July 26, 2025 • 33 mins
Welcome to the Tour de France Femmes Podcast, from the producers of "The Time-Crunched Cyclist Podcast"
CTS will publish daily Tour de France Femmes podcasts with Coaches Adam Pulford and Renee Eastman. They'll recap the stage, but the unique aspect of these podcasts will be coaching insights about how athletes prepare for the demands showcased in that day's stage.
STAGE 1 PODCAST OVERVIEW
CTS Coaches Renee Eastman and Adam Pulford recap the exciting finish of Stage 1 of the 2025 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift and then discuss how elite athletes taper after their most recent training blocks or races to be fresh and ready to race at their best at the TDFF. We also hear from EF Education-Oatly's Performance Director, Emma Trott, on how her riders - including CTS Athlete Alison Jackson - tapered before the race. Finally, Renee and Adam translate the tapering strategies from elite athletes to Time-Crunched Cyclists and amateur racers so you can be fresh for your next event!
RESOURCES
- https://trainright.com/tapering-week-before-race/
ASK A QUESTION FOR A FUTURE PODCAST
Co-Host: Renee Eastman
Renee Eastman is a CTS Premier Level Coach and has been coaching with the company for more than 20 years. She has been a professional bike fitter for 15 years and was one of the first fitters to use the Retül bike fit system. She has a master's degree in exercise science, has worked for USA Cycling, and is a 6-time Masters National Champion.
Renee Eastman bio: https://trainright.com/coaches/renee-eastman/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/renee.eastman/
HOST
Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for nearly two decades and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome Time, crunch fans, tour de France, foms Aavec
Zwift fans and welcome CTSPremier Coach and co-host of
this week's podcast, reneeEastman.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hey Adam, hey everyone.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Glad to be here.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
What's going on?
Tour de France is going on.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
That's an appropriate response.
That's an appropriate response,renee, and for those listening.
If you're a loyal listener tothe Time Crunch Cyclist podcast,
you heard my teaser that coachRenee and I will be doing this
daily podcast covering the Tourde France FOMS, auvik, zwift
recapping the stage, tactics,outcomes and stories about these
(00:41):
athletes themselves, but we'llalso have a key section each day
to talk about women's racingphysiology and tips from the top
that you can apply to your owntraining.
This is actually the brainchildof Renee, so I'll turn it over
to her now to kind of set thestage a bit more as to why she
wanted to do this and drug meinto it, which I love, by the
(01:03):
way.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Thanks, Adam.
I've been on your pod beforeand for anybody who doesn't know
me, just a real quick hit CTScoach Renee Eastman.
I'm a physiologist, I'm a bikefitter and at one point in time
I used to play a little bikeracer and that's why I'm so
excited about this pod and Ihave to give Adam a lot of
credit.
A couple weeks ago I waswatching the Giro the women's
(01:33):
Giro, that is.
It was just two weeks ago and Itexted Adam like we have got to
start talking about women'sracing because that race was
bananas.
It was so awesome.
It came down to strategy andlead changes in the last day.
Anyway, my point is women'sracing needs more attention.
These women are fantastic andI've been following women's
(01:57):
racing for decades.
When we used to have to getupdates on Twitter, we weren't
even getting TV coverage.
You'd get tweets from mechanicsin the back of the van at the
races.
So now we have a women's Tourde France.
This is only the fourth one inthe modern era.
There was one back in theeighties, but this is all new
(02:20):
and I don't want people to missit.
I think still people arelearning about the women's race
and women's cycling, so we'rehere to talk about it a little
bit more, and so thank you toyou, Adam.
I want to thank CTS and thepowers that be that gave us the
green light.
Cts has always been a reallygood supporter of all sorts of
(02:45):
top female athletes, from MariHolden, Alison Dunlap, Alison
Jackson, who we'll talk about.
So, anyway, this is a reallyimportant race.
I think it gives a lot ofexposure to women's racing and I
can't wait to see what happensthis week.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Yeah, no, agreed.
And one quick take there.
You mentioned Mari Holden,former CTS coach, and Allison
Tetrick, former CTS athlete andone of my athletes that I still
work with whenever she wants toget a little bit more fit and
not run so much.
(03:26):
But they actually hold theirown podcast on the move and
they'll be covering the Tour deFrance FOMS as well.
So if you want a little bitmore hot take on the race action
and a little bit more personalexperience probably more
entertaining go check them outon the move.
But this podcast is going to bemuch different.
(03:47):
I mean, we're going to recapstuff but then we're going to
get into the juicy, stimulating,coaching, physiology side of
things, which I know all thelisteners are tuning in for that
.
But, renee, to you, high level,what does the Tour de France
Femmes of Zwift have in storefor us all week?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
All right, real time crunched overview here.
We've got nine stages, so it'sa lot shorter than the men's
race, and the stages are shortertoo.
They're usually about 100 milesrather than 150-odd miles.
You know 150 odd miles.
(04:31):
Um, the way the race should gothis week first five, six stages
, flat rolling, probably not alot of gc action, unless some
kind of crazy crosswinds happen.
Um, the gc stuff is going tohappen over the weekend friday,
saturday, sunday.
Don't miss saturday saturday'sthe queen stage, mountaintop
finish.
It's the only mountaintopfinish.
There's no time trial this year, so that's the stage you guys
want to watch.
I mean, you want to watch themall.
(04:53):
But don't miss next Saturdayand it should be exciting.
Last year it came down to fourseconds on the last stage down
to the the wire the mostexciting finish of any tour de
France ever.
I know we have a lot of NorthAmerican audience here.
(05:14):
We've got five Americans in therace.
Fun fact, they are allOlympians and one of our
Americans.
This is a fun fact, by the way.
Yeah, team pursuit mostly.
Yeah, ruth Winder, she was analternate but still counts.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Still counts, still counts.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
But American Kristen Faulkner is the current not only
national champion, but goldmedalist Olympian in the road
race.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Yeah, super, I mean amazing.
