Training loads not sufficient?

Theomerchant
Theomerchant Posts: 187
edited April 2012 in Amateur race
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 :P.
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

Comments

  • DavidJB
    DavidJB Posts: 2,019
    Hi,

    You'll probably be ok in Crits as these are generally an hour but yes your base will start dropping off without doing z1-z2 long base rides. The best thing you can probably do is intervals 2 on 2 off or get the sufferist videos. Unfortunately 3 hours isn't enough training time per week so you will suffer but base fitness takes a lot longer to loose than top end so hopefully you can start training more before long but forget big 50 mile road races for the time being!

    Also drop 1/2 the races and use the 3/4 hours it costs getting to a race, racing and getting back to get in a good long session or get up at 5am and get more training time. You can always fit in a few extra hours early mornings!
  • I'd say all you need to do is squeeze in a long ride somewhere and that's basically a decent amount of training for an amateur to do I.e.
    3 x turbo sessions in the week (just make them count!)
    1x race every weekend
    1x long ride

    Assuming you race on Sundays - can you not get a longer steady ride in on the Saturday if you get up early?
    Put me back on my bike...

    t' blog: http://meandthemountain.wordpress.com/
  • ozzzyosborn206
    ozzzyosborn206 Posts: 1,340
    i wouldn't do too much on saturday before a sunday race otherwise you'll cook yourself, is there any reason you couldn't go for an hour spin after your 2 hour race, doing that should be enough, at the end of the day if your not planning on racing much longer than 2 hours you won't need to do much more that that length if you are racing it week in week out