Road racing season is rapidly wrapping up here in the Eastern US (for me anyway) and I’m starting to look forward to Gran Fondo/charity ride season for some mental and physical downtime before I dive back into proper training later in the fall.
For me a few things change…
Drop the structure from my indoor workouts and replace them with whatever I feel like doing (sometimes base rides, sometimes 30x30s, whatever I’m in the mood for)
Reduce my indoor riding and get out on all those group rides/hammerfests I’ve been skipping all summer
Stop shaving my legs
Add in some long all day rides on the weekends that I haven’t been able to accommodate with race/travel schedules since the season started in earnest back in March
What do you look forward to the most at the end of your season and how do you best decompress and get yourself ready for the upcoming year?
Hopefully some more outdoor XC MTN rides. We had such a wet spring in the Midwest it cut back on rides. Usually September through November is a great time for XC mountain biking in the Midwest but the days start to get shorter.
Hoping to start some strength training too this fall.
I’m in northern lower Michigan and enjoying being outside without structure. I’m also going to loosely following Traditional Base I LV because I just want a break from the intensity for a bit. As for shaving, I’m leaving that for September sometime
I’m taking my dad to Canada for two weeks to celebrate his 80th birthday in October. Ofter that, the winter bike will come down off the rack and I’ll cook myself a massive blowout curry
Drop the structure and just ride. Or run. Or swim. Or lift. Or kayak. If it’s riding it’s mostly easy, mostly outside, mostly with friends and mostly on nice roads (or better still offroad). Basically I stay active but don’t do anything that requires much in the way of motivation or discipline.
Had an interesting one last year where for various life reasons I ended up taking a month pretty much completely off the bike, also put on about 5 pounds, but did a lot of sleeping and chilling out, got all the stress and fatigue (from work, not just cycling) out of my body. First week back was painful, got dropped early on a local group ride for the first time in years. But by the end of the first month back on the bike I was smashing it and some of my all time power PRs still date from that period. Good reminder of the value of rest and recovery and that you should err on the side of doing less rather than more.
My A race is still pending on Sept 7th. Two weeks after that I’ll do a local 50 mile MTB so that I can put my fitness to use in the dirt at least once this year. After that my riding will become a little less structured for awhile. I’ll start do some Zwift races again. Take a trip to Moab in October and maybe again in November. I’ll go for PRs on a few local segments on both the road and dirt. Try to take back one of my favorite KOMs that I recently lost on the MTB. I usually race our local CX race each year but I don’t travel to any other CX. In general just have a bit more fun with riding. I’ll get serious again around Jan 1st but I’ll probably never be off of the bike for more than a few days.
Liveaboard dive trip (no real exercise or bike for a week or two), breaking out the inline speed skates, informal group rides on road and trail, beer, and all the chores I’ve blown off since spring.
We’re starting off in Vancouver (typical tourist) then heading to Banff for Lake Louise and Kamloops. It’s a pre-planned tour involving two days onboard the Rocky Mountaineer. It’s my dads dream to travel on that train.
That will be an outstanding trip. It’s such a beautiful part of the world and you will see a ton of wildlife. I hope you have an amazing time with your Dad!
If time allows, take you Dad for dinner at the Post Hotel in Lake Louise.