And how many years has it beensince we had a women's gold
medals in the road race?
Speaker 2 (05:54):
I know, I know Connie Carpenter won an 84 and we won
gold, or we three times KristenArmstrong retired uh, retired Uh
, but no, not.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Yeah, could have fact checked that one before this,
but I figured I'd throw it inthere.
And and so, from, from a highlevel, you got nine days of
racing.
It's going to be amazing, in myopinion.
Each day, um, sprint stages, gc, like Renee talked about, and
toward the end of next week andnext weekend, those are the GC
days.
Probably you know if you'recrunched on time and you're not
(06:32):
going to watch every second likeRenee and I uh tune into those
for sure.
So, from uh kind of a differentangle to been trying to recap,
or, uh, I've been trying to uhrally the the uh, the people
that I work with that are closeto this race.
Some of the voices that you'llhear are the high performance
(06:52):
director of EF Oatley Cannondale.
Her name is Emma Trott.
She used to be a bike racer.
She's become a great friend.
We'll get some insights fromher today about tapering.
Then I will be asking her a fewthings here and there as we go
about the week, just to bend herear on a few things.
Additionally, we'll get somecheck-ins with Allison Jackson
(07:15):
on this same team, ef OakleyCannondale, and we're just going
to get who knows what we getfrom AJ, but there'll be goofy
videos just checking in seeinghow she's doing, how she's
holding up, what her roles areon the team are, and that'll be
super fun.
And, like I said, special guestappearances from Alison Tetrick
(07:36):
and Mari Holden.
They have their own show, butcheck them out on the move.
They're dear friends and funfact.
I used to work with Mari on awomen's team several years ago
and I had learned a crap tonfrom her about directing tactics
and life.
Let's put it that way Mari isawesome, love her to death.
(07:57):
So stage summary Renee, youwant to take this one.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Uh, I do.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
How to go down.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
How to go down Um today.
Stage one, uh start of the tour.
It was a short stage, uh, supershort, like under 50 miles, uh,
78 kilometers, exactly shortand hilly.
Uh.
It finished with a couple of uhcircuits on a uh little course
that had a hard last uphillkilometer to the finish.
(08:29):
And now I'm going to give youguys a little tip.
If you want to stay spoilerfree and you can just go skip
ahead, you just watch the last10, 15k.
You're going to get all the keystuff in this race.
Then you can come back and joinback in the pod.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Um, because there wasn't a lot of great, yeah, and
that's a great time crunch tipif you don't have two hours to
watch this thing yeah 10k to gouh, even 5k to go, to be honest,
um, because I'll tell you, adam, there there was not a lot
going on.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
You got those today, until they got onto the circuits
in, like really the last lap,there started to be a little bit
more action.
But boy, that last kilometerfull of surprises.
Let me tell you it was a doozy.
The darling of France, paulinefrom, from.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Pauvaux.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Thank you, pfp.
We'll be calling her the restof the week.
She is the darling of France,multiple-time world champion in
the mountain bike, olympic goldmedalist, the only rider to hold
all three world championjerseys at the same time in the
(09:57):
same year cyclocross, road race,mountain bike.
She's a big deal.
And she said this year I'mgoing to stop mountain biking
and I'm going to go win the tourde France.
So, and we're all like, can shedo it?
Cause we don't have a lot ofinformation about her.
Anyway, with about 600 meters togo, she's at the front and I'm
(10:20):
thinking she's leading out boss,right, and she just keeps on
turning it up, and turning it up, and turning it up, and pretty
soon she was all by herself.
Now she didn't win the stage.
There was a group, a prettyselect group, chasing her down,
(10:40):
with Kim LaCourte, kasiaNiyodoma, last year's winner,
and Evanna Bregan, former worldchampion coming out of
retirement this year, and,luckily for team Visma Elisabike
, marianne Voss sitting on thewheels, who is teammates of PFP,
(11:02):
by the way.
Anyway, with a few few metersto go, kim lacorte chases down
pauline and boss just sticks onher wheel, comes around for the
win, uh.
So no surprise that boss won.
Uh.
For those of you who are not uhfamiliar with women's cycling,
(11:26):
she is the GOAT.
She's better than Eddie Merckxand Pogacar put together.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
She has over 240 wins 250.
Over 250 wins in her wholecareer.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Multiple-time world champion, three times winner of
the Giro, twice winner of thepoints Olympics.
You name it.
She's won it.
So it's no surprise that shewon today.
Who was your pick for today,adam?
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Yeah, today for me it was Voss.
I think some people werethinking Vibas, because Vibas is
kind of known to be that greatsprinter, but the way it
finished just a little too hillyfor Vibas, my opinion.
But with Voss, I mean I pickedher because I knew it'd be a
good fit for her.
Honestly, when Pauline went, Iwas like that's it, she's going.
(12:21):
I thought she was going tostick it Right.
Um, but a few other moves kindof went up the way and this is a
fun, um, fun fact right, vossand Pauline used to be teammates
and they and they know eachother you know probably have
like ESP going on Right, likeokay, that might go up to
(12:45):
Pauline.
So I'm going to jump on thatwheel and at the very last
second, voss even kind of likelooked like looked behind to see
if there's still someone, tosee if Pauline could, you know,
win, get in yellow and then Vosscould maybe take second.
That's how I read it.
Anyway, she saw that, yeah,they were still coming hot and
then Voss went for the win.
So I think I think for me Imean a little surprising,
because I was hoping Voss would,because my fantasy tour team I
(13:06):
need to conquer there.
But when Pauline went who I'mthe biggest PFP fanboy in the
world and have been for years Iwas super excited to see her
going up the road.
I'm like man, this is going tobe awesome.
And then Voss won.
So I thought today was reallyawesome.
