Hi Everyone,
I was hoping someone on the forum might be able to give me some insight into some experiences I've had of bad days when doing cycling events. I've recenlty got back on the bike and have been doing some base training on my turbo trainer mainly sweet spot intervals sessions, a few V02 Max intervals along with longer rides on the road with 10s sprints. I've been improving steadily and signed up for a sportive event which is on my local training area. A couple of weeks before the event I went out with some friends and felt great, was doing well on the hills.
Fast forward a couple of weeks to the day of the event. I started of fairly conservatively as I didn't want to blow and felt this would give me the best chance to ride hard towards the end. I got to the first hill and felt terrible, it wasn't that my legs were burning from pain, they just didn't seem to have any power, I struggled up the hills unable to ride at an intensity where there was any pain, when I tried to up the intensity nothing really seemed to happen.
I've had similar experiences on a couple of other races/sportives in the past and wondered whether if you start very conservatively and don't get yourself working early on you can put yourself in a state where aren't able to ride at full tilt. I know pro riders warm up for quite some time at fairly high intensities, is one of the reasons for doing this to help stop what I've experienced.
Of course, I know it may just be bad luck in that sometimes you just have a bad day and thats how it goes. Any thoughts would be very welcome.
Many Thanks for reading.
Mark