Approaching your race, whether sprint or oly distance, either three or four weeks ahead of the race should be a pretty intense training week; with a ‘taper’ starting not long after that so your muscles are recuperated and ready.
I did a bike power test and pushed the daylights out of myself and had also stressed a quadricep doing intense interval runs a couple weeks before that (injuries can happen when you get close to a race). The two weakened musclesets combined for the perfect storm when angrily fixing a internet cable outside the house. I bent over and my lower back suddenly hurt. Great. Now I have to run very carefully for a while….this will either slow me down or take me down.
I’m saying this because those of you who are following my Training Peaks workouts will get a week with pre-race peaking, starting this week. If you’re doing oly distance, add the second workout for that day, and up the ante. Also be aware, depending on your state of ‘fitness’, how much of a toll it’s taking. When something starts to hurt, think twice about pushing it further. Without daily communication with each of you, as I do with some, I can’t moderate and weigh an assignment.
For the oly distance this week could be called a ‘crash’ week, where you’ll probably want a pretty heavy load, followed by a relatively easy next week, and a ‘peaking’ week just after that.
The sprint race has a fairly strong ‘build’ week and a peaking type of week after that, just before the race week.
Although this is sort of ‘old school’ thinking about training, it hasn’t changed much over the years and seems to be ‘what works best’, with specific changes made for those athletes who stay in touch with their coach.
I want everyone to start working on your transitions. Practice as much as you can, think about it a lot, and plan them. I start on transitions a few weeks out, practice running up to the bike in a stand, taking off my cap and goggles, etc , going through the whole process several times for both transitions. It’ll save time during the actual event when everyone is running around like crazy, creating confusion. It makes the race a lot more fun.