Because the racing season wore on every year, I might usually catch myself daydreaming about autumn and the liberty of the low season. The attraction of a quick, carefree respite tends to develop as our remaining race days dwindle.
We take into consideration how good will probably be to sleep in, eat an additional slice of pie on Thanksgiving, and spend a Sunday watching soccer or a film somewhat than our Garmin display screen on a protracted experience. However for me and plenty of athletes I coach, the low season rapidly turns into probably the most difficult interval of the yr. Using is such a central a part of our lives. What are we imagined to do with ourselves?
Take a vacation
Take Time Off
Whether or not you had a incredible or disappointing season, it is not uncommon for athletes to come back into the low season stuffed with motivation to enhance. Nonetheless, I do know from expertise that it’s a mistake to begin coaching for subsequent yr on the Monday following your ultimate race. Your physique wants relaxation, and so does your mind. You may even really feel contemporary and able to go, however it’s straightforward to get used to a sure degree of baseline fatigue with fixed coaching and neglect what “rested and wholesome” truly appears like. Discovering that baseline once more might be essential to permit your physique to construct its reserves so it might probably optimally adapt to coaching once more and make the good points you need for subsequent yr.
That prime degree of motivation might be fickle, too, and simply wasted. For many of us, there are 4 to 5 months earlier than the opening highway race of the 2025 season. I’ve seen athletes cost out of the gates with coaching in October solely to hit a wall of burnout in December and miss coaching days when it truly issues.
I had my greatest skilled seasons once I took a minimum of 3-4 weeks off the bike within the fall, as a lot as I struggled to take action. I counsel my athletes to do the identical, however we frequently break it up. We are going to take per week or two off after their final race, benefit from the final of the nice using climate, after which take one other block of day without work earlier than beginning winter coaching in earnest.
Do you retain getting dropped?
Work On Your Weaknesses
In my final Toolbox article, I mentioned evaluating your season to set higher targets for the low season. What held you again from the success you needed in your 2024 racing? Was it a selected kind of health, like your climbing means? Had been you by no means in the fitting place on the proper time to make the profitable transfer? Had been you losing vitality and alternatives due to subpar bike dealing with and pack positioning? The low season is an ideal time to work on these limiters.
Planning Your Coaching Strategy
In the event you discovered that you simply “simply didn’t have the legs” within the essential moments of your objective races this season, this can be a nice time to research these shortcomings. I feel that is the place good coaches make their cash, serving to athletes work out precisely the place to spend their restricted time and vitality in coaching.
For instance, suppose you all the time bought dropped on climbs within the ultimate hour of your occasion. In that case, your coach can design coaching blocks for fatigue resistance, perhaps work with you in your weight loss program to drop a kilo or two earlier than key climbing races, and refine your in-race diet to make sure you have the vitality to carry out later in races. In the event you don’t have a coach, this is a perfect time to search for one – even for a session or two to work on particular points.
Figuring it out
Figuring the Sport Out
If, alternatively, you felt like your techniques and execution price you outcomes that you simply had the health to achieve, there are completely different approaches, so you’ll be able to make investments time on this low season. Bike racing is a fancy sport, and should you can’t see the dynamics at play, it might probably nearly look like a lottery on wheels in relation to who makes the profitable transfer. That’s hardly ever the case, although, and each racer may have a good friend or competitor who “is all the time there when it issues” within the race.
My greatest recommendation to enhance tactically is to hunt these racers out and begin asking questions. She or he will know the native races higher than anybody, and an hour espresso or spin speaking about key moments in races generally is a sport changer in relation to understanding your objective occasions and one of the best techniques to succeed.
If that isn’t an choice, there are some nice sources on-line that will help you discover ways to make higher selections within the thick of a tough race. I like to recommend Norcal Biking on Youtube, the place the host takes the viewer by GoPro race footage and factors out key moments. Even watching breakdown movies of professional races like those Chris Horner and Lanterne Rouge supplies an schooling on racing dynamics in an entertaining package deal.
Athletes “research sport movie” in nearly each main sport. You may make huge tactical enhancements by doing the identical.
Extra time on the mountain bike
Higher Bike Dealing with
You possibly can’t outwork poor bike dealing with; I do know that from expertise. I got here to the game comparatively late with an enormous engine and no background in truly “driving” a motorcycle. Finally, I bought pissed off by solely getting outcomes on mountain tops and time trials. I devoted myself to turning into extra expert in corners and shifting up by the bunch somewhat than round it.
There are a lot of methods to strategy that problem with out taking pointless dangers and discovering your dealing with limits the laborious means. Spending time on the mountain bike is a good way to enhance your physique consciousness and be taught to make use of your bike in corners somewhat than struggle it. Begin on straightforward, flowing trails that don’t require loads of pedaling, and see should you can enhance your time by brief technical segments.
Youtube might be very useful on this case as effectively. There are loads of nice movies breaking down the best way to nook successfully and make area for your self within the peloton. It’s possible you’ll suppose you merely aren’t as courageous as different riders in bike dealing with, however usually, athletes don’t know the basics. Studying abilities like path braking and seeing the racing line by corners can flip hesitant riders into criterium specialists and make racing technical programs exhilarating somewhat than panic-inducing.
Use Your Fall To Get Forward
As an alternative of spending your useful day without work the bike combating boredom and lamenting misplaced health, take advantage of it. You possibly can make your most vital good points of the yr with out logging a single exercise.
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