Yeah, and you know, just speaksto the excitement of women's
racing, which my opinion rightnow, the way it is in the pro
(13:29):
peloton, it is more excitingthan the men's, my opinion.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
It's fact.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Yeah, there's just like so much more dynamics to it
, predictability, you know whenit's uh, you know Tade versus
Jonas and a couple people thatgo off the front of the women's,
or, sorry, in the men's tour.
I mean no shade to those guys,but it's just different style of
racing, right, and some andsome people argue with me, and
that's fine.
But I think if you tune in andget to know uh, these riders,
(14:00):
get to know their stories, getto know the racing style, I
think you'll find that, ityou're just watching it from a
pure competition standpoint,it's pretty dynamic.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
And there's no one dominant rider.
You know, Demi Vollering is thehot favorite.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
For the GC.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Yes, for the GC, of course, but she lost last year.
You know it's by four seconds.
There were some circumstancesin there, teamwork crashing.
But Demi also got beat at Tourde Suisse year.
You know it's by four seconds.
There's some circumstances inthere, teamwork crashing.
But demi also got beat at tourde suisse last month, yeah, and
just not quite as dominant.
So we aren't gonna know whowho's gonna win, at least until
(14:43):
saturday.
There's there.
There will be no.
It's already been wrapped up,like at the men's tour for the
last what two and a half weeks.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Two weeks yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Yeah, exactly, so, yeah.
So I think, like you know, withthat as a backdrop and kind of
planting the seeds of you know,stage one, it's, it's short,
it's punchy, and all the teamskind of knew that, coming in, Uh
, they want to, they got todeliver on day one, they have to
be fresh and ready to go.
And so, you know, on thispodcast we're going to weave in
(15:16):
these coaching topics and Ithought that, uh, tapering would
fit really well for stage one,because it's all about the taper
.
Uh, coming into any race stagerace classics, race, fondo race,
mountain bike race, that'slocal, like whatever it is right
Kind of want to freshen up forthat, and the bigger you go or
(15:38):
the more elite you are, the morethe taper matters.
So, since tapering is soimportant and we have a direct
line to one of the highperformance directors on a team
that's in the Tour de France,foms, I reached out to Emma
Trott and I asked her thisquestion and I asked her what
(15:59):
goes into a good taper for a GCrider and how does that differ,
if at all, for a sprinter versusa domestique?
Now, before I get into this longreading of sorts, because I was
hoping she'd send a quick video.
She gave me a typed outresponse.
That's amazing and I was tryingto chop it down and honestly
(16:20):
it's some really good stuff inthere, so I just want to keep it
.
But I don't know, rene, to youlet's just go like 60 second
version of what goes into a goodtaper, for let's just say you
know, a GC rider, somebody wantsto go real good elite level,
and then how does that differfrom a time crunched athlete
(16:41):
coming into like a one day thing?
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Yeah, that's a good question.
Yeah, that's a good question.
(17:11):
So before we taper, you have tohave a training load to taper
off of.
Because if you don't have ahigh load to come off of because
most of these gals are comingoff of training camps or even
the Giro the Giro was just twoweeks ago coming off a high load
to rest and recover and getsome freshness.
However, you don't want to restso much that you start to lose
fitness.
So there's maintaining justenough intensity that you have a
high training load back it off,recover to get the freshness,
but not too much that you startto lose the fitness.
So maintaining some keyintensity is kind of the main
(17:34):
concepts of a taper Now goinginto a one-day race or a stage
race.
There's some differences hereand there, but I'll say the main
differences, because these guysand gals, these gals and there,
but I'll say the maindifference is because these guys
and gals, these gals they'regals are coming into this as
(17:54):
like their big, big priority ofthe year.
So they're probably coming inmore like a two-week taper and
when you're coming off a reallyhigh fitness load like these
professional athletes, are thattwo weeks, 10 days, 12 days, you
know somewhere in there totaper down to get ready is
appropriate For time crunchedathletes who are coming off of a
(18:16):
lower load, like a lower CTL.
If you will chronic trainingload, maybe your CTL is only 50.
Well, if you taper for twoweeks you're actually probably
starting to lose fitness, moreso than the freshness needed,
because if you're not trainingthat high maybe it's in that six
(18:37):
hour week, eight hour weekrange.
If you taper off you can gainfreshness in maybe a few days
you know three, four, five daysto get the freshness.
You don't.
You're not coming off a CTL oflike 150 off of a, you know 20
plus hour a week kind oftraining camp.
So time crunched usually just alittle shorter taper because
(18:59):
you're coming off a lower load.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
Yep, yep, that's it.
That's it A hundred percent.
So I think, like wheneveryone's listening to Emma's
reply, you know this has comefrom the elite level, which is
really fun to kind of hear andsee what they're doing at that
top end level.
But this is where I think youknow something like this about
what's in the system beforehandhow does the system work right
(19:30):
and how much load is in thatsystem, and there's different
durations of a taper.
In that way, and in this case,when you're coming off a high
load of training and you'retrying to get that freshness,
there's a super compensationeffect that happens so
effectively, like if you cantake an athlete at this high
(19:50):
level, taper properly, they'reactually going to be much better
than they were after that taper, than they were in whatever
fresh state before that that biglike training dose that you
gave them.
Okay.
So that super compensationeffect will then last for a
short time period.
You want to race them, win allthe medals and away you go.
So, emma Trott, thank you foryour response.
(20:13):
Here's exactly what you typedover to me.
Tapering for any rider is quotea scary moment.
Riders are so used to operatingin a suppressed state.
The feeling of fresh can beunnerving.
I personally find myself havingmore conversations around
trusting the process in thistime than any other point of the
(20:34):
year.
The most important thing for meis knowing each of your riders,
that they are all different andunique and what one needs is
different than the other, whichleads us to GC rider versus
sprinters versus domestique, etc.
First, for me it doesn't matterwhat role they have in the race
.
