Tapering is OVERRATED!

> We hear a lot about Carbo-loading before a big event, but I am wondering why is it such a big deal.
>
> Most of us who ride centuries, routinely do rides of 80 miles or more in the weeks leading up to the event, the marathon runners amongst us run 20 miles in their normal training. When I have ridden centuries I have not found much difference between the century and the 80 miler -
> we start earlier, we may have shorter rest stops, but I don't think we ride any harder. So why do we carbo-load before an "event", but not before our regular weekend rides?
>
> The same goes for tapering - is it really necessary? I can see a need for a recovery period once in a while - but during the TnT season, we rode 70-80 miles for quite a few successive weekends. After STP last year I was in pretty poor shape for a while but that was after the
> event.
>
> So, I guess my question is what is the advantage of carbs and tapering for us folks who ride centuries and run marathons rather than race them?
>
> Ray

Great question Sugar Ray! Unfortunately there is a ton of misinformation out there about cyclin and nutrition. One of the bigger ones is being told that you should expect to gain weight training for a century, total rubbish!

Carbo loading and tapering are also two massively misunderstood topics as well.

1) Carbo loading

Here's Alberto's take, remember an RD or RN is the best resource for this kind of information. Neither of which am I!

From what I understand, if you are't properly fueling your body on a regular basis, you can't just jam in a ton of carbohydrates into it a few days from an event and hope that it works. The glycogen (essentially the batteries for your muscles) can only hold so much fuel, and if you try to overload them with massive influx of carbohydrates, your body will only absorb so much and store the excess as fat. There is also an excess insulin release issue at play here that is detrimental as well, but I can't put the exact science into words.

Carbs AREN'T The Devil
Now, carbs have gotten a horrible rap as being bad for you and that cause you gain
weight. FALSE. Excess caloric intake without burning off what you take in causes
weight gain. We need carbs to fuel a ton of base cellular level activity, particularly getting glucose to the brain. Without them, your body will take what it needs from your muscles, break them down for fuel slowing down your metabolism and causing you to lose strength, not good.

Now, to your question of group rides vs events, this has been blown way out of proportion and grossly misrepresented. It isn't like the event is this epic adventure that your body will fail you if you don't gorge on carbs the night before. Besides, men and women have different caloric absorption rates, so we can't even eat the same way. My understanding is that for men, 48 hours out is the window for eating/drinking/sleeping to affect your ride/event.

Your eating should be no different the month of, week of or eve of your event. If you remain CONSISTENT you will be fine.


GOD I HATE THE WORD "Taper"
THE BAIN OF MY EXISTENCE! This is one of the things that drives me insane. Way too much emphasis is put on this. When you're training for an event, your body gets used to a certain level of activity, adapting eventually and responding accordingly. If you begin to change that, you can have a negative affect on your fitness.

I hate tapering, don't think its necessary, and is a word that should be banished from the cyclists vocabulary. Now, should you do Blandor Way repeats two days and the day before an event? No. I'd probaly lump in intense strength work here too. Light to moderate, yes, intense probably not unless your body is used to it. Volume manipulation is much better. You play with your training variables (intensity, speed, time, etc), you don't go cold turkey.

Can you do this five days out from an event and not pay the price? MOST DEFINITELY. There is a reason our MVP riders did Blandor way within a 7-10 day window of the Death Ride and Livestrong: so they could get the fitness gains to take into their rides.

Yes, you do need to overload the system so at rest it can adapt and get stronger. BUT, IMHO you cause more harm than good by slowing down your training the week of an event. I've seen people have much better results tapering two weeks out before an event, then ramping back up the week of the event.

The only thing you should do the week of an event is take the day off 48 hours before so your body gets the rest effects the day of (we are 48 hours behind what we do to our bodies), and then do a 90 min "leg opener" the day before with 2-3 hard efforts RPE 8-9 for 90 secs. I got into this conversation with my readers from VeloReviews, and I convinced five riders to not taper, and do the leg opener approach to their event. All five said it was the best their legs had
ever felt at even.

Also keep in mind (again from what I've been told) that about 7-10 days out from an event is the fitness you take into the event. It takes about this long for your body to gain any benefit from
a training bout. So the Blandor Way training effect should more or less be felt this weekend. This is why consistency is the key. Again, the reason I wanted MVP to have its most intense night 10 days from DR/Livestrong.

There's a reason someone like PBJ Hitchcock can ride 75 miles the day before a century: he does it consistently enough so there isn't a shock to his system the day of an event. That's a perfect example of why you don't need to taper if you are consistent with your riding.

This is why the fellas ride on their day off for the Tour. If they don't, they
would have "stone legs" when the race resumed. Now, I know this isn't a popular
stance. I also know that it isn't uncommon for people to ship their bikes five
days ahead of an event and do no riding whatsoever.

This is insane because all you're doing is letting your legs "get cold." You actually begin to lose
cardiovascular fitness after ONLY THREE DAYS of inactivity. How's that for the benefits of tapering?

So long story short, if you can't tell, in this reporters opinion, it is a vastly bloated detail in the world of cycling. This is why there weren't any cupcake rides this week for MVP. I wanted the intensity to stay consistent with what you have conditioned your bodies to do on weekly basis.

Similar to your group ride vs event carb loading, have you ever heard of anyone tapering for a long weekend ride of 70-100 miles? I've only heard them referred to as "training rides." Why change the intensity of your training for an event that might only have 30 miles of additional riding than what you've been training at?

The funny thing is training rides are typically done a lot harder than you'd ever go in century, for mileage that isn't much different. So why would you do this? If you can go at max capacity for a training ride and have a great performance, why would you soft pedal the week of an event where you don't go nearly as hard?

Doesn't make sense does it?