With the Giro d’Italia well under way, Grand Tour season is now in full swing and the best riders in the world are taking on the challenge of racing almost every day for three weeks. What are the self-care tips to keeping recovered and strong day after day?
How to race every day for three weeks
Most of us will never have to take on such a gruelling test, but Spring does bring stage racing and multi-day cycling trips onto the horizon for many riders. Even with a solid winter of training and good early season performances, the prospect of racing or riding hard over several days can be daunting. Questions abound: How will I recover? What should I eat? What if something goes wrong?
I remember having similar anxieties when I took the start of my first multi-day event at the Green Mountain Stage Race fifteen years ago. I had been completely wrecked after every one of the road races I had done to that point and the thought of doing four similar efforts in a row was almost inconceivable. Thanks to some good coaching advice and a few dozen packets of Cinnamon Spice Quaker oatmeal, I survived with energy to spare. A decade and a half later I have coached athletes through everything from pro stage races, to the Haute Route in the Pyrenees to a charity ride across Canada. Here is my best advice to address those nagging questions and help you ride strong day after day.
Get Comfortable
Often it isn’t the efforts on the bike that deplete your reserves at a stage race, but rather the stressors that come with being in unfamiliar surroundings. Suddenly you are asking your body for its highest performance level, while also trying to figure out what to eat, where you need to be and when and where you can find the right tube to fix the flat tire you just got on your pre-ride.
It’s easy to take our at-home training routine for granted and overlook the details that make it work for us. We train at certain times, the kitchen has our preferred recovery foods stocked and we have tools and parts in the garage if we need them. To take the stress and uncertainty out of stage race type events, I find it helpful to break that routine down and look at what I need to ride as well in a new environment as I do in my comfort zone at home.
Eat the correct food
Keep the Right Fuel in the Tank
Nutrition is probably the primary culprit in creating unneeded stress in these types of situations. On the bike nutrition is the easy part, you know what you need each day based on the effort and duration of the racing and can pack a handful of extra gels just in case. Off the bike, it can get more precarious. You never want to be that racer combing through the aisles of a strange new Whole Foods at 9 pm the night before the race, looking for something you can cook in your hotel microwave. You don’t want to be risking your performance eating dubious “last-resort” bar food between stages either.
For this reason I recommend doing some research and giving yourself fall back options. I would always pack enough oatmeal, peanut butter and protein powder to make myself several “race-able” meals if needed at a stage race. I also found a certain protein bar that went down easy and would stow six or eight of them in my race-day bag just in case. These aren’t gourmet options to be sure, but I encourage my athletes to figure out a similar “guaranteed” meal option for travel races based on what they usually eat around their training. It’s also a good use of time to look at the local restaurants at your race destination to see where you can get a reliable meal. Chipotle isn’t my favourite food in the world, but if I’m racing in the U.S. I can grab a meal or two there and know exactly what I’m getting.
Make it Simple
Beyond fuelling your body, a big priority at multi-day events should be “de-cluttering” your schedule. I like to take a Marie Kondo-like approach to stage races and dispense with as many uncertainties and extra tasks as possible. I’ll preload all the start locations in my Google Maps then scribble down a rough schedule of when I need to leave the hotel each day and when I think I’ll get back. I want to avoid trips to an unknown bike shop if at all possible, so I pack tubes, tires, a chain, back-up batteries and a derailleur hanger. Even if I have to seek out mechanical support, at least I will have the right parts in hand.
With simplicity in mind, I try to concisely pack cycling clothing options for variable weather conditions and bring close to the minimum in terms of off the bike clothes. One jacket, one sweater and one pair of sneakers will do-even if my wife says the colours clash. It’s a bike race not a fashion show. The same goes for packing things like electronics. I know I don’t need my tablet, laptop, kindle and phone to survive. If I can avoid the frantic search for that certain charging cord I could have sworn I packed, that is precious energy saved for racing. Pack what you need to perform, recover and keep your bike working and leave the rest.
Tom Dumoulin on the rest day before the final time trial in Milan
Protect Your Recovery
Most experienced athletes know what they need to recover optimally from big efforts and perform well the following day. We need the right fuel, sleep and time to relax. It’s not that complicated. The advice here is aimed at protecting those recovery factors from the novel challenges of life on the road at a multi-day event. These events already bring their own natural pressure and nerves and it doesn’t take much to unsettle your recovery routine and drain your energy before you even clip in at the start line. I know this all too well from personal experience as someone who isn’t exactly organized or detail-oriented by default.
However if you can make a plan and keep things simple, you can actually end up with more time to recover and better multi-day performance than you usually would at home. There is no day job to go to, lawn to mow or kids’ soccer game to attend after all. Protect your time well at the races and you will have the luxury of lying in bed post race and catching up on your Netflix queue while your body recharges for the next day’s efforts. That is one part of the pro cyclist’s job description we can all achieve and reap the rewards from.
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