I deal with the rider I have infront of me.
(20:56):
We followed a slightly differentapproach for all the riders
coming into the last altitudecamp.
Some riders follow down early,12 days pre-Tour de France, and
the other riders were a littlelate, so seven days before the
race.
And this was based oninformation that we gathered
from a previous altitude camp.
So the so, for context, you go,you have a couple altitude
(21:19):
camps to see how the athleteresponds, then you dial in the
approach leading into the bigrace.
So what?
So back to what Emma said, oncewe had everyone home at sea
level, I had three bucketsnumber one, freshness.
Number two, speed.
Number three, heat, top off.
This is where the fun startedfor me, and everyone had a very
different run into the tour.
(21:39):
Some riders did very littlemaximum one hard sessions and
lots of recovery rides.
One hard sessions and lots ofrecovery rides, continuing to
absorb the training done at thatcamp and allowing the body to
further freshen up.
Most riders did at least onemotor pacing session in small
groups to help get more realfeel in regards to the micro
accelerations and what thePeloton would feel like.
(22:02):
Heat and this is what she meansby heat top off heat was used.
If we knew the riders couldtolerate it, it wouldn't add
further fatigue minus what wasalready in the session, and that
this was not trial and error.
This was very much what we knewand the outcome will be yes or
(22:22):
no for the rider.
The most important element forall of this was communication.
I had daily contact.
If we needed to change things,we could, mostly taking things
away based on real-time feedback.
For me at this point, we won'tchange the outcome massively.
The hard work is done, but wecan't overcook it at this point,
(22:43):
so I err on the side of caution.
It is easier to add things forthe rider's feelings, sensations
, mental side than to feel likeyou're fighting a losing battle.
Lastly, she says I had oneclear vision coming into the
race Everyone was freshphysically, mentally, and they
were ready to hit the race fromday one.
So they were fast, but, mostimportantly, they had that
(23:05):
tension on the legs, which isalways a good sign that they are
ready to go.
So there's a lot there.
Renee, would you agree withthat high level, or how could
you surmise that for ourlisteners?
Speaker 2 (23:21):
The individuality, how the individual responds.
That's really key.
And then you know, I thinktaking it to you know,
application to our listeners isyou've got to have that context
of how you respond.
But also, what are you comingoff of for from your high load?
(23:43):
Was your high load a just hardtraining block or, um, was your
high training load?
Maybe you're trying to extendyour peak Like?
I'm going to pull out someexamples from today a couple of
gals, uh, coming off the zerotwo weeks ago, comparing like a
two, well nine day or an eightday race versus a altitude
(24:07):
training camp, and we actuallysaw some pretty poor results of
the people who came off the zero, uh, uh, namely two of our top
contenders out of gc already, um, and I was thinking about that
in relation to some of myathletes.
A great example is everyoneracing Silver Rush and then
(24:33):
you've only got three weeks toLeadville, which is kind of like
your big load from Silver Rushand then enough freshness and
recovery from that.
Now that's three weeks, so it'sa little bit longer, but you
know, getting ready forLeadville, cause that's hard to
do.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
It is.
It is and and for the quickcontext for those who don't know
, most people know Leadville.
Silver rush is a 50 milemountain bike race.
Essentially, take the flatelements out If that exists in
the Leadville 100, make it morerocky and technical.
And it's still up in Leadvilleand it's still at 10,000 feet.
That's Silver Rush and theyplaced that like three weeks
(25:12):
before.
So that's the context behindwhat Renee is saying, but it's a
great prep for Leadville itself.
Yes, Right.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
So using that training load, and then what are
you going to do in the threeweeks and I think in context to
you know some of our athletesand the challenges I see with
that kind of specific scenarioand it could be like big hundred
mile gravel race and thenyou're going to do another one
in two weeks is that, if you'renot coming into that first
(25:42):
stress with enough behind it, ifyou're time crunched, and
that's really going to put youin the hole, I'm going to
recommend don't try to do thosetwo races so close.
It's different if you'retraining 15, 20 hours a week and
something like a 100 milegravel race or the silver rush.
(26:02):
You know these five, six plushour races that you can absorb
that a lot easier and then comeback in maybe a week, 10 days,
two weeks.
So you have to, you know.
So taking it, you know anotherlevel to our athletes and you're
trying to peak for your eventand we're talking about oh, you
(26:26):
got to have a high training load.
Well, you have to be carefulwith that training load as well.
You know you can't go do a protour level training camp and
then think that your body'sgoing to bounce back in two
weeks, when that's, you know,too much of a load for you.
So the load going into yourtaper counts proportional to you
(26:49):
as an athlete, then knowing howyou respond.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
Fully agree, and I think too for the Time Crunch
listeners, is that that tapertime period it's more art than
science.
I think the science woulddefinitely say if you have a big
load, if you're a high volumeathlete coming in duration or
increase the duration of thetaper, that's good.
(27:13):
You want to reduce volume, keepor increase intensity and
decrease everything that Emmawas talking about with, like the
stresses of life, physical,mental, all these things
increase recovery, okay.
So kind of the higher volumeathlete you are, the longer
duration is.
But the lower volume athleteyou are, the more time crunched
athlete you are, it's a shorterduration.
(27:35):
But from there it's soindividualized and it's very
artistic in that way.
So in my opinion, kind of likewhat to?
What Renee was saying is like ifyou have a couple big races,
you know, you know coming up inthe year and they're tightly
packed together, I would try tochoose something earlier in the
year where you can practice ataper so you get to learn what
(27:56):
works for you and what doesn't.
So whether that's a two peakedapproach for the year or you
just have another time periodwhere you can kind of test that
taper for you, I highly suggestthat, but it's very
individualistic on all theseminars and symposiums and
everything.
It's always the art and scienceof tapering right.
(28:18):
There's always those twocomponents to it.
And there's always those twocomponents to coaching, whether
you're coaching yourself oryou're coaching somebody.
