I’m making plans for my A race, which starts on a Saturday.
Is there a reason the plans don’t end before the weekend since that’s when races generally are? Perhaps this is a product suggestion unless I’m missing something.
I’m modifying the training Specialty Phase program I selected to end before my Saturday race such that I can include the last scheduled week completely.
Should I ride the last ride in the program the day before the race, have a day off, two? I don’t have a personal preference as I haven’t raced enough to know how my body will do. Is there guidance or should I guess?
Since I need to end before Saturday, I’ll need to remove scheduled workouts to end mid-week. Does it really matter which I should drop? It seems a lot of work to manually switch 40 workouts by a few days, but perhaps that’s the option we have at present?
I challenge that presumption. We have plenty of Sunday racing in my area, enough that I would wager 50/50 without actual data.
I think that the plans assume a Sunday race/event timing. It’s not directly stated, but looking at the plans, there is an opener workout on most Saturdays, which implies the event on Sunday.
If your event is on Saturday the typical setup is to have the last workout (often called and opener and Truuli is one example) is intended to be done on Friday, about 24 hours before you event.
As to exactly what you should do, that is very personal. Some people like prior day openers, while others prefer time off the bike. It’s best to experiment with practice races/week to learn what works for you.
Keep in mind these are training “plans”, or as Captain Jack would say “guidelines”. If this is an “A” race for you, then you should be adjusting your taper accordingly (will take some experimenting as Coach Chad indicated). Also, don’t forget to check on the “+ Week Tips” to get additional information - these have been very helpful for me.
I think you might be overthinking this, particularly since you’ve indicated you haven’t raced a ton in the past
My A race starts on a Friday, and FWIW this is how I’ve modified the week before (I didn’t shift any other workouts, only those on week 8 of RRRHV plan. Essentially my taper will be 1.5 weeks instead of 2 weeks. It is pretty likely I miss a workout on the Wednesday/Thursday beforehand as well
Thanks for the quick responses. I suppose what I was wondering was what @chad intended with the taper. Did he intend the last day on the schedule to be the day before the race? I’m actually doing the Cascade Cycling Classic, so maybe tapering for a stage race like that is different than how the taper in plans was created?
Yes, as mentioned, if you read the weekly tips, you will see that the final workout on the default plans is set for the day before the A-race/event.
As to taper for a stage race, I can’t say for sure. But you may need to consider more reduction in stress in anticipation of the extended stress from a multi-day/event setup.
Thanks. I set up my schedule to by like yours and train right up to the day before.
I mostly figure it probably doesn’t matter too much, but thought I’d ask anyway. I’m still curious about what the intention is from how the programs are set up.
All of our XC races land on a Saturday, and the way the workouts land for me its perfect. Monday OFF, Workout Tues, Wed, Thurs, Friday OFF, Workout Sat and Sun. Works great to sub a race for a hard workout and Sunday a recover ride…
