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Stage Race RecoveryControlling the Little Things for Maximal PerformanceAuthor: Adam Hodges MyersonDepending on where you live, this is the time of season where the summer binge on racing begins. If you’re out west, you’ve already had your big stage races like Redlands and Sea Otter. The Southwest recently finished up the Tour of the Gila, and for the New Englanders we’ve got the Fitchburg Longsjo Classic, and later in the year the Tour of Vermont. Each region of the US has that one big stage race that local riders anchor their season around. Assuming you’ve done all you can training-wise leading up to the event, it’s important not to waste any of that precious form while the event is actually happening. Maximizing recovery during and between stages is crucial to having your best performance. If you’re on a pro team with a good budget, then there’s a whole staff of people present to make your life as easy as possible to allow for ideal recovery. There’s usually someone doing the driving, the laundry, filling the bottles and feedbags, and rubbing tired legs and backs each night. Most of us aren’t one of those people, but that doesn’t mean recovery isn’t still of primary importance. There are a lot of little things you can do on your own to be as close to 100% as possible before the next stage. Go In RestedYou’re most likely going to be coming off a weekend of racing, and only have a few days to recover before a stage race begins mid-week. Remember that in the week leading up to a stage race, there isn’t much you can do to improve the fitness you have. You’ve got what you got, and there’s no time to stress your system, let it recover, and adapt and improve. At this point, your only goal is to go into the stage race as fresh and rested as possible, so that your ability to recover is at it’s best. This means that in the days between the weekend of racing previous, and the start of the stage race, you’re looking for rest and recovery days across the board. If the race starts very early in the week, you might even skip the weekend of racing previous. The only exception to this might be a situation like Fitchburg, where the race starts on Thursday with a short TT. If winning the TT was your main focus and goal, you might do an opening up workout of some light tempo and sprints the day before. If you're looking for consistency over the four days as a whole, resting until Thursday is ideal. Even with a TT, it's important to go into it with the freshest legs possible. And since it's the first day of four, that makes it even more crucial. Warming Up and Cooling DownOf the two, I find cooling down to be the most important. The minute your race is over, recovery and preparation for the next day begins. After a hard finish, bringing your body down slowly and not leaving your legs full will speed your recovery noticeably. Even further, if your races are early, a second, afternoon spin is ideal. If you can get on the rollers for 15-20 minutes sometime before bed it's the next best thing to a massage each night. Part of what you'll be experiencing is muscle damage, not just carbohydrate depletion. A short spin on the rollers in the early evening will help promote blood flow to those damaged muscles and speed your recovery. Warming up is important, but less crucial, provided you get a good cool down. When you're racing this much, your legs will open up quickly. This doesn’t mean going from the car to the start line, it simply means that an easy spin of 15-30 minutes, just to make sure you're ready to go is all your should need. And just like riding in afternoon after an early stage, if you have a stage late in the day, you might try to get out for a 30-60 minute stroll on the bike in the morning. The major exception to this, of course, is a short time trial or criterium stage, where you might need to do a more specific warm up that touches on some of the intensity you’ll have to do right off the bat. See my previous article on Warming Up for more details about that. Food I plan on a future article where I’ll expand on the recommendations here in more detail. To begin, though, you have to divide your eating during a stage race into three categories: before, during, and after. In the mornings, I think it’s important to eat a meal consisting of your normal breakfast. Race day is not the day you want to vary your routine and experiment with new foods. As a rule, though, you want to eat foods that are high in carbohydrates, but low on the glycemic index, avoiding simple sugars. Make sure to get enough protein as well to keep your insulin/blood sugar ratio even. Put down the Cocoa Crispies and have a bowl of oatmeal, perhaps with a spoonful of peanut butter mixed in. During the race, it’s critical to put a lot of effort into almost forcing yourself to eat and drink. You’ll likely be burning somewhere close to 1000 calories an hour when you’re racing, and while it’s impossible to consume and digest that amount on the bike, you have to account for it somehow. It’s generally accepted that 6-10% carbohydrate mix in your water bottle is ideal. (30-50 grams in a normally sized bottle.) How strong you mix your bottles takes some experimentation, and scoops will vary with brand. Look at the serving size, how many grams of carbs per serving, and how many per scoop. You should aim for a maximum of 50 g of carbohydrates per hour, which means varying the strength of your bottles based on temperature and how many bottles you might drink. If it’s hot, and you know you’ll be drinking two bottles an hour where you normally drink one, then mix them at half strength. Your recovery drink after the race in a stage race, both in terms of protein and carbohydrates, is one of the most important parts of the equation. Again, you're not going to be able to eat enough to put back the calories you'll burn, and this isn't the place to be trying to lose weight. It’s important to make sure you have your drink mixed and ready, waiting for you in your cooler after the race when you get back to your car or your hotel room. This way you can have it in the first hour after finishing, and then eat a normal meal when you’ve cleaned up and perhaps napped for a bit, without having to spend time when you’re tired trying to mix up the bottles. For this you want something that's 4:1 or 3:1 carbohydrates to protein. The post-race or post-ride drink is prefer is something I make myself: vanilla rice milk (which has lots of carbs and a high glycemic index), plain, flavorless maltodextrin, and soy protein in a 3 or 4:1 ratio. I usually blend in frozen strawberries and a banana. I also use soy protein over the more common whey protein because I don’t use dairy products, but you’ll find whey protein in just about every pre-made recovery drink on the market. Whey protein is considered to be more absorbable by your body, and its high glycemic index is theorized to also help your body absorb more of the carbohydrates when consumed together. Perhaps most importantly over the course of the stage race, when you’re not on your bike you should never be without a bottle of water in your hand! Sleep and NappingAbove, I quickly mentioned napping after the stage. If you’re staying at a hotel near the race and have taken time off from work to do the event, you might find yourself with more free time than you’re used to. Sometimes going on the road for races can be one of the most relaxing things you can do. Make the most of that by trying to get caught up on all that sleep you deprive yourself of in a normal work/training week. After the stage, don’t hang around talking in the parking lot. Get yourself cleaned up, have your recovery food, close the shades, and take a nap. A 30-60 minute snooze will speed your recovery and keep your energy levels high. In the evening, keep your distractions to a minimum, and find relaxing, sleep inducing things to do after dinner. I find that if the TV’s on in the hotel room, I’m up until 2 in the morning. As you get more fatigued over the course of a multi-day event, you’ll start to feel some symptoms of over-training, one of which is poor sleep. Turn the TV off, and perhaps read yourself to sleep to help calm your mind and body.Each one of these topics could merit an article in itself, but I’ve done my best here to try to touch on each of them and highlight the aspects I think are most important. Many of these strategies aren’t just good for stage race scenarios, but can also be applied to a 2-day weekend of racing, or a hard training block during the week. The most important thing to keep in mind is that if you’ve taken days off from work and shelled out a few hundred bucks to participate in a big stage race, don’t let your money and hard training go down the drain. Every pedal stroke you make adds up, as does every little thing you do off the bike. Stay vigilant, focused, and organized, implement these guidelines, and you’ll have eliminated some of the variables that could pop up and throw you off the track towards your best result. |
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