As the season has gone on, my biking has actually gotten slower (at least relative to my other sports and my position in races). Legs feel a bit on the heavy side when cycling compared to earlier in the year. At same time, my run and swim have gotten better. Anybody else have this happen - any quick remedy for this? I think I read something from Dave Scott once about losing leg speed over the course of the season.
My best guess is that I do too much long slow distance training this summer and not enough intensity, but who knows.
You answered your own question. Either that or not enough recovery.
this has happened to me for the last two years, but i know exactly why: my most focused power-improving workouts happen on the trainer, but i simply can’t bring myself to create puddles in my livingroom if it’s nice enough to ride outside.
my mileage also declines toward the end of the racing season since i like to get my goal race out of the way by the end of july in order to have time to relax and enjoy summer - ride my motorcycle, camp and drink things that make my vision go wobbly.
pretty sure if i was still including the quality workouts i do when the snow’s flying and the mileage i put in for my build, i’d have a lot more bike fitness now.
cheers!
-mistress k
I think the important thing here is understanding your own training and how it has led to this position, swim, bike and run results. It is important that we realise keeping ‘form’ throughout the season is an impossible task and aligning a good periodization plan to potentially peak for our most important races within a short window is part of the learning experience, and can be often elusive. With masses of data for feedback it is easy to get sidetracked I feel with results which we get when we are at the top of our form and mistake these as indicators of our baseline fintness levels.
It is near the end of the season, take a break, look back on all that you have achieved this year and then get back into building for your next season. Given a break I am sure your baseline bike fitness will come back quickly and can be built upon. If you have done simply lots of good solid low intensity riding this year, you may find you have an excellent foundation on which to introduce some harder intensity work as part of a plan for next year and will surprise yourself. The mistake I feel would be to try and get those personal highs back now by doing higher intensity work only to hit a peak when there are no races to enter around Christmas time, learn from this year and be patient.