3 days to race day. Train or not?

[stormer94]

Race is Saturday AM. I trained hard today doing mile sprints with a 1 minute cool down, for about an hour.

SO, I have Thursday and Friday left. Should I train each day or just one of them?

I'm leaning toward taking tomorrow off (Thursday) and light training on Friday. And by light I mean just time in the saddle, pulse in the 130's spinning away for 45 minutes to an hour.

It's a 10 mile run.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,
-Bob

 

[cuervo]

Originally posted by stormer94
Race is Saturday AM. I trained hard today doing mile sprints with a 1 minute cool down, for about an hour.

SO, I have Thursday and Friday left. Should I train each day or just one of them?

I'm leaning toward taking tomorrow off (Thursday) and light training on Friday. And by light I mean just time in the saddle, pulse in the 130's spinning away for 45 minutes to an hour.

It's a 10 mile run.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,
-Bob

Basically agree,

Tomorrow (Thursday) day off, Friday light training, 130 seems a little low, how old are you? I’m 38 and I would do about 140-145 by an hour for a 25 mille race at next day.

Start drinking lots of water, more that you like to and you will be hydrated for the race.

That’s what I think

 

[stormer94]

I'm 40.

All my information is in my signature.

 

[Postie]

Originally posted by stormer94
Race is Saturday AM. I trained hard today doing mile sprints with a 1 minute cool down, for about an hour.

SO, I have Thursday and Friday left. Should I train each day or just one of them?

I'm leaning toward taking tomorrow off (Thursday) and light training on Friday. And by light I mean just time in the saddle, pulse in the 130's spinning away for 45 minutes to an hour.

It's a 10 mile run.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,
-Bob

I would NOT consider doing anything in the next two days. Personally, for every endurance race I've entered, I've taken four entire days off prior to a race.

 

[stormer94]

postie,

Thanks for the input.

I will say that the fastest I've ever run this 10 mile course on my CT was this Monday after I took 3 days off, instead of the normal everyday or every day ride. Might be something to letting everything rest up good. At this point in the game, to train hard or ride at all is not going to help my overall conditioning. Hmmm, now what to do...

 

[flysolo1]

thursday can be an off or recovery 130>
friday warm up 30 min 130-150 and a effort 20 min at ana threshold total time no more than 2.5 hrs

if you dont do this you will be flat on saturday

good luck

 

[beerco]

Originally posted by stormer94

It's a 10 mile run.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,
-Bob

Run as in running or TT?

 

[stormer94]

10 miles on a bike.

I suppose that does read funny, but we all say it that way. Ever be sitting around the house and ask "Does anybody need anything, I'm gonna run to the store". More than likely you are taking the car and not actually running.

 

[ultimate]

Originally posted by flysolo1
thursday can be an off or recovery 130>
friday warm up 30 min 130-150 and a effort 20 min at ana threshold total time no more than 2.5 hrs

if you dont do this you will be flat on saturday

good luck

you cant be serious ?


The original question is not straight forward to answer. Consider :

Is the race a race you want to do well in ? Or are you riding it for training ?

What phase of your training are you in now ?

How tired are you ? IE Have you had a big training load this week ? How are you recovering at the moment ?

If you are serious then you probably have a training plan to follow ? If not then maybe its time to sort one out ? Sounds like you are making your training up as you go along, which isnt the best way to get results.

 

[ibike73]

For sunday races I would take thursday off, ride friday (harder ride, but not max) & saturday would be an early morning spin ride. Just enough to move the blood around the body, not really getting out of the saddle. I always drink alot of water so I never have to do that. I will eat a high carb meal for lunch the day before a race.

Ron

 

[Postie]

Originally posted by stormer94
postie,

Thanks for the input.

I will say that the fastest I've ever run this 10 mile course on my CT was this Monday after I took 3 days off, instead of the normal everyday or every day ride. Might be something to letting everything rest up good. At this point in the game, to train hard or ride at all is not going to help my overall conditioning. Hmmm, now what to do...

Hi stormer94.

What you described is exactly what I've found as well. A 20 year old with the same level of fitness might rebound in a day, but even when I did my first races at 31 I found three to five days off prior to an endurance event gives me the best performance.

The recovery hours is where your body gets stronger, not in the training hours.

The day after a race I may do some light exercise to flush a bit of lactic acid, but there is no question that I feel stronger and faster after a significant recovery.

 

[stormer94]

Thanks for the input.

I took Cycling off for Thursday and Friday. Decided instead to do ab work on Thursday, and upper body workout on Friday. Took my bike apart and cleaned everything like a beast and checked everything over. Seems to me a clean chain has less drag, same with clean sprockets and chain rings. Still keep it lubed, but clean.

