is weekend racing compatible with summer sweet spot training?

[marmatt]

I am about to re-establish my endurance and try to raise my CTl from 80 to closer to 100 with a couple weeks of mid-summer sweet spot work. I wondered what others thoughts might be concerning racing on the weekends? is this okay or should I srtictly do sst work

 

[Spunout]

Both. You cannot simply ignore racing when building towards a second peak. Add TSS by making your endurance rides harder and a bit longer while maintaining speedwork.

Or do what I do, just do 3 hours of speedwork 3 times per week.

 

[Spunout]

Both. You cannot simply ignore racing when building towards a second peak. Add TSS by making your endurance rides harder and a bit longer while maintaining speedwork.

Or do what I do: 3 hours of speedwork 3 times per week.

 

[frenchyge]

The problem you're likely to run into is that road races typically aren't good SST -- they're mostly too easy with scattered periods of too hard. If you're really looking to ramp CTL from 80 to 100 over a 'couple' (let's be realistic and say 'few') weeks then you're really going to be pushing the TSS. I wouldn't say training races are out of the question on your lower TSS days, but you're likely to be hammered on that day if you're pushing the other workouts like you'll need to.

 

[Woofer]

The problem you're likely to run into is that road races typically aren't good SST -- they're mostly too easy with scattered periods of too hard. If you're really looking to ramp CTL from 80 to 100 over a 'couple' (let's be realistic and say 'few') weeks then you're really going to be pushing the TSS. I wouldn't say training races are out of the question on your lower TSS days, but you're likely to be hammered on that day if you're pushing the other workouts like you'll need to.

This depends on the rider, tactics employed, the race course, and tactics employed by other riders, conditions, etc The thing that lowers my CTL the most from road races is the *taper*, not the race itself. It sounds like your local road races are too easy, maybe you aren't trying hard enough or are sandbagging too much.

 

[frenchyge]

It sounds like your local road races are too easy, maybe you aren't trying hard enough or are sandbagging too much.

Maybe a little, but it's mostly just the sitting-in that comes with racing. If the goal is just to flog myself on the front of the group then I may as well be training solo. I agree that the 'taper' is the big hit, although I don't intentionally do much of a taper for training races. Still, there's little reason to enter a race (with the associated travel, time, activities before and after, etc) if I'm wiped out from the day before, which makes me want to at least cut back a little before the race.

It just seems that training (less-tactical, very physical) and racing (very tactical, less physical) are enough at odds with each other that keeping them separate works best for me. I'm sure there are others who get a lot out of mixing the two, but I'd guess they may also have a hard time self-motivating for solo training.

 

[peterpen]

I am about to re-establish my endurance and try to raise my CTl from 80 to closer to 100 with a couple weeks of mid-summer sweet spot work. I wondered what others thoughts might be concerning racing on the weekends? is this okay or should I srtictly do sst work

I'm doing something similar (re-building for the 2nd half of my season, which will raise CTL from ~117 at the end of first peak to ~130 over 2 months.) I'm still racing, just not trying to have fresh legs for the race. If I do a crit or TT, I'll do a couple hours of tempo after the race as well. Masters & Cat 3 road races in NorCal are hard enough that even "sitting in" will give me an IF >.85 for ~3hrs, so that's some decent work.

This is also a good time to do some work for your teammates - go to the front and string it out, pull the field up to moves, get in the hopeless early break so your team doesn't have to work, keep crits fast (& therefore safer,) etc etc. Personally, I think it's good practice to not always race for the win - and if you aren't going for the win you should be making it hard.