Racing question

teednab-el

This is my first year racing and need advice. So far I have picked up points, finished 6th in Blarney and finished in top 10 and got points in two stages of Kanturk and finished in top 10 of GC in Kanturk last weekend. However sometimes I can blow hot and cold. Tonight i did a local league race and I got badly dropped after 3 laps out of 6. it was really demoralising as I'm not too far from going up to A3. These were a bunch of A4s that dropped me.

Ok I will explain everything here. I went out and drank 8+ points after 3rd stage on Monday and was celebrating good news of getting a prize. I didn't get back on a bike until this league race tonight. Before the race I eat 2sandwiches with chicken and coleslaw, a banana, yahoo chocolate drink and small bottle of orange juice. I took a gel before start of race. I didn't have much of a warmup Then race began. The pace was around 38km/h but I'm normally used of this in racing. I was under pressure after 10km and was dropped. The guys that dropped me have never done that in a race before and I know nearly all of them.

The obvious question i have is, is what I described above the reason why I found the going tough? I did the 3 day stage in kanturk and was fine all through. Would all that drinking on Monday affect my performance? I can't be a bad rider if I'm getting close to promotion to a3 in my first year but not finishing with the a4 bunch today makes me feel like I'm not good enough to go up and I feel I've gone backwards.

I felt like throwing the bike away after the race this evening but I wasnt fully prepared and I suffered.

Advice welcome. What can I do next? I just want to get back training after this FU.

thanks.

couerdelion

Think of your performance on a bike as being a three sided thing consisting of Form, Fitness and Fatigue. Every time you ride your bike hard your fitness improves which is good. But you also increase your levels of fatigue which isn't good. Your form is basically the difference between your fitness and your fatigue. If you've been racing hard over several days your fitness will have improved but an increase in fatigue could make your form worse.

To try and explain it a bit better by using numbers - If you imagine you went in to Kanturk with a fitness level of 50 and a fatigue level of 30 then you had form of 20. After 3 hard days you might have a fitness level of 60 (nice improvement) but a fatigue level of 85 - so your form on Monday after the race was -25. Let's say the fatigue has eased off through light training then you might now have fitness of 58 but fatigue 50 so you went in tonight's race with form of 8. Having the beers after won't have helped recovery but as the days go by you will start to feel the benefits of the hard races as long as you are resting properly and an increased fitness level will mean your form hits new heights. It's a tricky balancing act to know when to rest and when to train hard but if you are getting it wrong it will show on your results.

A lot of athletes tend to try and train harder through these drops in form which is counter productive.

thebouldwhacker

A4 has plenty of riders who dont want to get promoted, they are strong and race for the enjoyment rather than the manicness of the higher leagues, perhaps this has a bearing on it too.

Hmmzis

From what I've read and have experienced myself is that any decent amount of alcohol is quite detrimental to performance. One beer after a hard race won't hurt but going for more could.

Also, stuffing yourself with food before a hard race is not a good idea. Blood gets diverted to your digeative system and you loose a good bit off your top end power due to that.

Redmond101

How many people were in your group for the club league, was it small? So time on the front was more frequent amd for.greater periods of time. What tactics did you play in Kanturk, ie work at the front or saved energy for the sprint?

Inquitus

If you are a good sprinter you will accumulate points in A4 quicker than stronger all round riders might do, due to the negative nature of the racing, and the fact it generally ends in a bunch sprint, this may mean you suffer when you get upgraded to A3, or maybe Weds was just a bad day on the bike and you are reading far too much into it?

ashleey

8 plus pints is your problem. End of story. You're obviously fit and strong but drinking like that will take a week to clear and then get back to where you were.

Going from cold to full on without a warm up won't work either

Inquitus

ashleey wrote: »

8 plus pints is your problem. End of story. You're obviously fit and strong but drinking like that will take a week to clear and then get back to where you were.

Going from cold to full on without a warm up won't work either

You can have 8 pints the night before a race and it has hardly any major impact, aside from you might feel a bit ropey, at least in my experience, let alone 2 days later.

