just take it easy until Sunday...

Any advice greatly appreciated !

johncp

Usual advice is to keep up the intensity of your rides, but reduce the volume. Suppose it keeps the legs ticking over better than doing nothing. Bear in mind that anything too intense done in the last week before an event is more likely to cause damage than to improve your performance on the day
Good luck!

Percy Vera

Take it easy until Sunday, just spin your legs on your commute.
Working hard on hills now will have absolutely no benefit for Sunday.
By now, it's all in the bank...enjoy!

robrauy

Thanks for that - Looks like a nice relaxing week then !

May try some very short intensive stuff on friday..

sampras38

robrauy wrote:

Hi all,

I'm doing a 150 km sportive on Sunday. I did lots of hill climbing last week, and a hard 100k on Sunday. I've been out this morning, and my legs feel like lead now!

Just wondering what people would recommend for the rest of the week ? I'm mostly commuting, but don't know whether to add some hills in between now and Friday, or just take it easy until Sunday...

Any advice greatly appreciated !

Which one are you doing, the Southern Sportive?

A lot of riders do very little the week leading up to the Sportive, if anything. All the work should have already been done so apart from keeping the legs loose you aren't going to get much benefit from anything you do this week.

I've also got a sportive on Sunday for a similar distance, and I'll do 2 very light turbo sessions to keep the legs loose, and that's it.


Enjoy the ride..

vorsprung

Easy commute mon, take the bus tues, some kind of mad hill climbing weds, bus thurs and fri

That's what works for me for audax. As sportifs are faster you might want to do some kind of sprints on thurs/fri. Just do 30 minutes to warm up, 3x sprint + recover then home.

amaferanga

I'd definitely avoid anything strenuous like hill or interval sessions.

smithy1.0

Keep the legs turning, nice and easy, reduce the volume/distance of your rides and add in a few efforts at threshold for 1-2 mins to prevent things from feeling flat. Rest 1-2 days before the event, possibly turn the legs easy the day before.