Race Week!
It’s race week! I’m excited and can’t wait for Saturday morning to get here!
In the last several weeks before an event it is too late to significantly increase fitness, but it is not too late to increase fatigue. So based on this fact, I will be doing some short, high intensity workouts this week – nothing too hard.
Despite what your mind tells you, tapering (taking it easy a week or two before a race) allows you to store more fuel, deliver more oxygen to muscles, and maintain higher intensities than would have been possible before the taper. Reducing training for two to three weeks before the race will not reduce fitness.
I will talk about nutrition (before and during the race) later this week. One of the key things to nutrition is to try everything during training that you plan to do during the race. With that in mind, I decided to take some PowerBars on my bike rides this past weekend to practice eating them while riding.
The initial plan was to cut them into bite-size pieces and put them in a plastic bag and store them in my bike bag on my frame. I did this Saturday and when I went to pull out one of the pieces, they were all stuck together. So I inadvertently pulled out the whole bag and immediately lost it to the wind. This is exactly the reason these things need to practiced! So yesterday, I came up with plan B…
I still cut the PowerBar into strips, but this time I just stuck them to my bike frame. They are very sticky and this worked perfectly. I just reach down and pull one off every once in a while…yummy!
YESTERDAY’S WORKOUT:
Bike – 9.55 miles in 29:27 (19.46 mph) – Avg HR = 137
Transition – 1:45 – Avg HR = 115
Run – 4.34 miles in 32:06 (7:23 min/mile) – Avg HR = 155
Total Workout – 13.89 miles in 1:03:21 – Avg HR = 146
TODAY’S WORKOUT:
1h5min on the bike.
10 minute warm-up
45 minute spin class with lots of good 1-2 minute intervals
10 minute cool-down
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