Should I take the day after a race off?

ju5t1n

As I head deeper into my forties I’m starting to think that I should be taking the rest and recovery side of training a bit more seriously. I’ve pretty much always just ridden all of the time.

I did a race yesterday and was about to head down to my basement to hit the rollers for an hour or so. But would I be better off just watching the TV? I have a forced rest day tomorrow because of work, but I have a big ride planned for Tuesday.

JayKosta

I suggest 'rest day(s)' after a hard exercise, but doing some 'active recovery' should be ok.
The rest days shouldn't include hard efforts to 'increase' strength or endurance, but the active recovery can be easy riding that is enough to increase breathing and cause some 'warming' and a little sweat. The idea being to increase blood flow to the muscles, but to not 'stress' them. I wouldn't include any hard sprints or hills in the active recovery rides.

Jay Kosta
Endwell NY USA

paul2718

Ju5t1n's idea of 'did a race' is to ride 40 miles there, ride the race, then ride back. So 110 miles. I think a day off is ju5t1fied.

Looked at another way, what training benefit does a hour on the rollers achieve? What would be the programme and goal?

Paul

ju5t1n

paul2718 wrote:

Ju5t1n's idea of 'did a race' is to ride 40 miles there, ride the race, then ride back. So 110 miles. I think a day off is ju5t1fied.

Looked at another way, what training benefit does a hour on the rollers achieve? What would be the programme and goal?

Paul

Rollers to keep my blood flowing was the plan. Nothing too strenuous. I ate some chocolate and watched Tomb Raider in the end.

Do we know each other or did you Strava me?

BeaconRuth

ju5t1n wrote:

As I head deeper into my forties I’m starting to think that I should be taking the rest and recovery side of training a bit more seriously. I’ve pretty much always just ridden all of the time.

I did a race yesterday and was about to head down to my basement to hit the rollers for an hour or so. But would I be better off just watching the TV? I have a forced rest day tomorrow because of work, but I have a big ride planned for Tuesday.

Of course you should take rest and recovery very seriously but that goes for anyone who wants to perform at their best.

Sometimes a rest day after a race is a good idea, sometimes it isn't. It depends.

Are you trying to build up your endurance or fitness - in which case you might not be able to afford to take a rest day, especially if you have another enforced rest day the next day. (If you always take a day of rest after a race you could reach a plateau with your fitness - it's never a good idea to always do the same thing in any training context). Or, in another scenario, you could be tapering down to a peak period, your next training session could be something extremely intensive in which case you will need fresh legs for it...

So there is no simple answer to your question.

Ruth

jgsi

I should have done better yesterday... hence I have just racked up 115 tss inside 90 minutes... and for the next 3 days...I was a bit annoyed with myself.

paul2718

ju5t1n wrote:

Rollers to keep my blood flowing was the plan. Nothing too strenuous. I ate some chocolate and watched Tomb Raider in the end.

Do we know each other or did you Strava me?

I started following you on Strava after you appeared near the top of some local segments, don't think we've ever actually met though. Anyway I noticed the recent impressively bonkers Saturday rides.

(I'm in Brackley)

Paul

ju5t1n

BeaconRuth wrote:

So there is no simple answer to your question.
Ruth

Hi Ruth,

I guess if there was a simple answer then you'd be out of a job.

My goal is to just have the best form possible for whole season. Which for me starts at the beginning of March and finishes sometime in October. I don't aim for peak periods as such, although there are a couple of races in May I try to do well in.

In summer my schedule is pretty much: a road race and a club ride at the weekend, a crit on a Tuesday evening (sometimes), a club TT on a Wednesday evening, a crit on a Thursday evening. And I usually do a training ride on Monday and Friday. So very few days off.

I've never felt particularly tired or noticed any of the symptoms of over-training. Maybe I just need to stop reading magazine articles about it!

Cheers,

JB

CYCLESPORT1

Your heart keeps the blood flowing, not rollers !

ju5t1n wrote:

paul2718 wrote:

Ju5t1n's idea of 'did a race' is to ride 40 miles there, ride the race, then ride back. So 110 miles. I think a day off is ju5t1fied.

Looked at another way, what training benefit does a hour on the rollers achieve? What would be the programme and goal?

Paul

Rollers to keep my blood flowing was the plan. Nothing too strenuous. I ate some chocolate and watched Tomb Raider in the end.

Do we know each other or did you Strava me?

glasgowbhoy

ju5t1n wrote:

BeaconRuth wrote:

So there is no simple answer to your question.
Ruth

Hi Ruth,

I guess if there was a simple answer then you'd be out of a job.

My goal is to just have the best form possible for whole season. Which for me starts at the beginning of March and finishes sometime in October. I don't aim for peak periods as such, although there are a couple of races in May I try to do well in.

In summer my schedule is pretty much: a road race and a club ride at the weekend, a crit on a Tuesday evening (sometimes), a club TT on a Wednesday evening, a crit on a Thursday evening. And I usually do a training ride on Monday and Friday. So very few days off.

I've never felt particularly tired or noticed any of the symptoms of over-training. Maybe I just need to stop reading magazine articles about it!

