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Anyone else feel seriously flat the day after a race?
I generally never get the chance as I'm either making up family time, travelling home or going for a ride with my eldest. Keeps things ticking over nicely.
Probably helped by the fact I don't do a lot of short races in the summer, one or two at best. Nearly everything is Marathon length or longer. Until the winter then it's 'cross and there's so much cleaning up to do (mine and the eldest kit & bikes) there's no time to reflect really.
Tired yes, but very happy 🙂 My previous best was 18th place so 8th yesterday was a bit of a shock and looking at my overall time I'd have done okay in the next Cat up. If I can only lose another stone of weight get my BMI out of the 'Overweight' category and get my FTP up a touch then I may be able to do similar again.
Sort of spurred me on to train a bit more seriously (I don't train at all at the moment, as in I have no plan) and maybe try harder with the weight loss...
(I may be a bit delusional, the pan flat and very draggy wet course may have flattered me a bit as I have plenty of power if its flat and gravity isn't working against us fat lads, 2/3rds of my overtakes were on open field sections where brute force was king )
I may be a bit delusional, the pan flat and very draggy wet course may have flattered me a bit as I have plenty of power and if its flat gravity isn’t working against us fat lads
You did really well mate. Simple as that. The course would suit you better than some i agree, but you still must have overtaken 15-20 riders on the course, so massively well done there.
I think you put yourself down on the weight side of things though (as do I) you're far from a bloater and finishing 8th deserves some pride 🙂
@Tiger, sounds like an excellent result to me!
Glad I'm not the only one feeling flat at the moment.
Reflection wise, I was 1m30s back from the person in front, I lost all that time in the last lap and a half i'd been leading him up till then, started cramping up which I never normally do. I did 18km of practise laps, half at race pace, and no structured warm up so I know if I'd taken things more seriously I'd have probably hung in there. Still it was a rare day free from family commitments and the singletrack was fun so at the time I couldn't see the point of resting to alter my nowhere near podium placing by a place or two.
EDIT: on the plus side, having got an xc race under my belt, my motivation to put in some harder trainign seems to have re-surfaced 🙂
See now, it’s Tigers type of post that gets to me - not to take away from his excellent result but...
Here I am knocking my socks off training for top 30 Marathons and settling top 20 Regionals and he’s over weight on 18 an 8th places with no training. It’s that kind of thing that makes me feel I don’t have the dna to progress and therefore, what’s the point?
Here I am knocking my socks off training for top 30 Marathons and settling top 20 Regionals and he’s over weight on 18 an 8th places with no training. It’s that kind of thing that makes me feel I don’t have the dna to progress and therefore, what’s the point?
Arguably his was in a lower Cat than you ?
When he says no training, it's no STRUCTURED training, the bloke trains as hard as the next man, he puts in many hours on both outdoor and Zwift at high intensity.
Good to see everyone out and racing at the weekend. I was at cub camp, but even if I wasn't i'm still far from being able to race. More time at the physio than on a bike right now.....rubbish!
Checkendon is a proper power monsters course imo. I always get hammered there but can do better at the hilly rounds. Kryton - you'd be the same I imagine. 8th with no training is pretty awesome though - nice one Tiger!
edit - just seen weeksy's post. Yeah a mate near me has been working hard on zwift and is now much quicker.
Hopefully i cheered you up Kryton with a 25th 🙂
what’s the point?
Do you enjoy it? If not, it's a question that's well worth considering.
I know I'm highly unlikely to win an event overall, I just don't have the training time and I doubt the right genetic mix; but I know I can get to within podium bothering positions, as this weekend at Ten Under (4th Vet) demonstrates and last year at Torq 12:12 (5th vet). After that I do think it's just down to genetics and time.
Here I am knocking my socks off training for top 30 Marathons and settling top 20 Regionals and he’s over weight on 18 an 8th places with no training. It’s that kind of thing that makes me feel I don’t have the dna to progress and therefore, what’s the point?