I feel like a slacker today. Hope to have fun tomorrow. Bike is ready, I'm as ready as I'm gonna be, and feel confident in knowing my limits. I think that's most of the battle, knowing how far you can push.

I wanna ride, I wanna ride, I wanna ride!!!! Let's go already....

 

[Postie]

Originally posted by stormer94
Thanks for the input.

I took Cycling off for Thursday and Friday. Decided instead to do ab work on Thursday, and upper body workout on Friday. Took my bike apart and cleaned everything like a beast and checked everything over. Seems to me a clean chain has less drag, same with clean sprockets and chain rings. Still keep it lubed, but clean.

I feel like a slacker today. Hope to have fun tomorrow. Bike is ready, I'm as ready as I'm gonna be, and feel confident in knowing my limits. I think that's most of the battle, knowing how far you can push.

I wanna ride, I wanna ride, I wanna ride!!!! Let's go already....

Man, your enthusiasm is making me consider a late night ride.

I know exactly how you feel and I think that the feeling from holding back helps make a person feel like a racehorse ready to burst out of the gate.

I am convinced you did the right thing. Please post how it went for you.

 

[stormer94]

Race was good. Thanks all for the ideas.

I actually won my age group and was first overall.

I ran the 10 miles in an offical time of 32:32, and I'm quite happy with the results. My heart rate information is off a few seconds, plus or minus, depending on when I hit the dang button.

(bows to the crowd and thanks the folks on the cycling forum for all the great tips)

Right off the bat myself and this other guy pulled ahead and we started working together at about the 1 mile mark (we chatted for about the first 3 miles, and then we got more to business). That was fun, I had no idea how much drafting off another rider helps. My pulse would be about 150 and I just figure it was his turn, I'd pull back, he'd take the lead and my pulse would drop to about 135 in no time flat. I was just looking at the heart rate monitor information and you can see that I had about 4 times where I touched 130 on the down side. We could have worked a bit harder than we did. But "Technically", I suppose the goal is to work as little as possible and still win. No sense running at 90%mhr if you don't need to.

With one mile to go, we pulled along side each other and I yelled over, "You ready"? He yelled back, "NOW???" It was funny. It looks as though over the last mile we slowed the pace from about 20mph to 17mph as we sized up the sprint situation. I finally grabbed a few teeth and started the sprint with about 1/3 mile to go. Worked out perfect. I crossed the line at 169 pulse and 30mph for the win.

In a way, I'm bummed, I feel I could have gone faster, my training is generally a lot higher paced. My average pulse when training is right at 150 or more. We only touched that a few times and I feel I was not even close to suffering in any way. Just a freindly ride. If I had to look at the chart and pick a number, I'd say pulse was 140 average. In fact, according to the HRM, pulse on the first half averaged 142, and 143 on the second half.

I averaged 18.2mph on the first half and 19.8 on the second half.

Great fun, can't wait to do it again next year.

 

[stormer94]

Heart rate information from the race:

 

[stormer94]

Picture after lunch and such. Nope, didn't ride in those shorts... LOL...

 

[Postie]

Congrats!

It sounds like you had a lot of fun.

 

[stormer94]

Postie,

Thanks, I did!!!

Thanks for the advice, I don't feel it could have gone any better, given my "noobieness" and level of fitness.

What I did find cool was that my time on the beginner course on the computrainer is almost EXACTLY what I rode the 10 mile race course. My best computrainer time was like 32:50 or something I can't remember, and my time outdoors on the 10 miles was 32:32. I think that speaks volumes of the usefulness of the computrainer as well. At least relative to my situation.

I feel the 2 days off were exactly what I needed. I was raring to go and couldn't wait to ride. Because they were waiting for some 10k foot runners to finish up, our race start got delayed like 20 minutes or so. I had been peddling around warming up, and piddling and peddling, and warming up, etc. By the time the race started I noticed I had already put on over 8 miles just warming up. Didn't effect a thing, I just went out, knew my limits and rode well whithin them. Frankly, I had enough left I wanted to ride the 10 again.

I also found out that it looks as though I can pretty easily hold 20mph outside on the road. I was worried I wouldn't be able to hold more than 15mph, not sure how I got worried about that, but it was in the back of my mind. Maybe it's something I read on the forums here somewhere. I know I've heard mention that it seems 20 is one of those numbers that is a good place to start looking for a noob rider (as a number for relative comparison of fitness).

It was a fun experience, and I met some great folks.

Kinda like the great folks here.

-Bob