Training crits vs. intervals

marmatt said:

Hi, I was wondering what peoples thoughts were regarding 'training' crits. Here in Utah we have the opportunity to attend weekly crits on tues and wed. My question is whether those are a better use of time or am I better off doing intervals on my own. I have been training this year since November with usually one or two hard sessions a week and a couple tempo/steady state days. I feel like I'm ready for more intensity but don't want to over-do it. On the other hand though I'm a cat3; its only my 2nd season and I still have tons to learn about riding in an unorganized pack,conserving energy etc. Any thoughts are greatly appreciated. One other note; If I have a real race on saturday I will probably skip the crits in favor of climbing repeats(my weakness) but if no saturday race I may do the 2 weekly crits and save the hills and tempo for the weekend.Good idea?And no I still haven't bought a power meter..YET

This is only your second season racing and you are already a Cat. 3? Hey man, you ought to be giving us advice, not the other way around.

Bob

marmatt said:

Hi, I was wondering what peoples thoughts were regarding 'training' crits. Here in Utah we have the opportunity to attend weekly crits on tues and wed. My question is whether those are a better use of time or am I better off doing intervals on my own. I have been training this year since November with usually one or two hard sessions a week and a couple tempo/steady state days. I feel like I'm ready for more intensity but don't want to over-do it. On the other hand though I'm a cat3; its only my 2nd season and I still have tons to learn about riding in an unorganized pack,conserving energy etc. Any thoughts are greatly appreciated. One other note; If I have a real race on saturday I will probably skip the crits in favor of climbing repeats(my weakness) but if no saturday race I may do the 2 weekly crits and save the hills and tempo for the weekend.Good idea?And no I still haven't bought a power meter..YET

A lot of it depends on what the crit is like. If it's a fast field and you are agressive (not necessarily riding for a results, but for training) then I would say go for it, since it sounds like you still have time to work on other things. A good compromise would be to do it 1 day, and do intervals on the other.

marmatt said:

Hi, I was wondering what peoples thoughts were regarding 'training' crits.

I think it depends on how good you are at pushing yourself during a solo interval workout, among other things. I'd say I get a more productive workout through an interval workout than a training crit because I can specifically target the time and intensity based on my goals. OTOH I get more racing experience and more motivation to dig deeper during a training crit. Depending on the rest of your training schedule, going full-bore twice a week during training crits may not be the best thing for you, but the experience will certainly help.

marmatt said:

Hi, I was wondering what peoples thoughts were regarding 'training' crits. Here in Utah we have the opportunity to attend weekly crits on tues and wed. My question is whether those are a better use of time or am I better off doing intervals on my own. I have been training this year since November with usually one or two hard sessions a week and a couple tempo/steady state days. I feel like I'm ready for more intensity but don't want to over-do it. On the other hand though I'm a cat3; its only my 2nd season and I still have tons to learn about riding in an unorganized pack,conserving energy etc. Any thoughts are greatly appreciated. One other note; If I have a real race on saturday I will probably skip the crits in favor of climbing repeats(my weakness) but if no saturday race I may do the 2 weekly crits and save the hills and tempo for the weekend.Good idea?And no I still haven't bought a power meter..YET

Is there any season ranking? A "end of season" championship?
Is it a regional cup of some sort?

How does the rest of your racing schedule look like?

frenchyge said:

I think it depends on how good you are at pushing yourself during a solo interval workout, among other things. I'd say I get a more productive workout through an interval workout than a training crit because I can specifically target the time and intensity based on my goals. OTOH I get more racing experience and more motivation to dig deeper during a training crit. Depending on the rest of your training schedule, going full-bore twice a week during training crits may not be the best thing for you, but the experience will certainly help.

Interesting how many riders don't undertand this. Same goes for big group rides.

One of the benefits of races though, is they are probably the most relevant way to learn about your weaknesses and strengths.

Yeah, but I'm not all that interested in the crit series points. I mainly like all the bike handling these crits require and I'm not 100% comfortable in those situatuions(unstructured fast pack), I can definitely do it but not always comfortably. Anyway,My main focus is the USCF races. In april and May its about every other weekend. but after that its nearly every weekend from june to september with a handful of stage races thrown in. I want to be in peak form in late June to mid july for a couple of stage races in Oregon,then I'll rebuild for an end of sept peak for my hometown crit.

SolarEnergy said:

Is there any season ranking? A "end of season" championship?
Is it a regional cup of some sort?

How does the rest of your racing schedule look like?

marmatt said:

Yeah, but I'm not all that interested in the crit series points. I mainly like all the bike handling these crits require and I'm not 100% comfortable in those situatuions(unstructured fast pack), I can definitely do it but not always comfortably. Anyway,My main focus is the USCF races. In april and May its about every other weekend. but after that its nearly every weekend from june to september with a handful of stage races thrown in. I want to be in peak form in late June to mid july for a couple of stage races in Oregon,then I'll rebuild for an end of sept peak for my hometown crit.

Thanks, that's interesting.

Do you train with a powermeter? Have you done some of those crits so far? How taxing are they for you?

