Post race

bramstoker

When do most people train after a race? Do you leave it a day or 2 or get straight back into it? Easy day with a bit of spinning or collapse and veg out?

jibberjim

Depends on the race, your normal training load and lots more.

On my training load, a 1 hour race is barely noticed, at most it's going to be an hour all out, which isn't much of an effort at all - pretty much my target average every day anyway. So I'll be full on training/racing again the next day without worry.

Instead of thinking a race as an event to recover from, start thinking about overal training loads.

Pocket Rocket

jibberjim wrote:

Depends on the race, your normal training load and lots more.

On my training load, a 1 hour race is barely noticed, at most it's going to be an hour all out, which isn't much of an effort at all - pretty much my target average every day anyway. So I'll be full on training/racing again the next day without worry.

Instead of thinking a race as an event to recover from, start thinking about overal training loads.

I take it by that comment, you are winning comfortably in all hour long races you do! 8)

Anonymous

I think what jibberjim means is that as a training load, 1 hr all out isn't that high. It's when you do the equivalent training load of 2 or three times that when you need to have a good recovery break...

e.g. 1hr all out has a Training Stress score of 100 arbitrary units.

a steady 4 or 5 hour ride may total a training stress score of 300 arbitrary points. It is this you would need to recover from more. A 100 Training stress score probably does not require recovery.

That is simplified in the extreme as you need to take into account the cumulative stress from each preceding day too!!

Pocket Rocket

I see what you are saying and my comment was a bit tongue in cheek, but there is a lot more to ride than a TSS score. 1 1/2 hours tempo would give a TSS score of 120, however riding a flat out town centre crit for an hour, sprinting out of every bend killing yourself until the very end, would only give a TSS of 100. This for me would require a lot more recovery if I really had give 110% and I would be very sore the next day. Perhaps this is because of the large amount of anaerobic efforts.

I suppose for the original poster you need to look at actually how hard the race was and how bad your legs are afterwards before you decide on the next days training, its quite a hard thing to plan, unless you know exactly what the race is going to be like. You could win the race and have pretty good legs by the end, but you could have given 110% just to stay in and could be trashed for a couple of days.

softlad

Pocket Rocket wrote:

I suppose for the original poster you need to look at actually how hard the race was and how bad your legs are afterwards before you decide on the next days training, its quite a hard thing to plan, unless you know exactly what the race is going to be like.

+1

A training plan is a guide, not a bible. Go by how your legs feel the day after - not by what your plan says.....

jibberjim

Pocket Rocket wrote:

I take it by that comment, you are winning comfortably in all hour long races you do! 8)

I think you're a bit confused about what it takes to win a race, it's not the person who does the most work relative to their own potential to work. Indeed the person who's done the least work in a race often wins as the little bit of work they do is at the right time.

But I realise you're being tongue in cheek, so you're probably not confused at all

However even the hardest crit I've done, where I was giving "110%" just to stay in - or crits where I was off the back before the 1st corner and giving it 110% to get back to the group and not get lapped like's happened at Crystal palace. I'm still fine to do it again the next day, the nature of the fatigue from such a race is simply not such that it takes days to recover from.

The muscle damage is limited in cycling, unlike in running, so that's rarely a concern even with huge numbers of anaerobic efforts. It may well be different for individuals with different fibre types etc. So most of the recovery is about restoring the glycogen so you have the energy available to train, and a good post ride regime will help with that, not having a day off.

I'd absolutely agree that TSS alone is a poor measure of if you need a day off, since its inherently an simplification, and also a simplification that rewards duration more than many riders may feel. But that doesn't change the fact that most people will be able to go close to their 1 hour all out paces for many successive days.

Taking days off simply because you've raced and you can feel your legs the next day will undo a lot of the accumulated training benefit you've built up - particularly if you're an amateur with work in the week, saturdays for racing, then taking sundays off will miss you out a lot of riding opportunity.

Looking more individually at my own performances in back to back racing/training, some of my best results, and highest power outputs have come in such situations. And in the summer I regularly do tuesday/wednesday/thursday all as 1 hour race efforts (the middle one sometimes running rather than cycling...) If it was the case that days off were required for recovery it should be obvious via a reduction in power output on the succeeding days. However I see no such reduction and power remains pretty much consistent through out the days - although there is generally some fall off in absolute peak power - ie I may not be able to put out 1300watts for 5 seconds unless rested, but I can pretty much still repeatedly put out 750 for 30seconds.

At hillingdon on saturday, I did blow up 250m from the line having attempted to solo the last lap, and I had the highest power since I stopped racing in August. It was as close to an all out effort as is reasonable in a race, but I was still absolutely fine producing strong power numbers on sunday.

