Racing?

[RoadRaven]

As Eden responded to your question about whether you should ride every day, you MUST remember to build in rest days - its an important and often overlooked part of training.

When you come home from a hard ride, and your muscles feel tired and/or sore... it is because you have extended and stretched them and what you are feeling are tiny tears in the muscle. In the next 24 hours the muscles repair themselves according to the recent demands on them.

So recovery days and tapering and base training are all important parts of developing and strengthening your muscles so that they can respond effectively to the demands that something like racing will bring.

Sometimes I have ridden 7-8 days in a row, but 2-3 of those rides have been only about 10-20kms long, on flats, at low resistance and slow speeds. When I do very hard ride, such as hill reps or speed intervals or a road race or time trial - I HAVE to ride the next day at low intensity just to help disperse the lactic acid - my legs are too uncomfortable otherwise.

So build in rest regularly and if you cant take a day off every 3-4 days, then make sure you designate an active recovery day which is riding at low intensity as I described above.