7 weeks to my next race. How should I train?

Bigbananabike

Hi.
I had my last club/local race yesterday (68kms Auckland champs) and now there is nothing (unless I travelled) until a fun ride / race on Nov 22 - 7 weeks away.

I've got my weight at a good point (could be a little lighter but not much) and am pretty fit (could do more hills of course!).

The race coming up is reasonably hilly 84kms

How should I train to keep my fitness but also I'm probably going to have more work ($) and want to do stuff other than cycling in the coming weeks?

Could I say do two rides a week and Sunday AM ride for 4/5 weeks and then ramp it up for the last 2/3 weeks?

strader

With three days to train a week, what I would do is tempo/endurance rides this week, then 6 weeks out from the race start doing something like this:
Tuesday: 5x5 minutes VO2Max intervals, or 1 minutes sprint intervals
Thursday: two or three ~20 minute LT intervals
Sunday: Endurance ride, as long as you can make it, at the fastest pace you know you can maintain for the entire ride.

Bigbananabike

Thanks for the reply.
I could train for more days a week but I don't see much point now our road season is finished.
Could you define some terms;
5x5 - is that 5 lots of 5mins of hard out intervals?
I get the 1 min sprints (I should've done some of those through the year - well I did - at the end of races!).
20 min LT intervals?

Endurance ride = that'll be my Sunday AM ride and probably another one if I get another day off a week. I'll do up to say 90kms which should be fine for the 84kms race.

Cheers.

strader

Yeah, 5 repetitions of 5 minute VO2Max intervals. Basically go out at the hardest pace you can maintain for the 5 minutes.