Cheers,

JB

It sounds like you do quite a lot fof high intenisty work and you'd probably know when you were getting close to needing a rest. I certainly know the signs (after years of ignoring them) like a heavy cloud of fatigue, and have to take extra rest days (getting old) after races where I've gone deep.

JayKosta

ju5t1n wrote:

...
My goal is to just have the best form possible for whole season. Which for me starts at the beginning of March and finishes sometime in October. I don't aim for peak periods as such, although there are a couple of races in May I try to do well in.

In summer my schedule is pretty much: a road race and a club ride at the weekend, a crit on a Tuesday evening (sometimes), a club TT on a Wednesday evening, a crit on a Thursday evening. And I usually do a training ride on Monday and Friday. So very few days off.
...

---

It sounds like your goal is to be 'good' throughout the season, but not aiming for a particular time period to be 'exceptional'. That's fine as long as you are aware of it, and that's probably similar to most cycling enthusiasts who are not 'super competitive'.

Being able to ride a TT / crit / training ride on consecutive days sounds like you have extremely good recovery, or perhaps you are not choosing (or not able) to achieve maximum performance on one or more of them.

Jay Kosta
Endwell NY USA

BeaconRuth

ju5t1n wrote:

My goal is to just have the best form possible for whole season. Which for me starts at the beginning of March and finishes sometime in October. I don't aim for peak periods as such, although there are a couple of races in May I try to do well in.

Perhaps it's worth thinking about your goals more carefully then? I'd argue it's impossible to have "the best form possible for the whole season". Think about it - even the pros who have nothing to do except train and race can't be at their best all season. They identify when they want to be at the top of their game and plan, train and race accordingly.

In summer my schedule is pretty much: a road race and a club ride at the weekend, a crit on a Tuesday evening (sometimes), a club TT on a Wednesday evening, a crit on a Thursday evening. And I usually do a training ride on Monday and Friday. So very few days off.

If you do the same thing all the time you'll stay the same all the time in terms of performance. If you want to improve you have to increase the training/racing load at some point and also vary the rest and recovery you get. It's not about how many days off you have, or what your routine is - it's whether that routine stays the same and never changes. You'll reach a plateau, stagnate, get stale...

I've never felt particularly tired or noticed any of the symptoms of over-training.

Perhaps you should plan to get particularly tired... and then to recover well from that tiredness... and then you might find you've improved.

Ruth

jgsi

BeaconRuth wrote:

I've never felt particularly tired or noticed any of the symptoms of over-training.

Perhaps you should plan to get particularly tired... and then to recover well from that tiredness... and then you might find you've improved.

Ruth

It is that last point that remains an issue.
I'd love to take off and do a 'Mallorca training week' but it isnt going to happen.
But the guys who can spend 7 - 11 days there doing the mountains each day despite drinking the beer and eating the cake always come back a few weeks later, mucho strong in the races.
So that monster overload and then enjoy the benefits does work.
The best I can do is something like Tour of Sufferlandria or the other turbo themed training block, but it isnt the same sadly.

BeaconRuth

JGSI wrote:

BeaconRuth wrote:

I've never felt particularly tired or noticed any of the symptoms of over-training.

Perhaps you should plan to get particularly tired... and then to recover well from that tiredness... and then you might find you've improved.

Ruth

It is that last point that remains an issue.
I'd love to take off and do a 'Mallorca training week' but it isnt going to happen.
But the guys who can spend 7 - 11 days there doing the mountains each day despite drinking the beer and eating the cake always come back a few weeks later, mucho strong in the races.
So that monster overload and then enjoy the benefits does work.
The best I can do is something like Tour of Sufferlandria or the other turbo themed training block, but it isnt the same sadly.

Going to Mallorca isn't the only way to achieve a greater training load. There are any number of ways you can achieve the same while staying at home. How about doing one of the following:

- Deliberately doing more consecutive days of training than usual?
- Putting in an extra-big weekend - perhaps two long rides if you're used to doing only one?
- Training a little harder and allowing yourself to get a little more tired than usual?

Then of course, you MUST give yourself some extra rest.

Whatever you do, you have to find some way to achieve a little more training stress than usual. If you never do that, then you'll never improve.

Ruth

JayKosta

BeaconRuth wrote:

...
- Training a little harder and allowing yourself to get a little more tired than usual?

Then of course, you MUST give yourself some extra rest.

Whatever you do, you have to find some way to achieve a little more training stress than usual. If you never do that, then you'll never improve.

Ruth

---

And a big part of the complexity is that you might need that "extra rest" in order to "achieve a little more training stress than usual".
If you go too long without adequate time for rest & recovery, then you'll FEEL like you're working really hard and getting lots of training stress, but what's really happening is that the accumulated stress is preventing you from preforming at your peak level, and you're just increasing the need for rest & recovery without making good physical gains.

My guage for evaluating my training routine is a 1-hour continuous session on a fitness center bike exercise machine that measures average watts for the session. Observing the results of my 'guage rides' and the amount of training/rest that I've done between them seems to be a good way to identify when more rest or training would be useful.
I ride the 1-hour session at the highest wattage that I feel I can maintain for the duration - but not quite an all-out-fall-on-the-floor-when-done maximum effort.

Jay Kosta
Endwell NY USA