Originally Posted by
NachosGrande
Hello,
I'm a 45+ Cat 4. Currently, my watts/kilo is only 3.5, and hoping to increase this by next year's racing season.
I'm curious as to what others do right after their last race of the season, and before starting their off season base build.
For example, how many weeks do you take off the bike?
Do you like to completely stop exercises?
If you continue some physical activity-not bike related-for couple of weeks, what kind of exercises and level of intensity?
Generally, I'm curious as to some options for proper de-training from high intense of racing and interval training before I start my base miles plan.
I generally don't stop exercising, at 45 you can take a few weeks or a month off and you bounce back pretty quickly. 58 it's a different story.
My off season is a good time to go MTB'ing and enjoy the Fall colors. That lets my brain associate the bike with something other than pain. When the snow comes I will do a lot of downhill and XC skiing, and snowshoeing. I keep up the gym work and/or ride the trainer when the weather gets foul.
Really, the off season is there to refresh mentally more than physically, I have had years where I race pretty much straight through the "off season" without a drop in performance (within the constructs of scheduling in adequate rest). Cut back the hours, cut back the intensity that feels like drudgery (nasty trainer intervals vs. bombing a black diamond run), go off structure and roll in some other activities for a month or two and you'll be fine to restart. Or if you are chomping at the bit to keep training, go for it.
On the improving w/kg thing, depending on what type of racing you're doing you're often better off working on other tools for the box. I wrote a 2 part blog post on the Wenzel Coaching website about the "Myth of FTP" where I discuss how the focus on FTP (which is a component of the w/kg equation) can be a bit of a fool's errand. Part two coming soon. It's not to say that improving that side of things can't be productive, but it's just a fractional part of racing success.