Coaching and Training for Cycling and Multi Sport Athletes

Training for a cycling, or any endurance type of event takes consistency, time, and effort. As you train you get more fit but you also build fatigue at the same time. Small recovery periods and tapering allows you to shed some of that fatigue, while maintaining the gains you made, but it doesn't shed all of it by race day. And that's OK because you cant go into a bike race or an event completely cold, with zero training in the legs. Training in general will take a toll mentally too. There is a lot of emotion, and mental preparation needed in order to succeed at training. So, once race day is over, its important to allow for proper recovery both mentally and physically. 

It is typical to experience quick gains in strength and speed after short to moderate length races, 2-5 hours in length. Some athletes will feel great from the race and beyond into the next few weeks and others will have a 3-5 day feel good window and then experience fatigued legs. What is most important after any bike races is to listen to your feedback from feel, to heart rate response, power, motivation and more. If you feel good, go for the training but if a few things are off such as power numbers 10-15% down at any intensity, hard time elevating heart rate into zone three, legs are sore, cadence is slow, and more then its better to back off the day and rest. Post races its important to be able to put a consistent week in with good responses, such as being motivated daily, good HR response/power numbers and more. When you can do that then you are ready to take on more training and build more strength and speed.