Specific training for 90km RR

jamie_smoove

Hi all,

I'm doing my first "proper" road race at the end of May, and was wondering if there are any particular sessions I should include in my training leading up to this event. I currently ride 90-100km on a Sunday and about 80km on a Wednesday (I ride alone and usually average around 19mph). I also do one hill repeat session on a Saturday and a turbo session Tuesday and Thursday.

Is there anything in particular I could do that may help with this type of event?

I was thinking maybe HoP or similar?

Thanks in advance

Jamie

amaferanga

If you've never ridden in a group then you might want to hook up with a club and do some of their fast training rides or chain gangs. If this is your first race and you spend most or all of your time doing steady controlled riding at your own pace then you might find the surges in pace in a RR quite a shock. Don't think anything can prepare you for that though other than a road race.

What race is it? Is it a 4th Cat only race or 3rd/4th Cat?

P_Tucker

A good workout (IMHO) for simulating the on-off nature of road racing is 15s on, 15s recovery, repeated 20-30 times. After this, have 10 minutes pootling around, and do it again. "On" means the effort you could sustain for about 90 seconds before collapsing in a heap - "off" means pootling along - but do keep the pedals turning; if for no reason than it makes it easier.

jgsi

except hard efforts in races tend to be longer than just 15seconds and opportunities to recover are sometimes also hit and miss

jamie_smoove

Yes, I have ridden in a group before, and raced.
I was doing the 15 on 15 off for Crit race prep, but I dont imagine it'd be relevant for full Road Races. Having not ridden one before, its hard to guess, but I'd imagine longer sustained intervals would be more appropriate?

P_Tucker

JGSI wrote:

except hard efforts in races tend to be longer than just 15seconds and opportunities to recover are sometimes also hit and miss

Dunno, my PT files from racing this year would tend to suggest otherwise - sitting at the front of the bunch following (but not making) the moves on a flattish course tends to require short hard efforts, followed by a short recovery as the move gets caught and everyone sits up before the next one goes. Obviously the big efforts to get away are longer than 15 seconds, but then I think we can assume that the OP is aiming to get around rather than romping home solo.