Training is a funny thing as I know that I've put the hours in and spent a ridiculous amount of time on the bike, ridden more miles than I would care to again and burnt more calories than I could ever consume and yet in the last few weeks I've felt strangely under prepared and at times just downright weak on the bike. This has particularly been the case on a few of the higher tempo rides we've been doing when after about 3 hours my legs are sore and I feel I've got little left in the tank. I know at these times it's my base fitness that gets me through but it is concerning me.
Yesterday was a bit more encouraging as my partner and I actually managed a 5 hour ride just the two of us. This hasn't happened nearly enough and is probably my biggest concern for us as a team as we get closer to the event. Anyway we rode at a higher tempo again and I was feeling much stronger, probably because it was our pace an no-one else's. I think it helped not to have been riding with the former junior world champion! (I've just seen on Winning Time that Martin won the Boschendal MTB challenge by a mile!).
We're into the tapering down phase now and trying to recover as much as possible. As such I'm often falling short on my hours but as I'm tending to do more intensity work I'm not overly concerned by this.
My big dilemma at the moment is whether I should ride in the Cape Argus on Sunday or give it a miss. I worked hard to get myself a decent seeding as my aim is for a sub-three hour ride. I know it's do-able, especially as I cracked of a 3.30 last year when I hadn't trained and only got my road bike 3 or 4 days before the event. Let's be honest, the Argus is an easy ride! My concern is that riding in a seeded group the risk of crashing and injury increases and I don't want to do anything which would jeopardise the Epic. What advice would you give and why? Leave a comment please.
Stats for (overload) week:
Ride time: 12:43 (target: 16:00)
Distance: 177km
Kcal's burnt: 9798
Total ascent: 3075m
Mountain biking as a workout.
9 months ago
2 comments:
Tough call on the Argus. I would not do it, further back in the bunch as that is where inexperience takes its toll. However that said, to risk everything on a race you can do next year.....
For this very point we took Sani very carefully. Day one in the race had something like 7 collar bone breaks.... can happen so easily.
Take a break from racing go and enjoy the race but stay safe. (read that advice as you see fit!;)
With roons on this one. with all that training it would be a waste to lose it because some plunker touched wheels. If you where riding A or B group then OK anything else nope - don't mess up all the work now!
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