week off before a race

tarmacguy

I have my first road race this sunday, and have been training exceptionally hard for it, too hard it may seem and appear to have possibly strained my knee from all the hill climb work.

I have decided to take the week off and do nothing at all to give it a few days to settle down before the race, is this the right decision, or should i be just a little something to keep my legs rolling over in prep for my race.

Also if there is still pain on race morning, will taking pain killers effect my performance at all?

cheers

daveryanwyoming

Taking a full week off before a race is a bad idea. It would be better to back off your training time and do about 70% of your normal weekly load at similar intensity. That and reschedule your week as necessary so that you have a full day off two days prior to your race and then a fairly easy ride with a few short efforts to wake your muscles up the day before your race. Coming into a race after a week totally off the bike is really tough.

If you must take some rest for your knee, then take a few days off at the beginning of the week followed by an easy ride four days out, a normal intensity but shorter ride three days out, rest two days out and a wake up/shake out ride (easy, fairly short and a few short hard efforts) the day before your race.

If you need painkillers to race, then you really need to skip the race. They may or may not hurt your performance depending on exactly what you take but you're asking for a more serious injury by masking the pain prior to racing. Is this race really worth sacrificing your long term progress?