Did I mention I also have chronic asthma.. 🙂
I raced in the Open Cat which is beginners really, if I'd been in the Sport Cat I'd have placed 30th or something so I'm miles off the mark really but for me I'm pleased.
(should've raced in the Elite Cat though as I would have come 3rd 🙂 )
http://my3.raceresult.com/89355/results?lang=en#17_92F582
And yes, I use Zwift and I ride my bike a fair bit but as I spoke to Weeksy about at the start, I went because I enjoy it, I know I'll never win anything while racing I tend to push a bit harder and really enjoy it so it's a good workout as much as anything.
Do you enjoy it? If not, it’s a question that’s well worth considering.
This. You’re lucky enough to live in an area with large fields so I imagine there is close racing throughout the placings. Ask yourself if you want to watch what you eat and put the structured training in and battle for 20th (say 10-15th in a couple of years training) or just enjoy riding your bike and battle for 30th and have another cake (I write while eating a Chelsea bun).
We all have to work and have enough stress in our lives as it is, personally at the moment I’ve come to the conclusion I’d rather mess around in the woods rather than bash out intervals and stop worrying about whether another ice-cream will affect my watts per kg. The chat before and after a race is the same, the act of competing is the same, it’s just a non podium (thus basically irrelevant) number that’s changing.
This attitude may change before cx season but when i was training seriously a couple of years ago I found it mentally exhausting and not sustainable. I've probably only dropped two placings stopping strucutred stuff (we have small fields)
I'd have enjoyed it a LOT more if conditions were like last year at the same place. Last year was bone dry and fast.... yesterday was sloppy and slimey !
Overall though for me it's the same as Tiger... It's rare i get the chance to test myself outdoors, to push, push and push more, it's all to easy when you're out with mates or alone to just cruise the odd segment, cruise 10 mins here or there... Ease off a bit, but as we know, when you're racing, you may try to recover at times, but there's no cruising going on. That in itself is very enjoyable.
Agree Weeksy, it focusses the attention all right! Also I'm not comfrotable riding race pace outside of races unless on oficial mtb trails (hence man made to some extent). On natural trails there is too much chance to come around a corner into a group of walkers or horses so races give the oppurtunity to go full blast on natural trails without that concern
On natural trails there is too much chance to come around a corner into a group of walkers or horses so races give the oppurtunity to go full blast on natural trails without that concern
At my speed i could send them an email and they'll still have enough time to get out of the way 🙂
When he says no training, it’s no STRUCTURED training, the bloke trains as hard as the next man, he puts in many hours on both outdoor and Zwift at high intensity.
Ah, a ringer then 😉
Yes I do enjoy it, and the training also, although less so just now when I nearly left my elevenses on the floor. I'm a bit dispirited at the moment, And I've alluded to before, I'm at the end of 5 months coaching and although there are small signs of being stronger in places, both a deviation from XC specific training and a variation in course structures & conditions in Marathons haven't allowed me to see if I've improved measurably, which is a little hard mentally. If I follow the same pattern for 2019, I'll have to wait until then to see if I've improved.
Even the 15s, 30s, 1m, 2m, 3m 2m, 1m, 30s, 15s session I've just done was 20% below par across the board on power. Jetlag from my recent trip,? Maybe I suppose.
20% is a LOT ....without wanting to dampen your spirits even more... that's a MASSIVE chunk down
I did do 90k/4hrs of zone 2 as well yesterday, that could be a factor.
Anyway, some more Z2 Wednesday and Thursday and I'm racing Sunday, MSG at Phoenix bike park.
I've a choice on Saturday of a prescribed pre-race on the turbo, or a 10k Time Trial, not sure which yet 🙂
lol you think ?
If you enjoy the training side then crack on.
I'd be speaking to my coach (if I had one) about measuring performance and concerns about drops in power, not an internet message board!
I was a bit worried that I wouldn't enjoy this season as much as last season. I was fortunate enough to be at the pointy end of the Sport category and just missed out on a podium at the nationals with a 4th. I was a bit gutted to have missed out on a lovely British Cycling trophy knowing that I'd be mincing in the mid pack (at best) of Expert category should I end up there this year, which somehow I have done!
