Any thoughts on Short Term peaking

[Bruce Diesel]

Here is South Africa we are nearing one of the most important races of the season - The Cape Argus. At the start of December I began a pretty intensive period of SST building up for the races in Feb/March.

My goal was to reach a CTL of around 120 for the Argus but have had a nightmare last 4 weeks. I am a Vet Cyclist (age 38). Training was on track to reach my goals, then first I had a cold, not too bad but caused CTL to level off for a week. I was due to begin L6 that week so that got delayed. The following week (3 weeks ago) I started L6 which was hard, but that was to be expected. That weekend I had a crash and left a fair bit of flesh on the tarmac. So, the following week I took it easy and missed the L6. Added to that my 5 year old son went into hospital for an emergency appendectomy and training got a bit blown out the water. The race that weekend turned out to be quite an easy race. Last week I tried L6 again but was really battling. Then my son was re-admitted to hospital with a leukemia scare (which very fortunately was not the case), so again training has been severely disrupted. Today's race was not good - I really struggled riding an overall NP that I am usually comfortable with.

So, 4 weeks ago I was at a CTL of 108, tomorrow I will be down to 94, with TSB at 12. The Argus is in 2 weeks time. My question is: What is the best preparation I can do now for the Argus?

1. Should I do L6/L5 again this week, and early next week, and tapering for maybe 2 - 3 days for the race?
2. Should I revert to L5/SST and try to build up pVO2Max for the race?
3. Something else?

This is a really big race and I would love to salvage something out of the disastrous last 4 weeks!

 

[beerco]

What kind of race is it?

The longer the race, the more important a high absolute CTL value is at the expense of a possibly negative TSB.

If it's a shorter more intence race, better to sacrifice some CTL for positive TSB.

A true taper takes two to three weeks. How important is this race to you?

 

[Bruce Diesel]

The Argus is a 105km Road Race. Biggest timed road race in the world!!

It is pretty important to me - it is the high point of the season, thngs get pretty quiet after that.

 

[Steve_B]

The Argus is a 105km Road Race. Biggest timed road race in the world!!

It is pretty important to me - it is the high point of the season, thngs get pretty quiet after that.

With 2 weeks left, I'd say that you've done all that you can do. Rest, recover, get the TSB up and get ready to ride. Life hands you these curves from time to time. That's the way it goes.