race fit all year ?



steelwheels4

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Sep 16, 2012
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[COLOR= rgb(51, 51, 51)]Just wondering how any of you that compete in TT/Road Races in spring/summer and also in cyclocross/MTB in autumn/winter train to be race fit for all disciplines, is it even possible to do so and be at your best ? [/COLOR] [COLOR= rgb(51, 51, 51)]I am in my 3rd year racing on the road and hope to do a cyclocross and MTB race series over the winter, but I want to do as well as I can and dont think I will on my usual winter routine, any suggestions how to manage this ?[/COLOR]
 
There's certainly no physical reason that you can't train year-round. Psychologically you may want to take a few breaks during the year, but everybody is different in their need for that. When I train year-round (which is my usual pattern), I don't try to stay at peak fitness all the time. Rather, I peak for a few target events during the year and bring my general and specific fitness up as appropriate for the event. For example, an event might call for peaking aerobic power but not anaerobic or neuromuscular power. I think you'll find the Performance Management tools in WKO+ to be invaluable for managing your fitness during the year.
 
I also train all year but in the past have took a few easy weeks after the road season, then got out on the road for some endurance rides with a couple of turbo sessions during the week for a few months, basically just trying to maintain fitness. Nothing that would have me race fit. But this winter I am hoping to be race fit for a mtb series and still manage to start the road season in April in good form.

I use Golden Cheetah so can use the PMC chart there. In the past I would aim to get my fitness line as high as possible coming into the season, then try to keep it high, keeping an eye on the stress balance line, life's interuptions would also mean there would always be dips and rises. I never really plan for an easy week, life seems to take care of these and forces them on me every so often, probably more often than I would like.

So rather than see the fitness line fall somewhat, should I try to maintain as best I can at summer levels over the winter. Also, the make up of what training I do to never really gives me a very high CTL as I usually only get in one longish ride and 3 turbo sessions a week. I know from having maybe completed a few weeks with a lot more hours on the road how it can push up CTL, but these longer slower rides would not give me the fitness I need and can get from more focused turbo sessions. So do I just go for it and see what happens, or am I in for a fall ?
 
Originally Posted by steelwheels4 .
So rather than see the fitness line fall somewhat, should I try to maintain as best I can at summer levels over the winter. Also, the make up of what training I do to never really gives me a very high CTL as I usually only get in one longish ride and 3 turbo sessions a week. I know from having maybe completed a few weeks with a lot more hours on the road how it can push up CTL, but these longer slower rides would not give me the fitness I need and can get from more focused turbo sessions. So do I just go for it and see what happens, or am I in for a fall ?
I think you're looking at your fitness as a binary variable -- race fit/not race fit. It's a continuum and you can manage it like a slide switch. I do this primarily with intensity rather than volume, but some might prefer to vary the volume. For example, if I am not trying to peak my aerobic power, I don't do any L4s at less than about 30mins in duration and I do lots of 40-80min efforts. I'm perfectly happy to do these at the low end of L4. And I don't do many L5/L6 efforts, just a few if they fit naturally on the course. But, if I'm preparing for a target event, I increase the intensity and decrease the durations. I also add more L5s and L6s if the event calls for it. It's all about pushing my numbers up to the maximum. Obviously, since I am keeping the volume constant my numbers go up across the board. It's also mentally much more challenging because all of my high-intensity efforts require much more concentration. I can ride along at about 90% of FTP and come up with a solution to a programming problem I am working on, but if I push that up to near 100%FTP it takes all my concentration.
 
It depends on how you define "race fit".

As a cyclist, you are balancing the time demands of training FTP, VO2max, Anaerobic capacity, and neuromuscular power and the recovery from each one.

Can you train all five of those things at once? Sure, but probably only at a maintenance level that still results in a gradual decline. You could not stress any one system enough to cause it to adapt to the load.

Since different races have different demands, you can train for the demands of those races and be fit for them, but sooner or later you need to train the other areas or you lose ground.You could do nothing but sprints all year, but after a few months you would be lacking the ability to actually stay with the pack so your sprint matters.

There's the freshness factor. "Race fit" in it's purest form means both fit and rested. If you do a real taper so you are "race fit" for every race, you would not have any time to actually train. Hence, the common approach of racing often, but only tapering for a couple. It means sacrificing performance in a few less important races so you can get in enough training for the more important ones.

You also have to consider the mental side. Not everyone can handle structured racing training for 12 months out of the year. It's a lot of stress and usually your mind needs to let up a little.
 

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