Race Week Ramblings

It’s less than one week out from my next race, and I’ve been a little stressed about not being able to get out on my bike as much as I would like the last couple of weeks due to work/life stuff and bad weather. 

While it is normal before a race to think you should be doing more and to second guess your training, the fact is, when you are 1-2 weeks out there is not much you can do training-wise to help your race performance. But there is a lot you can do to screw it up.

Your “form” on race day is made up of your fitness (what you've done over the last several weeks and months) minus your fatigue (acute stress from training and life over the last several days). 

This means that any hard workouts you do during race week really won’t do much to improve your race performance and fitness in the short term. But they can definitely add to the fatigue you carry into your race. 

Showing up to the start line a little “undertrained,” but feeling healthy, excited, and ready to leave it all out there, is always better than being a little overtrained, and feeling injured, tired, and like you’ve burnt all your matches before the race has even started. 

There is an art and a science to getting this all right. But in general, if your race is less than a week away, trying to cram in extra training and workouts will probably do more harm than good. When in doubt, err on the side of doing a little less, and trust that the work has been done in the months preceding your event.