Team Somerset

Hey Team!

This week’s branch brook made me realize I never spoke about race day prep so this week we’ll talk about what to do the week before, the night before and morning of your race day!

A week out from your A race is different from a B or C race. For a B race you’ll slightly taper. Maybe cut a workout or two out of the week. C races you don’t change a thing, you schedule the race as one of your workouts for the week. Now, the important stuff. I’ve instituted a rule with my athletes that 1 week out, you don’t try anything new. This can mean food, a workout or new ride/route/group. Also 1 week out is when you no longer work on your bicycle. No new parts and definitely no changing of position. Obviously you cant control a failure of a part, but I wouldn’t make a drastic change(say you break a crank arm, I would replace with an exact match. If you’ve been thinking about trying a different crank length, obviously now is the time to buy that, but id downgrade the upcoming race to C priority). torque bolts on the bike and cleats! For those of you luck to have a race bike and a training bike, the week before don’t touch the race bike unless checking the torque and such listed above.

The day/night before the race is crucial no matter the priority. Food: eat a good meal well balanced meal and hydrate. I also avoid alcohol as well. The night before is also a great time for a 40 minute or less zone 1 spin. Ideally indoors as to not get carried away outside. This is also when I do the final check of my race bag and charging/checking all batteries. For me, batteries means front and rear derailleur charge, checking status of shifter batteries, power meter and charging head unit and HRM. When I had one bike, this is also when I removed my extra bottle cage, light mounts and saddle bag. To plug one of the sweet things you can get in team kit, is the pedal industries race day bag. it has become so staple that my bag essentially is never unpacked and just travels with me everywhere only needing to add the kit for the day. its a spacious bag with numerous pockets and all labeled with exactly what goes in where, making it very difficult to forget anything. packing the bag the night before makes for a less stressful race morning. you know its all in the bag. Additionally for a race day kit I add a couple amenities to make life more comfy. I also carry extra toilet paper as to not rely on the porta potties which are seemingly always out of toilet paper lol. Along the same lines, but not necessarily for the bathroom, I love baby wipes. They are used for everything from bathroom duties, to wiping off grease or blood, or for a 2 minute post race shower! This one is definitely additional as i consider myself a mechanic first, I also carry my portable tool box and work stand, but that is definitely not something everyone needs. The Race day bag is labeled with the following compartments.

Shoes
Helmet
Nutrition, lip/skin protection, lights, tools, poncho/towel
glasses, gloves, computer & strap, race pins
Jersey, Bib/shorts & socks
vest/jacket, arm/knee warmers, chamois cream

additional:
baby wipes
toilet paper
race license
spare batteries
clothes to change out of kit after
water bottles
trainer for warm up if you use one

use this as a checklist for yourselves ill also put the link to the bag at the bottom and again I highly recommend the bag! once the bag is packed, its a great idea to load the car as well. this avoids any last minute panic and forgetting to put something in the car the morning of.

The morning of! Race Day! The best day! Being the car is packed already all that’s left is to put your bike in the car! Breakfast. You should eat a minimum of 2 hours before race start. I like to arrive 90 minutes before my start time. This allows time for getting your race number and checking in, setting up the trainer/do your warm up and use the bathroom. as you dial in your routine, you’ll figure out your own timing. id rather be there early with extra time to kill than feel rushed. The warm up. Everyone should do a warmup. it is a little bit of trial and error to find one that works for you. ill attach mine here and feel free to tweak as you need. I prefer to do my warmup on a trainer and not on the road. its more controlled and I can pay attention better, plus less chance of a flat or mechanical. I have 2 warm up protocols I use. it just depends on how I feel going into the races for which one I use. As a guiding principle, a longer race(road race) can have less of a warm up and a shorter harder race(crit or time trial) should be longer. I time the finish of my warm up with 10-15 minutes before race start. This allows me time to get off the trainer, use the bathroom if needed and pin on my number number. Number pinning is a science in itself. having someone there to pin your number on is huge. Usually, that is my wife or Dan Reiss lol. Pinning your number is specific. The race organizer will tell you what side and how to orient it. make sure you ask when picking up your number. They will make you move it while on the start line. You don’t want that. Finally, other than the longtail promotions races(easton twilight and tour of somerville), you want to get as close to the front of the pack as possible for the start gun.