I've trained my socks off since October last year and I'm found myself smack bang in the middle of the results and I couldn't be happier. Turns out I'm really not bothered if i'm in the top 10% or the bottom 10% so long as I have fun. My last race at Dalby was the most fun race I think I've ever had.
I've got a few rivals that I race regularly, I track my progress against where I finish against them. It's also good to review strava segments on courses that I've raced in previous years to see if I am actually going faster....
I got lapped in my last race towards the end of the last lap by Grant Fergusson. I tried to hold his wheel for as long as possible.... That was a rude awakening!
I’d be speaking to my coach (if I had one) about measuring performance and concerns about drops in power, not an internet message board!
I am. He says I'm stronger and fitter and is encouraging an FTP test in June after BeMC, perhaps demonstrated by a 48th place vs 60th place Vet in the Builth Marathon. I also took a wrong turn which if I eliminate the time of that (I used strava to carefully calculate it) would have put me 30th. Oh and I broke the top of two Boa's when I fell of halfway also, so shoe was flapping a bit.
Personally I think the Builth result and the drop in XC-ability plus the above power drop in the "sharp" bits means I've turned into a Diesel a bit more. Which I guess for BeMC and Marathons is about right...
I got lapped in my last race towards the end of the last lap by Grant Fergusson. I tried to hold his wheel for as long as possible…. That was a rude awakening!
To be fair he's pretty handy, even if he does ride a slightly funky looking bike.
What’s BeMC ?
He says I’m stronger and fitter
What is he basing that on? Clearly it's sinesomet you don't see, so what's he extrapolated to draw that conclusion?
What is he basing that on?
Lower HR & higher power output during 4h efforts, increased power & endurance over 3,8 & 20 min efforts.
By coincidence he's just called me. I forgot to tell him I'd walked 10k a day in Vancouver last week, so that, jet lag, together with yesterdays 80k and he says probably my neuromuscular memory of short hard efforts being a bit lacking as I focused on endurance efforts over the last 6 weeks all contributed to a fatigue based output today.
Going forward MSG Sunday will be my last bit of intensity before stuffing my face with Carbs pre-BeMC the following week. He's suggest riding a bit of high cadence over the next few workouts after some rest to get my legs firing again. He reckons I'm fit enough not only to finish the 3 days, but with appropriate pacing days 1& 2 to go on an push for a good result on day 3. I'll let you know how that turns out 😀
Full write ups please!
Sure, when I've stopped shaking and my legs work again...
http://forums.mtbr.com/xc-racing-training/good-read-1075414.html
Interesting read here and really brings home to me why i'll never be more than 25/40. The difference in dedication, planning, effort etc that people put in really seems massive to me. All the SST training, the Z2, Z3, Z whatever and the perseverence to do what is needed at the right times.
For me now, it's going to be back to Zwift racing along with just enjoying the riding. Due to locations of events and holidays, i won't be doing either round 2 or round 3 of the Southern XC series, but i may jump back in for the final round.
This:
Zone 1: 50%
Zone 2: 23%
Zone 3: 12%
Zone 4: 7%
Zone 5: 3.5%
Zone 6: 3.5%
Is very close to my profile, although I've a more Z5 and less Z1 which is because I have less time than she does. But weeksy yes, this is what we discussed in the other thread. I'm finding coached training very hard, and you do have ups & downs mentally due to the expectation and accountability.
There's a really good Tri article I posted a link to, which explains that you need to train very hard, and rest very easy. Essentially if you are completing the last few mins/secs of a series of Z4/5/6 intervals you haven't gone hard enough, but equally you need to rest very hard. Note my Vancouver walks in my post above during which my coaches expectation was of a "rest" week after a hard 4 week block - now validated by Mrs K's Apple Watch as >10k per day walking for 4 days; I got my wrist slapped about that last night on the basis of not being rested to expectation.
P.S. despite underperforming to power yesterday, the 15s and 30s intervals had me on the verge of puking. Thats where you need to be.
