Will my training be enough to race??

Theomerchant

Hi All, I'm having trouble getting out training lately and I'm worried its going to affect my racing.
I started racing this season with my first race done at the end of March, prior to this race and over winter I had got plenty of training done in the form of long club rides, track training, roller / turbo intervals and commuting (so riding quite a lot!)
Since my first race I haven't been able to train anywhere near as much. I have raced twice since with a first place in my second race bumping me up to 3rd CAT which I was over the moon with! but with my training dwindling down I'm worried I'm not going to be able to keep up in the big world of the 3rd CATS .
At the moment I'm managing to get about three hours on the turbo in the week which consist of a couple of interval sessions and one steady session and then racing on the weekend which can vary between a 1hr Crit or a 2hr RR with no long rides being done at all. that's all I can get in at the moment.
Will this be sufficient to maintain the fitness that I built up over winter and spring or will it start dwindling as I'm not getting any regular long rides in?
Granted there's not much I can do in regards to getting any more training in at the moment but I'd just like to know in advance if I'm going to start under performing in races?

Cheers

Theo

Team4Luke

I think what you are doing now won't be sufficent to be competitive in a decent 3rd cat race.

RoadMeridaBen

I would imagine if all your training is being done in 1 hour blocks that you might struggle to compete in a race that would last 2 hours. Im in a similar situation with training hours dropping due to racing more than anything.

I would be getting in 8-10 hours with no racing but having done a TT last saturday (R10/17) and sunday (R25/3L)
my training hours were down to about 4 and a half hours including race time and this weekend I have another two TT's, Wont be making a habbit of two TT's in one weekend as I struggled a bit in the 25.

Perhaps you could sacrifice a race for some training once in a while?
or you could race yourself fit like me, I've only done 1 interval session this year and im going alright atm :P

Alex_Simmons/RST

Much depends on you level of natural ability and experience in looking after yourself in races.
One of my clients set a world masters hour record on an average of 8 hours/week training.

If time is limited, then ensure what you do is quality.
Ride to / from race to get some extra in.
Find other ways to get some extra time - be creative.

Team4Luke

you don't have to race every weekend and if you do treat them as training and also continue to train during the week, don't back off just because you have a race. Decided on what events you want to do well in and peak for but don't make a habit of training during week and racing at weekends, alternate weekends and look to back off when you want to be more fresh to test your form then build up again and taper down proper to your main events.