Quote Originally Posted by OakLeaf View Post
My magic 8-ball has always been vague on this one:

If I'm scheduled for a recovery day, and especially if I'm feeling like I need it, but I also know that I'm going to have to miss or compromise a workout in the next day or two, what's the best course?

Take the recovery, and not get the workout I'd like later in the week? Or do a hard workout knowing that it'll be compromised because I'm already fatigued, and use the upcoming day as my recovery?

Or does it really depend on exactly how tired and sore I am, and how close to my goal date (i.e. there's no fixed answer and it's either hire a coach or ask the magic 8-ball again)?
I tend to alternate hard days and recovery days. For example: Sat-race, sunday club ride, monday recovery ride, tuesday intervals, wed recovery ride, thursday intervals (or off if big race coming up), Friday off (or pre-race ride if big race on sat).

Following this sort of schedule your recovery days never fall on your training days! You get both intensity and recovery scheduled into the week.

Sometimes this schedule does get messed up, and maybe that is what happened to you. If you have a race/event on a day that is normally a recovery day, what do you do the next day? Is this your dilemma? My solution for myself is to skip the training day and take recovery instead. If you had a hard race on a monday, you will not be able to do quality work on tues, so don't try, it will be a waste of time, and you won't get in either intensity or recovery . . .

In terms of peaking for an event (your goal date), I am the worst person to respond because at the last minute I added to my calender a whole bunch of really hard races the week before what was supposed to be my first and most important peak of the season! I did it because those events were going to be fun, and I was feeling good (being so close to my peak) and so thought that I could be competitive. As a result I had good finishes in all the events instead of a great finish in the race I had targeted. . . So, better to taper a little bit before your event. To taper take an easy week where you still train, but half your training volume. To half your training volume, you can do fewer days of intensity, or train the same number of days, just halving the amount of time each day that you are doing high intensity work.