Racing junior nationals in august, my first draft legal race. Anyone willing to offer some insight into how to prepare for the drafting format? The race is sprint distance. Basic background on where I am:
Nationals is in 13 weeks, I’m currently in the last couple weeks of base training. Typically train 25+ hours/week (including core and weights) and will have more time to train in a couple weeks when school lets out. Peaked for duathlon nats at the end of April, so swimming is currently my limiter, but I’ve started to increase volume and frequency.
Thanks.
It’s tough. I think your best bet is to do a lot of group riding and dare I say some “safer” crits to get used to that type of riding.
Drew
P.S. Sorry, I’m not Matt or Simon. ha!
Not Reed or Whitfield but I’m betting they’ll agree the best advice is to swim, swim, and when you’re done doing that swim some more. For a Sprint, Speed is obviously key. Learn how to draft on the swim.
Group rides are good and crits as well. Swim and run are most important but don’t discount the bike. Need to be able to go above LT for 30-45 sec without blowing up on the bike so you don’t get dropped. Transitions are key as well.
I’ve only done International draft legal races but I’m guessing the fundamentals are the same for Sprint excepts you probably need to be able to do 30-45 sec VO2 surges as you’ll probably be at or near LT most of the time anyway.