Certainly any inidvidual shoul learn enough about themselves so they know if they need a rest or not, but any rule that says have a rest the day after a race won't help you win races.

Pocket Rocket

jibberjim wrote:

Pocket Rocket wrote:

I take it by that comment, you are winning comfortably in all hour long races you do! 8)

I think you're a bit confused about what it takes to win a race, it's not the person who does the most work relative to their own potential to work. Indeed the person who's done the least work in a race often wins as the little bit of work they do is at the right time.

But I realise you're being tongue in cheek, so you're probably not confused at all

Good job you realised that my comment was tongue in cheek as this probably isn't the best bit of advice to give to a sprinter (well it is, but a sprinter should know that already), best given to a tester or diesel type rider
Made me chuckle

I can't comment for palace, as i've never raced there, but Hillingdon on a calm day is very easy to conserve energy in, even at 27 average.
I personally, am normally more trashed after a 9 mile blast in a club TT than a Hilingdon E123 event, but then that comes down to what you do in the race I suppose.
Even that solo you did at the weekend could have cost you a fair amount of recovery time if it was hard enough.

Its great using a powermeter in a race, you get much more meaningful data than in training, I've had most of my highest wattage efforts in a race situation, to be honest, you would expect that anyway if you're properly recovered

bramstoker

I was asking as after the race yesterday i was buggered I know i shouldnt say it on the road training forum but it was a 1:20 hr MTB race, and i was buggered. My mate then called and we did 25 miles on the road in the afternoon. This morning the legs felt weak, i even had to use the granny getting up the hill on the way back from the gym.
trainI useing the turbo mon/tues thurs/friday doing a mixture of sufferfest vids with a ordinary tacx vid thrown in for variety, i guess what i was asking was should i plunge ahead and do the usual stuff or just tone it down a little for tonight maybe only do 1/2 hour of the sufferfest or spin out the aches with a tacx vid.

jibberjim

Pocket Rocket wrote:

I can't comment for palace, as i've never raced there, but Hillingdon on a calm day is very easy to conserve energy in, even at 27 average.

But it's winter series, I'm only there for the trianing, conserve is not part of the game, sitting in the middle would be pointless after spending the money. tbh I'm not sure any race is really going to be for points, I'm pretty content to be a 3rd cat, being 2nd doesn't open any doors I really want to open!

Pocket Rocket wrote:

I personally, am normally more trashed after a 9 mile blast in a club TT than a Hilingdon E123 event, but then that comes down to what you do in the race I suppose.

For me the fatigue of either are pretty minimal, rapidly recovered from.

Pocket Rocket wrote:

Even that solo you did at the weekend could have cost you a fair amount of recovery time if it was hard enough.

But it depends what you mean by recovery. If you mean my peak watts for a duration would be 5% below what they would've been had it have been a rest day, then yes, it probably did, but that's not a reason to stop training. And we know the effort (which was my 6th highest 2 minute effort ever, and normally those are set climbing Crocknorth) didn't hurt me much at all in terms of power produced on sunday.

So given the success of training after a pretty maximal race, I'm pretty sure that I was right to, but I'll say again it still needs to be thought of in terms of overall training load - including the make-up. If all your training is pootling, then an hour hard will hurt you more, than if you train hard more often.

Pocket Rocket wrote:

Its great using a powermeter in a race, you get much more meaningful data than in training, I've had most of my highest wattage efforts in a race situation, to be honest, you would expect that anyway if you're properly recovered

Only for TT's, road races rarely give you the opportunity to set best power numbers for any duration, as you can never slump over and vomit until the very end of the race. So all my peak powers are in training.

Pocket Rocket

But it's winter series, I'm only there for the trianing, conserve is not part of the game, sitting in the middle would be pointless after spending the money. tbh I'm not sure any race is really going to be for points, I'm pretty content to be a 3rd cat, being 2nd doesn't open any doors I really want to open!

That obviously depends on your goals for the race, for a winter series, I agree that its best to use it for training.
Although it is sometimes nice to win back the money spent if possible

Only for TT's, road races rarely give you the opportunity to set best power numbers for any duration, as you can never slump over and vomit until the very end of the race. So all my peak powers are in training.

Sorry, I meant more for feedback afterwards, than actually setting a range to ride an effort at. The end is generally where the high peaks occur, for efforts under 30 seconds that is.

shockedsoshocked

I would say change your training depending on your aims and your calender. This year I'm entering a couple of stage races that I'd like to finish (actually I'm aiming a bit a little higher but i'll be content with that) so I'll be training through the weekend races leading up to them as if it was my regular training plan.