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.

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.

 

[strader]

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

 

[john979]

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.

Perfect! Actually, if time permits, 1 minute (or 30-second intervals) can be performed in addition to the VO2 max intervals.

Two weeks from the event start to taper. Make that Sunday your last endurance ride. During the week, cut back on the number of reps but keep the intensity high. The week of the race don't do any anaerobic workouts, do a couple VO2 max intervals on Tuesday, an all-out 20 minute test on Thursday and one all-out VO2 max effort the day before.