Tapering when racing most weekends

I apologise wholeheartly to those who think I’m not enjoying the view enough 😉

I’m racing this weekend, next weekend, two weeks after that, the week after that, two weeks after that.. etc etc.

I normally have a ‘taper’ week before a race, where I do a light medium length ride on the tues, short but hard ride on the thurs, and an hour the day before on the Sat where I try and mimic the type of terrain and do a few hard start efforts.

Thats fine when races are a month apart or so. What I’m wondering about is whether doing that taper repeatedly for multiple weeks will see a drop in fitness or will the fact that once a week I’m going all out for an hour keep the fitness level?

They all have equal priority? They A, B, C races?

I’m mostly just knocking the weekly volume back a bit and upping the intensity a bit of the mid week sessions. Don’t really bother with a taper for B/C week in week out races.

According to Training Peaks you will see a drop in fitness but then TP makes no distinction between quality and gash sessions. I’m less fit according to TP yet am putting out more Watts because the fewer sessions are higher quality.

If you can subdivide into A and B events you could sacrifice some freshness and train a bit harder before the B events. If not then if it were me I’d consider more Zone 2 ie extend the light Tuesday ride, make your hard ride on thursday a bit longer and lighten the Saturday ride.

Also just because you are racing and training less doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a ‘rest’ week after 3 weeks on?

Cheers both,

They all have equal priority? They A, B, C races?

Its a tricky one in that some races are the welsh series where I have a better chance of doing reasonably well whereas the others are national series where I know I wont do well, but if I’m making the effort to travcel further then I should probably try as hard as I can!!

My training plan has more or less gone out the window since the middle of March after tapering for the first of the welsh series, then having too much work, followed by holiday, then picked up minor strain after Pembrey (which reduced training most of last week). I need to probably sit down with a calendar and plan it out a bit. Think the idae of upping the early-week training and reducing the day before is a good plan. Also the Nationals are Sat arvo so can try for a gentle recovery/z2 endurance ride on sunday depending on how I’m feeling

Good point re. remembering a rest week, easy to forget!

Race taper should maintain intensity of riding but reduce volume of training. The weekly races will maintain your fitness, but I’d think about moving that hard Thursday ride to earlier in the week. I would not go hard for an hour the day before, either. What are you seeking to achieve with that ride?

In fact a good rule is to ask what each ride is going to achieve during training period.

Most riders don’t take anywhere near enough recovery, and really have no idea how easy a recovery ride _should_ be.

I read somewhere you should ‘wake up’ your legs the day before hence the ride with some hard efforts (I dont go all out for the entire time). If I can I also like to pre-ride the course the day before so I’ve got loads of time to have a look at any bits that scare me!

So possilby:
Sunday- Race,
Monday- 15 minute very light spin,
Tuesday harder effort ride based on intervals of some description (alternating between 30s – 1min standing start sprints and 3-5min ill climbs every other week)
Weds Complete rest
Thurs moderate intentsity ride z3ish
Fri complete rest
Sat -short warm up/ look at course.
Sun – race
etc etc

You need to choose your real priority races, taper for those, and treat the other events as lower priority training, where you don’t fully recover before racing.

Realistically, you can probably have 3 or 4 proper targets in a season. That’s not to say that you won’t get good results in training traces, just that you shouldn’t be focusing on that outcome every time. If you try to recover and peak for too many events, you probably won’t achieve the maximum peak you could get by narrowing your focus.

The best form I ever had in a race came off the back of a 2 week taper. I was kicking down doors when the big event came up, and won the race, but there’s no way i could have done a 2 week taper for every race that season. Athough I got podiums and some good results in other races that season, the big event was my only major win.

It feels risky to commit yourself to putting your eggs in one (or only a few) baskets, so the temptation is always there to try and have too many targets, but I’d suggest that’s what you need to do to really hit your absolute best.

Currently I:

Sunday – Race
Monday – Rest
Tuesday – hard intervals / club evening “hills” ride (70k)
Wednesday – rest
Thursday – hard intervals
Friday – rest
Saturday – 30 mins wakeup on traininerroad (Truuli-2)
Sunday – Race

As of next week I’m racing or TTing mid week so:

Sunday – Race
Monday – Rest
Tuesday – 30 mins wakeup on traininerroad (Truuli-2)
Wednesday – Race
Thursday – Rest/ Club Hills ride (70k)
Friday – rest
Saturday – 30 mins wakeup on traininerroad (Truuli-2)
Sunday – Race

As above though for the Bonty 24/7 I’ll be tapering for a week before.

The best form I ever had in a race came off the back of a 2 week taper.

This – I came off the back of a 2 week holiday in the Carribean and came 3rd in last yeas Torq sleep vets pairs.

Sounds like I better prioritise a few races.

