Hi folks…Looking for some guidance on how to complete this month before my 10-day holiday (relaxing and no bike or other stuff). I have 3.5 weeks left and till 15th july unlimited time. I have a CTL of 103 for the moment and just ridden a big granfondo with lots of climbing so my form is not that bad. Maybe it is time to do some vo2max work? So 3.5 weeks of vo2max work with high volume Z2 in between? I never did a vo2max focused block in the past.
I was also thinkinh about a block of 2 week low cadence tempo work and endurance. With one vo2max workout to get me started. And then the last 2 weeks a vo2max block with 6 workouts in total? To give me some good fatigue before getting on a holiday?
I may have a B event last weekend in August so looking for not loosing too much fitness…
First 7 days you’ll lose some sprint fitness, subjective to the individual, either 7 to 14 days to get that loss back.
Try and time your holiday with a rest week and enjoy your break. It’s a great opportunity to invest family time and rebuild some currency with your loved ones
We’d recommend that you don’t worry about losing fitness over a 10-day holiday. If you’ve been training for a while up to this point, it’s probably a great opportunity to relax, rest up, and refresh for the training that’s to come for the remainder of this season.
I think doing some VO2 Max work before your break would be a good idea if you think that’s a limiter for you.
Even if you have unlimited time, though, we’d advise not increasing your volume too much too suddenly. If you increase your volume too aggressively, it could dig you into a hole, which might be counterproductive to your training – even if you do have a break coming up.
This article goes over the transition period after completing a Specialty Phase/Peak in your training cycle:
Don’t have the science but did this in the spring, at a lower starting point, my CTL was 59 at an all time high for me on April 30th, got up really early and did a 30 min ride before flying out May 1st, returned May 12th. My CTL on May 11th was down to 46, to make things more challenging of the following 7 weekends, I had 5 weekends of racing (3 in a row, 2 weekends off and then 2 consecutive again).
In the lead up to leaving I stuck with ‘build phase’ type work of Sweet Spot/Threshold for intensity and some competitive groups rides. My understanding was Anaerobic or VO2max gains would diminish faster with time off the bike. First week back I started off with Sweet spot and Z2 stuff and then transitioned into VO2Max for intensity work.
I can’t really say if this was the best way or the science based way but it was what I did in a very similar situation in terms of time off the bike.
I did bring running shoes and did one run during the period away, which likely provided some benefit but it wasn’t super intentional as I don’t generally run or jog and was probably my first time doing so in ~2 years.
The thing that has annoyed me a bit was I was hoping to get my CTL up to >60, ~65 this season and the time off really hit my CTL and with the racing, including my A race last week and taper week this week I am still in the mid 50’s for CTL and feel like it will take me to the fall to ramp my CTL up to where I was aiming it to be for this season, without over-doing it and fatiguing myself.