So keep that in mind when itcomes to that taper.
But when we're looking at thesewomen at the elite level, yeah,
it's longer for sure, andthere's more to it.
Not everybody needs a taper ora peak.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
That you know if you're doing something huge like
Leadville Mountain Bike Race9-10 hour event, super huge,
like physically demanding event,you got to put a lot of work
into that, that kind of eventreally, you know, to have that
load going in really fatiguingto get the level of training to
(29:12):
handle that demand.
But if you're like I just wantto keep up on the group rides,
have some fun, maybe I'll do acentury here there.
You know you might not need areal taper or a peak and that's,
you know, a little, a littledifferent, is kind of feel good
all the time, which could be awhole nother episode that we we
(29:34):
talk about.
But you know, just because youhave an event doesn't mean you
have to.
You know do the classic taperyou know could be enough for
three or four days, easy Freshenup.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Yep, I completely agree with you and yes, of
course this is getting my brainspinning about a future episode.
Uh time you know the taperingfor a time crunched athlete,
because, uh, there's a lot tosay there and I w I would to
keep it real simple and to thepoint.
I agree with you.
You don't need to do a classictaper, however, even get to more
(30:09):
specifically, when I've gotsomebody going into a weekend
where they're racing two critsSaturday and Sunday, or maybe
they double up on Saturday, sothey're racing three crits in
total, I call it a taper week,but it's not really a taper week
, it's a freshening up week.
Okay, the overall volume maycome down a touch.
I'll keep some intensity inthere and all that kind of stuff
(30:31):
, but I definitely try tominimize the other stressors
that are going into it.
Because, in my opinion, as acoach, if we're racing, no
matter what it is, I want to bea little bit more fresh.
I'm going to even the trainingraces.
I'm still going to use them astraining races in part of the
whole CTL bill, of whatnot, butI do like my athletes coming in
fresh.
Most time crunch athletes canget fresh in two days, maybe
(30:56):
three days mostly, and that isif they're really good at
controlling their life stress.
If they're not good atcontrolling their life stress,
then we're going to.
That's probably where we have awhole longer sort of uh
conversation about all of that.
But good point, I appreciatethat.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Yeah, I knew, I knew we were going to have a have too
much to talk to, uh, but we'vegot uh eight more stages to go,
so we going to cover a lot ofreally good stuff this week.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Yeah.
So I guess, looking ahead tostage two, it's a little
different than stage one, it's alittle bit more flat and I
don't know what are yourinsights.
Maybe if anyone else is playingthe To Sew fantasy tour for the
Voms who would they pick?
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Well, it's a little bit lumpy, so a little hilly,
but the finish isn't going to beas hard as today.
Like Lorena Wiebes hands down,best sprinter in the women's
peloton bar, none Even betterthan Voss.
Voss is pretty good and Iactually between the two of them
(32:09):
, but since Weavis is on myfantasy team, I'm going to pick
her for tomorrow, but I wouldexpect it to be a sprint finish.
It might not be the wholePeloton.
Things could get spicy, butwe'll just have to see.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
Yeah, yeah, I agree, I've got my stage pick on Vibas.
It's a flat stage I don't knowall the details about it and if
they get some crosswinds and itchops up the Peloton, yeah, it
could be a reduced bunch sprint,which even favors Vibas
probably even more.
She's got a good kick, so I'llbe picking her and, yeah, I
guess anything else.
Before we round this, thiswhole episode off.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Well, it's already an exciting race.
Just in that one last kilometerwe had some gc impact racer out
.
Longo bergini lost a minute,demi lost a few seconds on that
finish pfp ready to race I lovepfp.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Don't ever count demi out.
She'll.
She'll be there, so, but let's,let's leave it there.
Let's leave it there for today.
We'll keep this short and sweetfor all of our listeners who
are crunched on time and don'thave hours and hours to listen
to podcasts.
But we'll be back tomorrow withmore race coverage and training
talk for the two to France.
Farms of XF.
Coach Renee, thank you forjoining me today and thank you
(33:43):
for putting this whole projecttogether.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
Adam, thank you for joining me today and thank you
for putting this whole projecttogether.
Adam, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Can't wait to see you every day this week.
My new best friend.
That's really what I'm lookingforward to.
All right, ciao, bye, bye.
Welcome Time, crunch fans, tour de France, foms Aavec
Zwift fans and welcome CTSPremier Coach and co-host of
this week's podcast, reneeEastman.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hey Adam, hey everyone.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Glad to be here.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
What's going on?
Tour de France is going on.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
That's an appropriate response.
That's an appropriate response,renee, and for those listening.
If you're a loyal listener tothe Time Crunch Cyclist podcast,
you heard my teaser that coachRenee and I will be doing this
daily podcast covering the Tourde France FOMS, auvik, zwift
recapping the stage, tactics,outcomes and stories about these
(00:41):
athletes themselves, but we'llalso have a key section each day
to talk about women's racingphysiology and tips from the top
that you can apply to your owntraining.
This is actually the brainchildof Renee, so I'll turn it over
to her now to kind of set thestage a bit more as to why she
wanted to do this and drug meinto it, which I love, by the
(01:03):
way.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Thanks, Adam.
I've been on your pod beforeand for anybody who doesn't know
me, just a real quick hit CTScoach Renee Eastman.
I'm a physiologist, I'm a bikefitter and at one point in time
I used to play a little bikeracer and that's why I'm so
excited about this pod and Ihave to give Adam a lot of
credit.
A couple weeks ago I waswatching the Giro the women's
(01:33):
Giro, that is.
It was just two weeks ago and Itexted Adam like we have got to
start talking about women'sracing because that race was
bananas.
It was so awesome.
It came down to strategy andlead changes in the last day.
Anyway, my point is women'sracing needs more attention.
These women are fantastic andI've been following women's
(01:57):
racing for decades.
