How do you peak your fitness prior to a target event?
MatthewBulmer
Posts: 217
I'm just looking for a bit of advice based on your own experiences.
I've had a really good 6 months with my training. I've consistently trained 4 days a week for a total of 5-8 hours per week. This started out in Oct with mainly tempo and endurance sessions and I've been building through the training zones to a point were, for the last month, I've built up to completing 2*20 at ~105% FTP, 6*4 at ~115%FTP, 90mins at ~85% FTP, and a 3 hour steady endurance ride. I've been very pleased with the increase in my FTP over this time.
I have a mixed bag of goals for the first part of the season: to do my first 10m and 25m TTs and to improve my time in a local 55 mile sportive. All these events will take place at end of May/start of June. I don't think that the volume of training I'm completing requires any taper; I'll just make sure I take it easy for a couple of days prior to the events.
My question is this: how do people round off their training in the 4-6 weeks prior to their target events? Do you increase the intensity of your training whilst reducing volume? If so, what sort of sessions have you sucessfully used to do this? Is it worth me including some anaerobic sessions into my programme, bearing in mind the nature of the events I'm targetting? I'm somewhat loathed to change what I'm doing, as it seems to be working, but I'm very interested in other people's experiences.
I've had a really good 6 months with my training. I've consistently trained 4 days a week for a total of 5-8 hours per week. This started out in Oct with mainly tempo and endurance sessions and I've been building through the training zones to a point were, for the last month, I've built up to completing 2*20 at ~105% FTP, 6*4 at ~115%FTP, 90mins at ~85% FTP, and a 3 hour steady endurance ride. I've been very pleased with the increase in my FTP over this time.
I have a mixed bag of goals for the first part of the season: to do my first 10m and 25m TTs and to improve my time in a local 55 mile sportive. All these events will take place at end of May/start of June. I don't think that the volume of training I'm completing requires any taper; I'll just make sure I take it easy for a couple of days prior to the events.
My question is this: how do people round off their training in the 4-6 weeks prior to their target events? Do you increase the intensity of your training whilst reducing volume? If so, what sort of sessions have you sucessfully used to do this? Is it worth me including some anaerobic sessions into my programme, bearing in mind the nature of the events I'm targetting? I'm somewhat loathed to change what I'm doing, as it seems to be working, but I'm very interested in other people's experiences.
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Comments
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The events and goals you've set don't require peaking or even a taper really, you want to
finish a 10 and a 25, you can do that now. Beating your previous time on the sportive you can probably do already due to increased fitness.
The thing to do is make sure you steadily carb load for the events, possibly drop the high intensity stuff for the 4 days leading up to your events, but I doubt you even need to do that.0 -
I've worked on a five week cycle of Easy week, moderate, hard, very hard, rest, with the rest week coming before the event/competition. I try to plan this backwards from the years major events and it seems to have worked so far. IMHO tapering works what ever you do. I'm a tourist but sorting myself for bigger rides or other sporting events has stood me in good stead.Neil
Help I'm Being Oppressed0 -
Even though the OP may not need to taper for his events - I would still be interested to hear other people's thoughts on peaking for major events and the best ways to accomplish this.
I have 2 major events I'd like to peak for - one in June and one in August. But less significant races on a weekly basis.0 -
ride_whenever wrote:The thing to do is make sure you steadily carb load for the events, possibly drop the high intensity stuff for the 4 days leading up to your events, but I doubt you even need to do that.
Carbo loading for a 10 would be at best neutral, and at worst bad - since carbo-loading will add weight (every extra glycogen gram stored also stores 4 more grams of water) but there is no way you'll possibly be able to exhaust your glycogen in the time it takes you to ride a 10 unless you are completely untrained, and even then it's very, very unlikely as you'll have other limiters first.
Even on a 25 it's unlikely to be an issue. The sportive maybe...Jibbering Sports Stuff: http://jibbering.com/sports/0 -
As Jim says, no need to carbo load for a 10 or 25, just eat a normal healthy diet, and you will have more than enough energy.
Training for a sportive, is a bit different to that of a 10 or 25 mile TT, with the TT's you throttle back on the volume a week or two before the event you are targetting, intensity stays the same. With a sportive, you might want to do something different, though only you know your body and how it recovers from training.
I haven't had a major target event yet, but I have had a minor target event, where I trained as normal until the week of the event, and then just wound the volume down. How my coach will approach a major target event later in the year I am yet to find out.0 -
SBezza wrote:I haven't had a major target event yet, but I have had a minor target event, where I trained as normal until the week of the event, and then just wound the volume down.
I think I'll probably adopt this approach.0