What is a 'structured' vs 'unstructured' fast pack? Does OP ride on a team?

marmatt said:

Hi, I was wondering what peoples thoughts were regarding 'training' crits. Here in Utah we have the opportunity to attend weekly crits on tues and wed. My question is whether those are a better use of time or am I better off doing intervals on my own. I have been training this year since November with usually one or two hard sessions a week and a couple tempo/steady state days. I feel like I'm ready for more intensity but don't want to over-do it. On the other hand though I'm a cat3; its only my 2nd season and I still have tons to learn about riding in an unorganized pack,conserving energy etc. Any thoughts are greatly appreciated. One other note; If I have a real race on saturday I will probably skip the crits in favor of climbing repeats(my weakness) but if no saturday race I may do the 2 weekly crits and save the hills and tempo for the weekend.Good idea?And no I still haven't bought a power meter..YET

Given the above, I'd suggest that most weeks you should do structured training on Tuesday and race the training criterium on Wednesday. That would allow you to focus on specific aspects of your fitness when you're relatively fresh, while also gaining additional racing experience and benefitting from the competitive environment to push you when you're tired. If the courses are significantly different in nature, though, you should probably reverse the order occassionally, and if you're getting close to a non-criterium weekend race in which you hope to do well, skip the training criteriums entirely to train in a manner more specific to the event (e.g., work on your climbing).

NOTE: One other suggestion I would make would be to experiment with different tactics in the training races, and not just ride each one the same way in hopes of gaining "Tuesday (or Wednesday) Night Worlds" bragging rights. IOW, don't be afraid to try something different, even if it means getting blown out the back partway through the race...these are training races, not real races, so they're the perfect opportunity to figure out what your strengths and weaknesses are and how they measure up against those of others.

acoggan said:

Given the above, I'd suggest that most weeks you should do structured training on Tuesday and race the training criterium on Wednesday. That will you will allow you to focus on specific aspects of your fitness when you're relatively fresh, while also gaining additional racing experience and benefitting from the competitive environment to push you when you're tired. If the courses are significantly different in nature, though, you should probably reverse the order occassionally, and if you're getting close to a non-criterium weekend race in which you hope to do well, skip the training criteriums entirely to train in a manner more specific to the event (e.g., work on your climbing).

NOTE: One other suggestion I would make would be to experiment with different tactics in the training races, and not just ride each one the same way in hopes of gaining "Tuesday (or Wednesday) Night Worlds" bragging rights. IOW, don't be afraid to try something different, even if it means getting blown out the back partway through the race...these are training races, not real races, so they're the perfect opportunity to figure out what your strengths and weaknesses are and how they measure up against those of others.

Very nice suggestion.

You know how some athletes just seem to be luckier than others when it really is important? What I mean by that is that it happened to some of my athletes to experiment repeted "bad lucks" during some important races. It can be partly explained by a lack of experience.

I like the idea of training the tactical componment of the sport.

And I love the idea of doing the crit, the day after the quality work session.

I was also going to suggest the op to record his racing data through the use of a powermeter as well. That way, even if the crit is a less structured *training session*, at least everything gets logged properly.

no power meter yet,hopefully by the end of this year. I haven't done any crits yet this year. Last year it really varied on how taxing they were.I have moved up a flite this year so I anticipate them being fairly anaerobic for me.

SolarEnergy said:

Thanks, that's interesting.

Do you train with a powermeter? Have you done some of those crits so far? How taxing are they for you?

Thanks, that sounds like great advice. The crits are different so I will probably do the tuesday one on occasion.When one has a weekend race what kind of training do you prescribe(on a regular week-not a rest week)If I have a race saturday is a long ride on similar terrain on the preceding wedensday too close to the event? Once again thanks to everyone who has chimed in I really appreciate it...keep the thoughts coming!

acoggan said:

Given the above, I'd suggest that most weeks you should do structured training on Tuesday and race the training criterium on Wednesday. That would allow you to focus on specific aspects of your fitness when you're relatively fresh, while also gaining additional racing experience and benefitting from the competitive environment to push you when you're tired. If the courses are significantly different in nature, though, you should probably reverse the order occassionally, and if you're getting close to a non-criterium weekend race in which you hope to do well, skip the training criteriums entirely to train in a manner more specific to the event (e.g., work on your climbing).

NOTE: One other suggestion I would make would be to experiment with different tactics in the training races, and not just ride each one the same way in hopes of gaining "Tuesday (or Wednesday) Night Worlds" bragging rights. IOW, don't be afraid to try something different, even if it means getting blown out the back partway through the race...these are training races, not real races, so they're the perfect opportunity to figure out what your strengths and weaknesses are and how they measure up against those of others.

marmatt said:

no power meter yet,hopefully by the end of this year. I haven't done any crits yet this year. Last year it really varied on how taxing they were.I have moved up a flite this year so I anticipate them being fairly anaerobic for me.

Your question in fact has inspired me one other question. I'll start a little thread in the power forum.

Thanks marmatt, have a great season. Careful with the crits, they sometimes hurt the wrong way.