Mathieu van der Poel attacked with 85 kilometers to go at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. Not because he expected to win from there. Because it was a training effort inside a race.
Key Takeaways
The idea that you taper for every race and show up fresh is a recreational cycling habit, not a professional one. Van der Poel used Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne as a full-gas training block. Victor Campenaerts went into the same weekend on three sessions a day, core work, long rides, the lot. These weren't preparation failures. They were deliberate. The race was the training stimulus.
Eddy Merckx rode the Belgian Championships, then a criterium and a track meet, then a Kermesse, then a 190km training ride, then a 270km solo ride, then 50km behind a derny, then a 40km tempo session Saturday morning, then the Tour de France prologue that same evening. He went on to win that Tour by over 18 minutes and took 7 stages. If you have a priority race later in the season, the races before it are training. Ride to them, race them hard, ride home. Stop treating every club race like a target.
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If you want to understand how to structure your training around races and not just for them, the winter training structure episode covers intensity, frequency, and duration in detail. The one interval to rule them all episode is worth your time if you're looking for the session that gives you the most bang for your training week.