P.S. despite underperforming to power yesterday, the 15s and 30s intervals had me on the verge of puking. Thats where you need to be.
I'm passed them days personally. Sure i work hard in shortish Zwift races, but there's hard and there's 'about to die', i don't have the ability/desire to hit the about to die any more/currently.
Out of interest though, are your Z's power or HR ?
Not everyone has a PM so access to your actual power zones for many of us out there is very limited. Sure i can get the info if i've Zwifted from the Snap, but outdoors, i have no idea what either my HR is or my power. I've got a Garmin watch and a HR strap. But i rarely use either outdoors. For some reason my HR strap doesn't register in Strava despite it being a Garmin, maybe because it's Ant+ and my phone doesn't see Ant+ ?
Yep that article that weeksy posted is interesting. I know that I (and I'm sure many other recreational racers) make my easy rides not easy enough which means I'm not fresh enough to my intervals with enough intensity. But then spinning around just doesnt seem productive at all and its quite boring.
This mornings ride was a classic example, bad nights sleep meant I wasnt feeling fresh enough to do some planned intervals especially with sundays race in my legs so i figured i'd ride for an hour at an easy pace ubt ending up with my hr regularly getting to 170 which is over threshold for me - i find it hard not too going up hills. So now I'm tired but with no real feeling of doing beneficail training.
I'd be interested to know how other structure their training in a post race week. Although I'm not really doing any strucutred training, I like to semi-stucture my rides so I don't overtrian and still get some beneficial addaptations. Typically I do a hard ride on tues, thurs and sat with an easy ride on wds, rest mon and fri and a longer ride on sun at a moderate pace. These days I just cant recover from a race quick enough to do a hard ride on tues. I'm thinking the best way will be an easy ride on tues to flush out the legs, keep the weds ride easy as well but put in a few short intervals and then back to normal on thurs. I'm not sure if this, with a taper the week before will lead to too much time not pushing it and increase the CTL load drop that Rollingdonut was mentioning furter up the thread.
edit. also to do full on efforts i think a turbo is best, but I'm not focussed enough for turboing for the moment
edit 2. the article also confirms my belief that xco is an ideal base for cx, which is nice because the belief was based solely on it being what i wanted to do (race xc but 'specialise' in cx)
But then spinning around just doesnt seem productive at all and its quite boring.
Have a google of Mitochrondria production and the difference in how the body is fuelled Z2 & below vs Z3 and above - it all came together for me when I learned that.
@Weeksy - I use power for training, but don't have power on my MTB. What I've learned in training is what my HR range is while I'm sitting in a 20min 95% FTP effort (for example). Say that's roughly 160BPM, I then sit on 160 BPM during a longer climb knowing I'm churning out at roughly 95%. I then know 145BPM is middle Z3, and 130 BPM is top Z2, so can use that information.
The Builth Marathon was the first event I did where I properly targeted riding within Zones, and sometimes it felt a little too easy, but then again I was able to manage the power on the last climb the same as the first. And I improved my time to leader by 18%.
Had a bit of a read, but need to read more i think. One thing I am unclear about is how long a z2 ride needs to be to be beneficial. I normally have max 2.5hrs at my disposal on the weekend and 1.5hrs in the week, so the 4hr z2 rides are not viable.
Had a bit of a read, but need to read more i think. One thing I am unclear about is how long a z2 ride needs to be to be beneficial. I normally have max 2.5hrs at my disposal on the weekend and 1.5hrs in the week, so the 4hr z2 rides are not viable.
That's where it all moves from being fun into "WTF" for me. Lets say for example i'm out on a Saturday ride on the MTB, then i have to sit at a certain pace, a certain cadence to stay in a particular Z, be that a power related one or a HR related one. So what happens when you get to a short sharp incline, your HR spikes, your power spikes and suddenly it's all become a waste of time ? How's that right then? surely not. If it has to be Z2, how much of it has to be Z2 ? 80% ? 99% ... What happens if you let the power/hr drop on a particular flat/minor downhill ? It all seems incredibly tough to fit into a particular ride to me.
