Training for a road race???

Zingaro134

Ive decided that im going to do my first road race, Theyre around 40 mile for my age group.... Has anyone got any idea of training plans ,tips for the day or anything that will help me keep up with the group for the first 100 yards anyway

de_sisti

First thing; what's your fitness like? :?:

Zingaro134

Its, Okay... Not great, Let me know if you can see that???
The best ive done is 18mph average over 40 mile, on flatish ground by myself

edten

Sounds like you have some endurance, whether it is enough you will soon find out if you race. Hunter Allen / training peaks and Joe Friel are good resources. Ideally you should have a good base of endurance first and your body gradually prepared for high intensity training. This can take a while. If you just jump into high intensity without any base fitness you'll risk injury and you'll suck in road races anyway.

3 important things you need to build Endurance, power, speed. not necessarily all at once but usually in that order.

imposter2.0

Zingaro134 wrote:

Ive decided that im going to do my first road race, Theyre around 40 mile for my age group.... Has anyone got any idea of training plans ,tips for the day or anything that will help me keep up with the group for the first 100 yards anyway

For starters - join a club, then go out on the mid-week chaingang. That will give you a pretty good idea of where you are fitness-wise.

sloppyschleckonds

Can you do a couple of hours at threshold? You'll be fine.

imposter2.0

SloppySchleckonds wrote:

Can you do a couple of hours at threshold? You'll be fine.

depends on your threshold...

Zingaro134

'' For starters - join a club, then go out on the mid-week chaingang. That will give you a pretty good idea of where you are fitness-wise''.Im in a club already,i do turbo training sessions with them during the week and the ''Chaingang'' Will start next week .. i go on one on a saturday with them (40-60mile) and have started going on a sunday (50-70mile) <--Tough.....both groups have an average of about 16.5 mph ......

Monty Dog

Average speeds on rides is immaterial in a race - it's the amount of time you spent at threshold and your ability to recover, hence the need for chaingang experience plus interval training. Approach your first race as a learning experience - learn from it to try and understand what will make a difference to your next race, either in terms of your training or tactics. Most people find their first race far harder than expected.

d87francis

Join a club and learn how to ride in a group! Otherwise give us lot some warning on which races to avoid.

goonz

SloppySchleckonds wrote:

Can you do a couple of hours at threshold? You'll be fine.

Threshold? Not meaning maximum output right? Because if so I can manage a couple hundred metres at threshold! :shock:

Grill

Last cat3/4 RR round here was 50 miles rolling and averaged 24mph...

anto164

To give you an idea, my first ever race was this..

http://app.strava.com/activities/10245436

stats were;

Time 01:12:08
Elapsed Time 01:12:08
Avg Temp 57°F
Max Speed 44.3mi/h
Avg Speed 26.6mi/h
Cadence 96

but racing is totally different to riding with a club. it's all about intervals and recovery. All of a sudden you'll be cruising up a hill at 16mph, then the speed shoots to 25mph on the same hill, then it's full time trial effort to just keep with the bunch, then it's slow down, relax, then smashing it again...

I would personally say that if you get into a strong chaingang, you'll be fine when racing, just don't expect to win every race!

slowbike

Looking at your HR stats for that race you didn't do much "recovery" ... it was one big interval!

I'll stick to racing myself - at least I always win!

foggymike

This is one of mine from a couple of years ago - I think this HR graph is pretty normal for a race. You can see the peaks and troughs/efforts and recovery pretty well. You can also see I wasn't really trying hard enough or warming up properly!


race by foggymike1, on Flickr