Despite my best efforts, December was a write-off due to illness and holiday. I’m still suffering with a bad cold which is limiting the effort I can put in.
Still, in 2007 my training didn’t really get underway until January and only picked up in earnest once the weather started to improve in March and April.
There’s a tendency among novices and experienced riders alike to perhaps do too much too early. Everyone respond differently to training but I do question why I would need to be able to do a 200km ride by April, as I’ve had suggested to me in the past.
What I’ve found is that allowing this panic to set in can lead to peaking too early. The attendant danger with this is that you end up in a long taper and are actually losing fitness by the time you come to the event.
One fairly frequent suggestion is a long taper of about 2 weeks before the event. As far as I can see, all that looks like is a 2 week layoff to get fat. Trust me, I’ve tried it and by comparison to riding and racing up to the week before it’s a lousy method.
Really it’s too early in this cycle to be worrying though.