No warm up can certainly tell on the legs if the bunch shoots off at pace though.

lennymc

Dont stress it. everyone gets dropped or blows up at some stage. Learning from it and moving on would be the best thing (imho)
Pay more attention to the food and type of food you eat before a race.
Pay more attention to warm ups.
A lot of people will do something the day before a race to open the legs. (ooh-er matron!)
League races (imho) can be harder than A4 open races.
keep the chin up!

smurphy29

League races are harder than A4 open races, because they tend to be handicaps in small groups and the effort in whatever group you're in, be it limit or scratch or in between is tantamount to riding in the breakaway. Let me guess, a small group of you were doing consistent up-and-overs to try and stay away from the scratch group behind? This uses much more effort than an A4 race, where it's easy to sit in and get pulled around. It's also much better for you as a rider, and I found last year league races like that really brought me on.

That said, the beers won't help. And form does come and go throughout a season. One minute you feel you can fly up hills and attack into headwinds, the next you're struggling and it's often hard to pinpoint exactly why. Everyone gets dropped at some stage, so welcome to the club! By the sounds of things your season is going great so don't be downhearted.

killalanerr

Im with lenny on this one .league races can be right old suffer fests and much harder than some open races depending on how you ride them dont get hung up on it . As for the few pints unless you think your good enoughand goin for the pro contract a few drinks will do you no harm but you 8+ might be over doin it a bit

manwithaplan

Don't worry about it - you don't become a bad rider overnight. You did a stage race over the weekend. You performed really well. You felt good about yourself. Lads in your club were congratulating you on facebook. You probably thought you were going to smash it in the club league race. You were disappointed.

If it's your first year racing, doing a stage race and going well in it is a big achievement but, as other posters have said, it will have taken an awful lot out of you. Rest up, maybe give this weekend's race a miss but most of all don't worry about it. If you are going well in A4 you will be absolutely fine in A3.

By the way, I got in the points in an A3 race on Sunday and fairly got my arse handed to me in the club league on Wednesday. I'm not remotely bothered by it and will just stick to the plan.

Arthurdaly

Inquitus wrote: »

You can have 8 pints the night before a race and it has hardly any major impact, aside from you might feel a bit ropey, at least in my experience, let alone 2 days later.

No warm up can certainly tell on the legs if the bunch shoots off at pace though.

Not sure if are serious here, 8 pints night before a race will have no major impact? What races are you doing!

I'd agree a heavy session will impact your performance for days after and can harly be good for recovery. I'd also agree that league races can be more difficult given small numbers and more prone to getting dropped after you go into the red. Put it behind you and get out racing again.

teednab-el

lennymc wrote: »

Dont stress it. everyone gets dropped or blows up at some stage. Learning from it and moving on would be the best thing (imho)
Pay more attention to the food and type of food you eat before a race.
Pay more attention to warm ups.
A lot of people will do something the day before a race to open the legs. (ooh-er matron!)
League races (imho) can be harder than A4 open races.
keep the chin up!

Can i ask what should I eat before a race especially a league race? The league races are usually on evenings after work and i don't get a chance to eat a dinner earlier on in the day and thus why I stocked up with junk last day.

I did no spin the day before race either and that definitely didnt help either. I have my next league race in 2 weeks time. Can someone devise a training plan for it? I have a TT next Thursday too.

This is what I was thinking of doing.

Saturday 100km spin
Sunday: REST
Monday light paced spin 50km
Tuesday interval and sprint training (300m sprints every 3kms) 50km spin.
Wednesday light pace recovery spin 30km
Thursday TT 6km (10km warmup-before hand)
Friday REST
Saturday 120km
Sunday: REST
Monday Inteval and sprint training (350m sprints every 3kms) 55km
Tuesday:REST
Wednesday 30km light paced spin
Thursday League Race. 10km Warmup before hand

Let me know guys if this plan is good or bad and make suggestions where possible, trying to improve as a rider.

Thanks.

lennymc

whatever you eat will be different to what other people eat. you should read up on it and see what and when works for you. there are various schools of thought on it. As for a training plan, again, google is your friend (lots of articles on training) or, see about getting a coach.