I was wondering generally what the XC racers do in the week leading up to a race, I have a few friends who prepare differently and they vary from one extreme to another.

I have my first race of the season this Saturday and I am somewhere in the middle, did one light ride last night and will eat carbo loading food the day before etc.

Just wondered generally what racers did to get the best out themselve come race day?

Race day? panic, wee, poo generally.

On the day? It’s too late to make any difference, don’t do anything you don’t need to in terms of physical exertion, drink lots, eat sensible amounts of food you know won’t make you ill, rest, check the bike’s ok.

In the week up to the race, easy rides with some easy high cadence stuff, which I find keeps my legs fresher, some harder efforts are fine but I tend to avoid them 3-4 days before the race and just keep my legs ticking over.

my first (and last) xc race involved getting sloshed the night before and stuffing down a pizza when i got home

my 1st lap went ok

by the second every bump had me wanting to wretch

eventually made it over the line, crawled under the spectator tapes and vomitted up said pizza and my breakfast in front of a family eating hotdogs

amazingly i still wasnt last!!!!!

Seriously if it’s xc I don’t carbo load as we are talking an hour or less, perhaps people do though.
Hydrate well the day before.
Make sure everything is working well and clean, that means both you and the bike.
Tbh by the time your ready to race everything should be done fitness wise, I don’t think there’s anything you could do the night before that would have a marked improvement on your race.

Don’t not do anything for the 3 or 4 days leading upto it – did that once and my legs felt like they had seized up, so keep to easy spins

An hour or less!? Which category are we talking?!

Most are at least 60-90 minutes, I did several races over 2.5 hours last season!

Plenty of point in having a high carb meal the night before, but I wouldn’t say that you need to spend 2 weeks eating nothing but pasta!

I mean more about the week before, not actually on the day, hard vs easy rides, food intake, etc…

This particular XC race is short so will be under 1.5 hours, the marathon season starts on the 24th May 😀

Food intake: just as normal, don’t try anything different.

Ride: I find I’m more tired if I don’t ride at all than if I ride easily, I aim to do 45-60 minutes every day at an easy pace.

don’t change anything in my normal riding week for a race sunday other than rest saturday, maybe wash and prep the bike.

I am much more relaxed if my bag is packed and ready to go. I like to have the bag packed early saturday so i can take things out/ put things in all day – so that by the time i go to bed that evening i know i am ready for sunday. If i don’t do this i don’t sleep as well and am still sorting things on sunday!

saturday night – normal sized carb based meal and a few g&t’s – the tonic is good for cramping.

And the gin!?

goes better with the tonic than vodka imo 😀

I’d say that’s not a great idea frankly… I’d also say just doing a normal week’s training is a bad idea if you want a good result, which clearly shows the different approaches!

Do what works for you!

Guess it depends then, the two I do are the FNSS and Summit Series which are usually about an hour, so you need a huge warm up beforehand.
I personally don’t wind down too much, I’d want a good ride say on a Thursday if I was racing Sunday and a steady Turbo session the evening before.
Like some one said you have to find your own happy medium.
One week in May I’m racing two MTB races and two road races and a 120km enduro in a space of six days and that’s fine, but then I’m not a contender.

Yes I guess it depends what you want from the event. I’d say things like the Summit Series, FNSS etc aren’t particularly taxing, compared to something like an NPS where you are likely to be exerting yourself much harder for longer.

If it’s a Gorrick or similar I’ll take it easy Friday/Saturday, but otherwise just train normally, if it’s a National I’ll do the whole week differently. That’s not practical for every race though, otherwise you’d not do any training for the summer! Road race tonight, Southern XC Sunday this week.

I don’t race these days, but I used to have a series of easy rides during the week before. I’d ‘attempt’ to have a nightmare ride where I kept falling off, punctured, etc, just to get the bad luck out of the way. (Difficult to ride badly intentionally, if you know what I mean?)

Depending on the event and how serious I felt I might do an ‘easy’ race the sunday before – sprint triathlons were good for this as I never felt quite as smashed after one of these compared to a proper mtb race.

Morning of the race would always be porridge with honey and banana.

(Less than an hour for a xc race? I must have been doing it very slowly then..)

Make sure you get up early enough on race day for a poo?
The downside of gorging on pasta the night before….

What you racing tonight? good luck anyway.

I’m well behind this season because of injuries, but the Lantern Rouge prize money will come in handy.

“Summit Series, FNSS etc aren’t particularly taxing,”
Wind your claws in a bit! Bloody well are especialy the first five minutes

Only Eelmore Crit, nowt exciting, good bit of sprint training though, and a bit of a laugh.

I didn’t mean to be as facetious as it sounded, I just meant that you could probably race one of those with some serious training in your legs, as you can a road race, as opposed to a national level race where everyone around you will be well rested and flying! I don’t doubt that any MTB race is very much ‘elbows out’ off the line!

Dont know about anyone else but i find it hard to know what works and what doesnt, so going to experiment a bit.
its weird some days i feel drained and slow and others fast and strong, but i really cant put my finger on why.

raced at tunnel hill sunday and lost my bottle on the first lap and i was dying for some water by the 3rd lap but still finished strong, bit of a nightmare race really as i was off the bike 3 times.. fun though!

Think i’ll do the southern xc on sunday too, purbecks this saturday, so we will see how it goes, i should be pretty shagged out in theory, might dodge it if the weathers shite

That’s how I can feel as well during normal training, some days are absolute flyers and others well, just feels like I should have stayed in bed 😆

My race on Saturday is the 2nd round of the Maloja Syd MTB Cup in Sweden.

This week I went for a light light on Tuesday night for just over an hour and tonight I’ll go for a light short ride of about half hour. Missed my normal chain gang road training night last night as that is normally quite intense. Will see how I feel after the race if this works for me. Plenty of time for a poo come race day as the start isn’t until 13:45 😆