I’m currently in week 3 of Build and next week (Sunday 28th) I’m going to be doing a 110 mile/13,000ft CX/Gravel ride.
I’ve had some great gains fitness wise in all areas from my training so far and understand this is going to change things a bit- so I was thinking that if I move recovery week to the week after the 28th that will help me recover and I can carry on with Build if my body allows.
Shall I do build as usual this week and next week in the build up? This week I assume is fine but next I was thinking maybe backing it off a bit just so there is a bit of recovery beforehand?
Definitely a good idea moving the recovery week to follow the ride.
From a training perspective I don’t see any particular reason to reduce the week before the ride. Maybe move the workouts around a bit to frontload the week and have an easy/rest/recovery day before it, but no need to remove workouts. Kind of depends if performance on the ride is important to you though. If it’s just a fun day out where performance doesn’t matter too much, and where you’re confident you have the fitness to get through it without totally burying yourself, then no need to taper. If you want to show up with great legs that day, and/or aren’t sure whether you can cope with the ride and want to give yourself the best shot, then maybe worth doing ~3 easy/recovery days leading into it and doing a short opener workout on the Saturday morning like you would before a race.
Keeping in mind as well that most people perform better with some fatigue in the legs, so would suggest doing the week as planned and then recovery week after.
Great, yeah its a fun day out/adventure ride and I’ve got the fitness to complete it with those I’m riding with and keep it pretty chill. Will do as suggested, that’s how I’d organised my weeks anyway so good to know I was on the right lines!