When we used to have to getupdates on Twitter, we weren't
even getting TV coverage.
You'd get tweets from mechanicsin the back of the van at the
races.
So now we have a women's Tourde France.
This is only the fourth one inthe modern era.
There was one back in theeighties, but this is all new
(02:20):
and I don't want people to missit.
I think still people arelearning about the women's race
and women's cycling, so we'rehere to talk about it a little
bit more, and so thank you toyou, Adam.
I want to thank CTS and thepowers that be that gave us the
green light.
Cts has always been a reallygood supporter of all sorts of
(02:45):
top female athletes, from MariHolden, Alison Dunlap, Alison
Jackson, who we'll talk about.
So, anyway, this is a reallyimportant race.
I think it gives a lot ofexposure to women's racing and I
can't wait to see what happensthis week.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Yeah, no, agreed.
And one quick take there.
You mentioned Mari Holden,former CTS coach, and Allison
Tetrick, former CTS athlete andone of my athletes that I still
work with whenever she wants toget a little bit more fit and
not run so much.
(03:26):
But they actually hold theirown podcast on the move and
they'll be covering the Tour deFrance FOMS as well.
So if you want a little bitmore hot take on the race action
and a little bit more personalexperience probably more
entertaining go check them outon the move.
But this podcast is going to bemuch different.
(03:47):
I mean, we're going to recapstuff but then we're going to
get into the juicy, stimulating,coaching, physiology side of
things, which I know all thelisteners are tuning in for that
.
But, renee, to you, high level,what does the Tour de France
Femmes of Zwift have in storefor us all week?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
All right, real time crunched overview here.
We've got nine stages, so it'sa lot shorter than the men's
race, and the stages are shortertoo.
They're usually about 100 milesrather than 150-odd miles.
You know 150 odd miles.
(04:31):
Um, the way the race should gothis week first five, six stages
, flat rolling, probably not alot of gc action, unless some
kind of crazy crosswinds happen.
Um, the gc stuff is going tohappen over the weekend friday,
saturday, sunday.
Don't miss saturday saturday'sthe queen stage, mountaintop
finish.
It's the only mountaintopfinish.
There's no time trial this year, so that's the stage you guys
want to watch.
I mean, you want to watch themall.
(04:53):
But don't miss next Saturdayand it should be exciting.
Last year it came down to fourseconds on the last stage down
to the the wire the mostexciting finish of any tour de
France ever.
I know we have a lot of NorthAmerican audience here.
(05:14):
We've got five Americans in therace.
Fun fact, they are allOlympians and one of our
Americans.
This is a fun fact, by the way.
Yeah, team pursuit mostly.
Yeah, ruth Winder, she was analternate but still counts.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Still counts, still counts.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
But American Kristen Faulkner is the current not only
national champion, but goldmedalist Olympian in the road
race.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Yeah, super, I mean amazing.
And how many years has it beensince we had a women's gold
medals in the road race?
Speaker 2 (05:54):
I know, I know Connie Carpenter won an 84 and we won
gold, or we three times KristenArmstrong retired uh, retired Uh
, but no, not.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Yeah, could have fact checked that one before this,
but I figured I'd throw it inthere.
And and so, from, from a highlevel, you got nine days of
racing.
It's going to be amazing, in myopinion.
Each day, um, sprint stages, gc, like Renee talked about, and
toward the end of next week andnext weekend, those are the GC
days.
Probably you know if you'recrunched on time and you're not
(06:32):
going to watch every second likeRenee and I uh tune into those
for sure.
So, from uh kind of a differentangle to been trying to recap,
or, uh, I've been trying to uhrally the the uh, the people
that I work with that are closeto this race.
Some of the voices that you'llhear are the high performance
(06:52):
director of EF Oatley Cannondale.
Her name is Emma Trott.
She used to be a bike racer.
She's become a great friend.
We'll get some insights fromher today about tapering.
Then I will be asking her a fewthings here and there as we go
about the week, just to bend herear on a few things.
Additionally, we'll get somecheck-ins with Allison Jackson
(07:15):
on this same team, ef OakleyCannondale, and we're just going
to get who knows what we getfrom AJ, but there'll be goofy
videos just checking in seeinghow she's doing, how she's
holding up, what her roles areon the team are, and that'll be
super fun.
And, like I said, special guestappearances from Alison Tetrick
(07:36):
and Mari Holden.
They have their own show, butcheck them out on the move.
They're dear friends and funfact.
I used to work with Mari on awomen's team several years ago
and I had learned a crap tonfrom her about directing tactics
and life.
Let's put it that way Mari isawesome, love her to death.
(07:57):
So stage summary Renee, youwant to take this one.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Uh, I do.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
How to go down.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
How to go down Um today.
Stage one, uh start of the tour.
It was a short stage, uh, supershort, like under 50 miles, uh,
78 kilometers, exactly shortand hilly.
Uh.
It finished with a couple of uhcircuits on a uh little course
that had a hard last uphillkilometer to the finish.
(08:29):
And now I'm going to give youguys a little tip.
If you want to stay spoilerfree and you can just go skip
ahead, you just watch the last10, 15k.
You're going to get all the keystuff in this race.
Then you can come back and joinback in the pod.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Um, because there wasn't a lot of great, yeah, and
that's a great time crunch tipif you don't have two hours to
watch this thing yeah 10k to gouh, even 5k to go, to be honest,
um, because I'll tell you, adam, there there was not a lot
going on.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
You got those today, until they got onto the circuits
in, like really the last lap,there started to be a little bit
more action.
But boy, that last kilometerfull of surprises.
Let me tell you it was a doozy.
The darling of France, paulinefrom, from.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Pauvaux.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Thank you, pfp.
We'll be calling her the restof the week.
She is the darling of France,multiple-time world champion in
the mountain bike, olympic goldmedalist, the only rider to hold
all three world championjerseys at the same time in the
(09:57):
same year cyclocross, road race,mountain bike.