Agreed to certain extent weeksy, I think its why a lot of serious folk do a lot of on road training where its easier to control. I'm happ to go for cruisy sight seeing rides but like you say keeping within the zone offroad is basically impossible.
That Annika Langvad blog up there is brilliant, and pretty much lines up with what I've found the last season. Incidentally, Annika is one of my favourite athletes at the moment, just really strong without being 'showy', and doing a full time dental degree alongside it. Bloody awesome.
The past 6 months or so I've definitely been approaching things from a marathon perspective, and have gotten stronger in just about everything except CX. I've not actually increased the average hours on the bike that much, but gotten a lot more consistent load in than previous years, which seems to have been the main difference. A friend of mine who's been training with power for years now said the only reliable correlating metric to race performance he's found is consistency, not training stress, fitness, form, whatever.
It's easy to forget that XCO is a firmly aerobic sport. I've often found myself caught up in worrying about the sprint off the line or jostling for position, when the proper meat of the race is flogging yourself along and having the aerobic capacity to maintain it.
Also, usually to my dismay, it turns out high level marathon races take off just as quickly as XCO, they just go on a bit longer!
To put a bit of evidence to it, I'm not quite hitting the same peak wattages for >5 minute efforts as 2 years ago (when I was fully XCO focused), but the repeatability of what I can do has jumped up massively.
E.g. somewhere like Hopton with a hefty 5 minute climb in it, in my junior days I would have shot off and done 450w up it the first lap, then crawled along for the rest of the race, losing far many more places than I ever gained on the first climb. These days I might average 400w up it each lap, probably getting dropped by the skinny chaps, but having a much better race overall.
Kryton: have you got any measures of how repeatable your peak power is, or what kind of numbers you're hitting towards the end of a race or hard ride? I suspect that like me, you might have gained in consistent repeatability what you've lost in the peaks.
I'm trying to collect some ideas and studies about this sort of thing together for a blog post sometime. although I'd best finish all this sodding coursework first.
Weeksy- I’ve always sensed you have an innate aversion to structure. Not sure if something has happened in your past that makes you want to make everything ‘fun’ to avoid falling out of love with it??
But basically, you are being too dogmatic.
Training isn’t hard or complicated. It’s a case of applying stress then letting your body fix you stronger.
Too much stress (tons of Zwift races 🤣)- you don’t improve
Too much rest - you don’t improve
I’d take what people on 800hrs a year do with a pinch of salt when applying it to your own riding.
On half that time- you don’t have the luxury of long aerobic rides. But there are ways to cheat. Short hard Vo2 max intervals are a great substitute.
No appetite for ‘intervals’? Call them Hill repeats and do them out on the trails on a fun steep climb. When you get back and look on Strava- you’ll see that spread of intensity listed above. The cruise to the Hill and the ten times you rolled back down to the bottom will add up surprisingly quickly and you’ll see that only the few minutes of powering up the hill were actually tough. Polarised training doesn’t have to mean noodling around aimlessly.
Another good cheat is to spend the first hour of say a two hour weekend ride going full gas. This could be trails ridden as a race sim. Then, once you are totally depleted and knackered- don’t eat any carbs, get out on to the lanes and ride back for an hour in Z2. It replicates a lot of the adaptions you may get in hour four of a long Z2 ride.
Specificity becomes more important the less time you have. You need to get the race like intensity in- especially the closer you get to your race.
None of these things are complicated or require any more forethought than a week in advance when you pick a Zwift race or two that catch your fancy.
Went hard today? Go easy tomorrow.
Fav Zwift race tomorrow? Go easy today.
6 days in a row? Have a day off.
3 tough weeks? Make next week all easy spins.
Structured training doesn’t have to be anything more taxing than doing what you already do in a more advantageous order 🤷🏻♂️🤷🏻♂️
Also- you lost weight really quick. That’s a tough gig for maintaining performance. So be proud of what you achieved there and give yourself time to increase your power again.
Bit of an update on my own results too.