The good thing is I have nothing from 11th June to 31st July so I’ll be able to properly train/traper for that one 🙂

The hard thing will be having a month to switch into cx mode for september!

You can’t do race-recover-race-recover for very long without losing fitness, as said above you need to prioritise your races more and decide which ones get a full taper (once or twice per year, national champs maybe), which ones you go into after maybe a day off two days prior and openers the day before, and which ones you just train straight through.
Otherwise you’ll end up getting to the important races later in the season with a crumbling form as others who’ve worked specifically towards them are at their peak.
In my experience, and I’ve done it myself in the past, the people who race week in, week out tend to also get the same results week in, week out with no progression.

It’s even harder if you want to race year-round by doing CX too. I just can’t any more as I get older so a while ago decided to do all MTB races as C events and train straight through in order to prioritise the winter racing – hit last week’s Mids XC with a TSB of -38. And it showed 😆

Yep – because otherwise effectively the first race will be an A race, and from the third onwards they’ll all be C races (the second might be an A or a B depending on how well you recover and how you time the taper for the first one).

I was always bad at prioritising, but then I very rarely did what I considered to be major races back to back, so it kind of worked out.

The best form I ever had in a race came off the back of a 2 week taper.

Conversely the best result I had last season was as the last ride in a 2 week 1,800TSS training camp. I came away thinking I’d tapered too much in the season….

FWIW the quality of your intervals will be better if you are rested so I’d not move them forward to Tuesday – plus my experience of intervals too close to race recovery is injury.

But your best performance might have been even better with a taper… Just before I did my long taper, I got back to back PBs in two races over one weekend at the end of a hard period of racing. On the face of it, my form looked great, but my HR (pre power meter days) was way down during the last event and I couldn’t raise it. I decided I was on the verge of overtraining, backed off, and came back stronger.

I do agree tapering is a very individual thing however, and a long taper is not right for everyone and every event

last week’s Mids XC with a TSB of -38. And it showed!

Still did blooming well to finish 9th though!

Been looking at the calendar and interestingly there’s a pattern of Welsh race followed the week later by national race, followed by a couple of weeks before the next Welsh. I’ll give priority to the Welsh ones as I’m just doing nationals for the hell of it while I still have time to burn and I’ll never even get as far as mid field.

So I’m thinking for the next little bit when i have lots on, to have a week taper before the Welsh races, build training intensity the week after with only a day off before national, hard training for the week or two in between then week taper for next Welsh etc etc. That way as well as being the taper, the week before the Welsh becomes a recovery week in the cycle.

The only difference being for the last Welsh/national pairing I’ll have had a bigger gap to do hard training before so will taper between the Welsh and the national too.

Good to get a quasi plan in my head!

Still did blooming well to finish 9th though!

Certainly no complaints! 6 weeks or so off after CX season and 4 weeks of base miles in the leadup so I wasn’t expecting much, but for a non-target event of any kind it seemed daft to ease off in any way when what matters is in 5-6 months’ time.

Sorry for a slight thread hijack but how long would you taper for an endurance event ie mountain mayhem. I’m in as a solo and training is going ok. Plenty of long steadier rides (50-60 miles)and harder rides on turbo. I’m up between 400 and 450 miles per month at mo. I’m 49 and have backed off a little as I was feeling really heavy legged. Managed 15 laps a couple of years ago but I’m loads fitter now and weather permitting looking for 20+. Thanks in advance for any advice

The way I do it for the Bonty is that, 3 weeks before on Sunday’s I repeat a local XC loop for 5-7 hours just to get mentally adjusted. I’m still training the week before, but after the Sunday before I’m z2 only just to keep my legs spinning and muscles recovering, and my diet is about 20% more up on carbs than usual.

Friday is travelling with a z2 warm up lap including the odd short sprint in the evening. Then it’s sub lactate from Saturday midday onwards…

I’m not coached so this is just me with Friels advice and my own “feel” for things…

How frequently should you have a rest week?

Am 41, no proper training plan, and this year is the first I’ve done more than one race – trying for a race a month, while commuting (8mile round trip) 5 days a week.

Currently in the middle of 4 on the bounce, recovery Monday with 30 minutes on the rollers before breakfast.

Harder sessions will be Tuesday/Wednesday, sweet spot on Thursday and day off Friday.

Saturday’s opener is 20 minutes Z1-2, then 3 x 1 minute hard with 5 minutes between each. 3 x 30 second sprints again with 5 minutes between each then 15 to 30 minutes easy to get home.

Have to rearrange it a bit depending on weather/circumstances but that’s generally what i aim for, CTL according to Training Peaks is rising slightly at best, not dropping off.

Rest week will be at the end of the month, looking forward to a nice easy Sunday club run!