She's a big deal.
And she said this year I'mgoing to stop mountain biking
and I'm going to go win the tourde France.
So, and we're all like, can shedo it?
Cause we don't have a lot ofinformation about her.
Anyway, with about 600 meters togo, she's at the front and I'm
(10:20):
thinking she's leading out boss,right, and she just keeps on
turning it up, and turning it up, and turning it up, and pretty
soon she was all by herself.
Now she didn't win the stage.
There was a group, a prettyselect group, chasing her down,
(10:40):
with Kim LaCourte, kasiaNiyodoma, last year's winner,
and Evanna Bregan, former worldchampion coming out of
retirement this year, and,luckily for team Visma Elisabike
, marianne Voss sitting on thewheels, who is teammates of PFP,
(11:02):
by the way.
Anyway, with a few few metersto go, kim lacorte chases down
pauline and boss just sticks onher wheel, comes around for the
win, uh.
So no surprise that boss won.
Uh.
For those of you who are not uhfamiliar with women's cycling,
(11:26):
she is the GOAT.
She's better than Eddie Merckxand Pogacar put together.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
She has over 240 wins 250.
Over 250 wins in her wholecareer.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Multiple-time world champion, three times winner of
the Giro, twice winner of thepoints Olympics.
You name it.
She's won it.
So it's no surprise that shewon today.
Who was your pick for today,adam?
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Yeah, today for me it was Voss.
I think some people werethinking Vibas, because Vibas is
kind of known to be that greatsprinter, but the way it
finished just a little too hillyfor Vibas, my opinion.
But with Voss, I mean I pickedher because I knew it'd be a
good fit for her.
Honestly, when Pauline went, Iwas like that's it, she's going.
(12:21):
I thought she was going tostick it Right.
Um, but a few other moves kindof went up the way and this is a
fun, um, fun fact right, vossand Pauline used to be teammates
and they and they know eachother you know probably have
like ESP going on Right, likeokay, that might go up to
(12:45):
Pauline.
So I'm going to jump on thatwheel and at the very last
second, voss even kind of likelooked like looked behind to see
if there's still someone, tosee if Pauline could, you know,
win, get in yellow and then Vosscould maybe take second.
That's how I read it.
Anyway, she saw that, yeah,they were still coming hot and
then Voss went for the win.
So I think I think for me Imean a little surprising,
because I was hoping Voss would,because my fantasy tour team I
(13:06):
need to conquer there.
But when Pauline went who I'mthe biggest PFP fanboy in the
world and have been for years Iwas super excited to see her
going up the road.
I'm like man, this is going tobe awesome.
And then Voss won.
So I thought today was reallyawesome.
Yeah, and you know, just speaksto the excitement of women's
racing, which my opinion rightnow, the way it is in the pro
(13:29):
peloton, it is more excitingthan the men's, my opinion.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
It's fact.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Yeah, there's just like so much more dynamics to it
, predictability, you know whenit's uh, you know Tade versus
Jonas and a couple people thatgo off the front of the women's,
or, sorry, in the men's tour.
I mean no shade to those guys,but it's just different style of
racing, right, and some andsome people argue with me, and
that's fine.
But I think if you tune in andget to know uh, these riders,
(14:00):
get to know their stories, getto know the racing style, I
think you'll find that, ityou're just watching it from a
pure competition standpoint,it's pretty dynamic.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
And there's no one dominant rider.
You know, Demi Vollering is thehot favorite.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
For the GC.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Yes, for the GC, of course, but she lost last year.
You know it's by four seconds.
There were some circumstancesin there, teamwork crashing.
But Demi also got beat at Tourde Suisse year.
You know it's by four seconds.
There's some circumstances inthere, teamwork crashing.
But demi also got beat at tourde suisse last month, yeah, and
just not quite as dominant.
So we aren't gonna know whowho's gonna win, at least until
(14:43):
saturday.
There's there.
There will be no.
It's already been wrapped up,like at the men's tour for the
last what two and a half weeks.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Two weeks yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Yeah, exactly, so, yeah.
So I think, like you know, withthat as a backdrop and kind of
planting the seeds of you know,stage one, it's, it's short,
it's punchy, and all the teamskind of knew that, coming in, Uh
, they want to, they got todeliver on day one, they have to
be fresh and ready to go.
And so, you know, on thispodcast we're going to weave in
(15:16):
these coaching topics and Ithought that, uh, tapering would
fit really well for stage one,because it's all about the taper
.
Uh, coming into any race stagerace classics, race, fondo race,
mountain bike race, that'slocal, like whatever it is right
Kind of want to freshen up forthat, and the bigger you go or
(15:38):
the more elite you are, the morethe taper matters.
So, since tapering is soimportant and we have a direct
line to one of the highperformance directors on a team
that's in the Tour de France,foms, I reached out to Emma
Trott and I asked her thisquestion and I asked her what
(15:59):
goes into a good taper for a GCrider and how does that differ,
if at all, for a sprinter versusa domestique?
Now, before I get into this longreading of sorts, because I was
hoping she'd send a quick video.
She gave me a typed outresponse.
That's amazing and I was tryingto chop it down and honestly
(16:20):
it's some really good stuff inthere, so I just want to keep it
.
But I don't know, rene, to youlet's just go like 60 second
version of what goes into a goodtaper, for let's just say you
know, a GC rider, somebody wantsto go real good elite level,
and then how does that differfrom a time crunched athlete
(16:41):
coming into like a one day thing?
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Yeah, that's a good question.
Yeah, that's a good question.
(17:11):
So before we taper, you have tohave a training load to taper
off of.
Because if you don't have ahigh load to come off of because
most of these gals are comingoff of training camps or even
the Giro the Giro was just twoweeks ago coming off a high load
to rest and recover and getsome freshness.