I missed Dalby (shame as it seemed they actually used the techy bits this time) for the European marathon champs in Eastern Italy. It was a particularly savage course, 104km with some 3000m climbing, most of which was in one sodding great mountain in the middle.
Unfortunately I really seemed to suffer in the heat, got a bit heatstroke-y I think. It was only 26 degrees, but really strong sun, and climbing very steep gradients without any shade. I dropped well down the rankings, before properly popping and having to sit down. Even in the shade and stationary I was uncontrollably panting like some fat labrador for a good half an hour, really quite scary, and not anything I've experienced before. The 20km back to the car after I pulled out was all downhilll or flat, but still took me 2 odd hours. 288w NP for the 3 hours of racing I managed.
The weekend just gone I came over all weird and did a road race: the BUCS university champs on the Bulmer course. I knew I was a but ill, but after one lap (of 7) I realised it was worse than I thought, so I limped back to the car (again). 8 hour round trip for 45 minutes of racing!
Another good cheat is to spend the first hour of say a two hour weekend ride going full gas. This could be trails ridden as a race sim. Then, once you are totally depleted and knackered- don’t eat any carbs, get out on to the lanes and ride back for an hour in Z2. It replicates a lot of the adaptions you may get in hour four of a long Z2 ride.
Thats really useful @crosshair, thanks!
[edit: didnt see post] @padkinson - sounds quite nasty re. the heat. Unlucky. I guess its soemthing your body needs to get used to. I've only once raced when it was properly hot and I hated every minute.
It’s easy to forget that XCO is a firmly aerobic sport.
You say that but on flatter races i'm not so sure. Looking at my HR trace from sunday (Pembrey) i was pretty much over threshold the entire race (for reference my max HR is somewhere around 189 (based on cx race data). Obviously there will have been micro recoveries that HR doesnt pick up. There also looks to be a gradual decline in speed though so I guess if I had a power meter it might tell a differnet story
Sounds brutal @padkinson I think XCM is where I'll be heading once I've had my fill of XCO.
How much do you weigh if you don't mind me asking? W/kg? Just wondering what kind of figures it takes to make Elite.
Dalby was great fun, much more fun than last year that's for sure. Although they didn't open the drop at the begining of that rocky gully. Medusas drop was techy and rooty fun.
@ferrals Nicked it from TR 🤣
Many of their Vo2 max sets have 30mins Z2 tacked on the end for the same reason and it’s some of the hardest minutes I’ll do all week.
(Baird +6 is the one I was thinking of)
How much do you weigh if you don’t mind me asking? W/kg? Just wondering what kind of figures it takes to make Elite.
About 74-75kg at the moment. I'm hoping to lose a kilo or two by July. I think I'm definitely at the lower end of the elite field as far as w/kg goes, I try to make up for it by going round corners quickly, which is probably why I crash so much!
EDIT: w/kg wise:
4.86 FTP
5.12 20 min
6.01 5 min
8.76 1 min
Not sure if something has happened in your past that makes you want to make everything ‘fun’ to avoid falling out of love with it??
Very observant. Motorbike racing happened
I loved racing motorbikes. But found the pressure and intensity of faster faster, better better, lap after lap, session after session destroyed my love of the sport. Along with a bit of the post race blues we discussed earlier this week and a failure to acomplish goals and targets of racing the isle of man.
Once upon a time 3-4 years ago i ended up like that almost with MTB riding until Crust said to me, oi, have a word with yourself. I got his point and had a word. I don't want to get sucked into that place again, head down, power power, head down, Strava Strava. It's not why I love MTB., So it's something I want to keep fun.
Thanks to all on this thread. Ive been reading it off and on for a few weeks with great interest. Just wanted to shout out to Kryton as I will also be at the BeMC next week (weather looking fantastic - holding thumbs). Very nervous about the climbing stats as I just have not really trained for those kind of repeatable efforts (a whole other thread there i'm sure). Regardless, will be mincing around as best I can on a Niner RKT likely sporting some morvelo kit - do say hi as you fly past. Everything is relative.