On the benefits of not racing
I sometimes think I’m addicted to racing. Let’s face it, cycling is an addictive sport. Going a few days without a ride has me stalking the house, snappish and grumpy. I suspect I’m not the only rider to experience this feeling. And I often extend that logic to racing — if I could make it to a race, or even better, do multiple races in one day, I was there. In many ways, this approach makes sense if the rider either needs the experience or the fitness, especially if the races are relatively short. But at some point, racing that much can be counterproductive. For instance, if a rider can race both an age-graded category and a senior category and he is targeting a season-long series in one or the other, the order of the races on the day becomes important: you should only do 2 races if the targeted race is first in the day. Or, as is the case with me, when the rider is chasing upgrade points, it makes sense to only do one race a day to give yourself the best chance at success.
Sometimes, however, a break in the racing calendar appears simply because of the vagaries of the schedule. This has been the case for me the past few weeks. I had no races between 5/13 and 5/31. For some, that might not seem like that long of a break, but considering that I was used to racing nearly every weekend from April to October while living in Chicagoland, this period seems like quite a lull. It turns out, however, that the break was quite fortuitous because it has allowed my coach, Gary Hoffman, and me to ramp up my training significantly. I reached all time highs in my Chronic Training Load (CTL), breaking 85 for the first time ever, and because my goal races are not until mid-July (Superweek), I have plenty of time to both add a little more and also taper down for a proper peak. Of course, having a relatively high CTL doesn’t guarantee racing success; as has been noted many times before, you must get the mix of workouts that creates that load right for each individual rider. And that’s just one reason why as a coach myself, I think it’s important to be coached by someone else as well, but that is a story for another post.