As mentioned last post, one your most important off-season activities (non-training, of course) is to plan your season. Planning your races and events provides your goal, helps keep you motivated and focused in your training.
Once you’ve determined the events in which you’ll participate, the next step is then to decide the highest priority event, which one you want to be 100% ready for, which one you want to peak for. It’s difficult to maintain a high level of fitness, freshness and motivation for an entire season, so by deciding which is your 1 (or possibley 2) “key” event, you can plan to effectively peak for this event.
Now that you know your key event, determine the importance of the other ones. The key event is typically called your “A” event. Other events can be categorized as “B” or “C” events in your cycling season.
A “B” event is one that you want to perform well, so you’ll likely plan a few days of recovery going into it. You won’t plan to peak for this event and you won’t really taper for it, but a few days rest should allow you to be rested enough to do well.
A “C” event, on the other hand, is a “practice” event, or just another training day that happens to be a bike race. You’ll typically train right through these events. You may practice certain strategies and tactics in this, such as a breakaway, a leadout or a sprint, your paceline skills or your pack riding skills. Use these cycling events as rehearsal or warmup for your key events.
Now that you have laid out your overall bicycle race season, you have a great framework on which to build your training plan.
We’ll discuss training for your season in upcoming posts. Good luck and enjoy the process of bike training.
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