Dan Reiss also wanted me to touch upon kit in this weeks coaches corner. While not necessarily a big part of the race day lead in, it is worth mentioning the kit itself and what we race in. The team store form Pactimo is open until the 10th, so lets address the kit and styles now to make life a little less confusing when you order. You should have received an email with the store link, if you haven’t please email me and ill send it over. First, if you’re racing, you need to be in team colors, this is in the team guidelines. We know a lot of the new members don’t have kit yet, so there is some leeway until the new kit arrives. Id also be remiss not to mention that our wonderful shop sponsor Pop’s bike shop does carry a selection of team kit for you all to go get a jersey or bib in the meantime. Pop’s is doing us a huge favor by buying team kit to keep on hand in store for new members. Please stop in and see those guys! We’ve chosen 3 styles from Pactimo for team kit. One bib and jersey style, and 2 skin suite options. The Bib and Jersey are the Ascent collection. As an Aero nerd myself, the jersey comes in an aero cut, and you should buy that one lol. if you’re not racing it also comes in standard cut. I train and ride in a bib and jersey for ease currently, but am transitioning to mostly/only skinsuits. I’ll explain why shortly. The bib and jersey does make it easy to mix and match kit as needed, especially in colder weather. Skinsuits: Pactimo offers two options, the Flytesuite and the standard skinsuit. The standard skinsuit has a v shaped zipper and runs a little tighter with a no show collar. You can also choose with or without pockets. I prefer the Flytesuit. The Flytesuit is a San Remo style suit meaning the front zipper fully unzips and is pinned at the hips allowing for opening of the skinsuit and letting it vent like a traditional jersey and has 3 pockets. The Flytesuit in my experience is just as fast aerodynamically as the skinsuit, or at least within 2-5 watts. However it does give the same venting ability as a standard jersey and bib but faster and costs less than a bib and jersey(thus my reasoning for transitioning to only skinsuits, I can go faster and save money!). Most will tell you the skinsuit is only for race day, and they’d be right, but I’m a nerd and love my skinsuits lol. We also have winter kit available, jackets, vests, warmers, caps etc. Take a look at the store and if you have any questions on the product or kit, reach out. I love Pactimo and am well versed in all of their gear. I can officially say now that i only ride in Pactimo clothing, barring a couple bits and bobs from Specialized until Pactimo makes a similar product. There is options with stars and stripes on the sleeves/kit. This is only for a current or former national champion. If its your first year racing, this isn’t for you. If you raced a couple of years, you’d know if you’re a current or former national champion lol. Looping back to the race day prep side of things, race day i choose a skinsuit. Whether you pick with or without pockets, skinsuit or flytesuit, is personal preference. Dan R and Dan D have skinsuits for the TT’s they race. they don’t need pockets and went for what would be the fastest option. As I don’t typically target the TT’s, I went for flytesuits with pockets. Hopefully Dan D and i get together this summer to finally test these to see which is actually fastest.

this should give you all a very solid foundation to build your race day routine. The biggest take away I can give you is the main word of my previous sentence: routine. Build out your routine. once you’ve settled on the routine, rinse and repeat! As always, if you have any questions or anything to add don’t hesitate to reach out or replay all so everyone can see! Happy racing!

here are my two favorite warm up protocols

Warm up
5 min @ 50-55 % of FTP
Active
4 min @ 60-75 % of FTP
Active
1 min @ 80-85 % of FTP
Active
1 min @ 86-90 % of FTP
Active
1 min @ 91-96 % of FTP
Active
1 min @ 99-100 % of FTP
Active
5 min @ 50-55 % of FTP
Repeat 2 times
1. Hard
  30 sec @ 138-140 % of FTP
2. Easy
  30 sec @ 50-55 % of FTP
Active
2 min @ 50-55 % of FTP
Repeat 2 times
1. Hard
  6 sec @ 195-200 % of FTP
2. Easy
  54 sec @ 50-60 % of FTP
Cool Down
3 min @ 40-50 % of FTP