Mt Washington Taper: Race Day – 6

My taper in advance of the Mt Washington Hill Climb looks like this:

Race Day – 7 (Sat, Aug 8): Short and easy ride (though as I mentioned yesterday, it didn’t exactly work out that way).
R – 6 (Today, Sun, Aug 9): Short ride but include some quality work
R – 5 (Monday, Aug 10): Off the bike, or very short and very easy
R – 4 (Tues, Aug 11): Medium length ride, fairly easy
R – 3 (Wed, Aug 12): Short ride, but I’ll include quality work
R – 2 (Thurs, Aug 13): Short, easy ride
R – 1 (Fri, Aug 14): Short and easy, but I’ll include 3 or 4 short (4-6 second) all-out bursts

The goal with this taper will be to allow me to fully recover and eliminate any residual fatigue and at the same time, do enough quality work to keep me sharp.

Things are falling into place so far.

This past Thursday (which would have been R – 9), I did a short ride, but I included 4 hill repeats of a hill on which I’ve been doing much of my Mt Washington prep work. This hill is .4 miles long with an average grade of about 14%, so it’s short, but steep.

My hill climb times on Thursday were:

2:56

3:01

3:08

3:18

As a point of reference, I worked my way up to 26 repeats on this hill 1 ½ weeks ago. My goal was to stay under 3:30 on each one, and I did. So as you can see, my repeat times were faster than my “practice” times, but the trend was not good, with the final one being a full 22 seconds slower than the first.

My rides on Friday and Saturday were easy recovery rides, and then I went to the same hill today and once again did 4 repeats. My times today were:

3:05

3:03

3:04

2:56

Not only was the trend better, with my last being the fastest, but I was also 15 seconds faster on the combined times. So what does this mean? It means I’m getting fresher, and that the recovery is allowing my fitness to come out.

I’ll take it pretty easy the next couple days, then will do another short, but high quality, workout on Wednesday. I’ll keep you up to date as we go through the week.

Tapers are a real sticking point for most athletes. Be sure to let me know if you have any questions. In the meantime, GET OUT AND RIDE!