However, you don't want to restso much that you start to lose
fitness.
So there's maintaining justenough intensity that you have a
high training load back it off,recover to get the freshness,
but not too much that you startto lose the fitness.
So maintaining some keyintensity is kind of the main
(17:34):
concepts of a taper Now goinginto a one-day race or a stage
race.
There's some differences hereand there, but I'll say the main
differences, because these guysand gals, these gals and there,
but I'll say the maindifference is because these guys
and gals, these gals they'regals are coming into this as
(17:54):
like their big, big priority ofthe year.
So they're probably coming inmore like a two-week taper and
when you're coming off a reallyhigh fitness load like these
professional athletes, are thattwo weeks, 10 days, 12 days, you
know somewhere in there totaper down to get ready is
appropriate For time crunchedathletes who are coming off of a
(18:16):
lower load, like a lower CTL.
If you will chronic trainingload, maybe your CTL is only 50.
Well, if you taper for twoweeks you're actually probably
starting to lose fitness, moreso than the freshness needed,
because if you're not trainingthat high maybe it's in that six
(18:37):
hour week, eight hour weekrange.
If you taper off you can gainfreshness in maybe a few days
you know three, four, five daysto get the freshness.
You don't.
You're not coming off a CTL oflike 150 off of a, you know 20
plus hour a week kind oftraining camp.
So time crunched usually just alittle shorter taper because
(18:59):
you're coming off a lower load.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
Yep, yep, that's it.
That's it A hundred percent.
So I think, like wheneveryone's listening to Emma's
reply, you know this has comefrom the elite level, which is
really fun to kind of hear andsee what they're doing at that
top end level.
But this is where I think youknow something like this about
what's in the system beforehandhow does the system work right
(19:30):
and how much load is in thatsystem, and there's different
durations of a taper.
In that way, and in this case,when you're coming off a high
load of training and you'retrying to get that freshness,
there's a super compensationeffect that happens so
effectively, like if you cantake an athlete at this high
(19:50):
level, taper properly, they'reactually going to be much better
than they were after that taper, than they were in whatever
fresh state before that that biglike training dose that you
gave them.
Okay.
So that super compensationeffect will then last for a
short time period.
You want to race them, win allthe medals and away you go.
So, emma Trott, thank you foryour response.
(20:13):
Here's exactly what you typedover to me.
Tapering for any rider is quotea scary moment.
Riders are so used to operatingin a suppressed state.
The feeling of fresh can beunnerving.
I personally find myself havingmore conversations around
trusting the process in thistime than any other point of the
(20:34):
year.
The most important thing for meis knowing each of your riders,
that they are all different andunique and what one needs is
different than the other, whichleads us to GC rider versus
sprinters versus domestique, etc.
First, for me it doesn't matterwhat role they have in the race
.
I deal with the rider I have infront of me.
(20:56):
We followed a slightly differentapproach for all the riders
coming into the last altitudecamp.
Some riders follow down early,12 days pre-Tour de France, and
the other riders were a littlelate, so seven days before the
race.
And this was based oninformation that we gathered
from a previous altitude camp.
So the so, for context, you go,you have a couple altitude
(21:19):
camps to see how the athleteresponds, then you dial in the
approach leading into the bigrace.
So what?
So back to what Emma said, oncewe had everyone home at sea
level, I had three bucketsnumber one, freshness.
Number two, speed.
Number three, heat, top off.
This is where the fun startedfor me, and everyone had a very
different run into the tour.
(21:39):
Some riders did very littlemaximum one hard sessions and
lots of recovery rides.
One hard sessions and lots ofrecovery rides, continuing to
absorb the training done at thatcamp and allowing the body to
further freshen up.
Most riders did at least onemotor pacing session in small
groups to help get more realfeel in regards to the micro
accelerations and what thePeloton would feel like.
(22:02):
Heat and this is what she meansby heat top off heat was used.
If we knew the riders couldtolerate it, it wouldn't add
further fatigue minus what wasalready in the session, and that
this was not trial and error.
This was very much what we knewand the outcome will be yes or
(22:22):
no for the rider.
The most important element forall of this was communication.
I had daily contact.
If we needed to change things,we could, mostly taking things
away based on real-time feedback.
For me at this point, we won'tchange the outcome massively.
The hard work is done, but wecan't overcook it at this point,
(22:43):
so I err on the side of caution.
It is easier to add things forthe rider's feelings, sensations
, mental side than to feel likeyou're fighting a losing battle.
Lastly, she says I had oneclear vision coming into the
race Everyone was freshphysically, mentally, and they
were ready to hit the race fromday one.
So they were fast, but, mostimportantly, they had that
(23:05):
tension on the legs, which isalways a good sign that they are
ready to go.
So there's a lot there.
Renee, would you agree withthat high level, or how could
you surmise that for ourlisteners?
Speaker 2 (23:21):
The individuality, how the individual responds.
That's really key.
And then you know, I thinktaking it to you know,
application to our listeners isyou've got to have that context
of how you respond.
But also, what are you comingoff of for from your high load?
(23:43):
Was your high load a just hardtraining block or, um, was your
high training load?
Maybe you're trying to extendyour peak Like?
I'm going to pull out someexamples from today a couple of
gals, uh, coming off the zerotwo weeks ago, comparing like a
two, well nine day or an eightday race versus a altitude
(24:07):
training camp, and we actuallysaw some pretty poor results of
the people who came off the zero, uh, uh, namely two of our top
contenders out of gc already, um, and I was thinking about that
in relation to some of myathletes.
A great example is everyoneracing Silver Rush and then
(24:33):
you've only got three weeks toLeadville, which is kind of like
your big load from Silver Rushand then enough freshness and
recovery from that.
Now that's three weeks, so it'sa little bit longer, but you
know, getting ready forLeadville, cause that's hard to
do.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
It is.
It is and and for the quickcontext for those who don't know
, most people know Leadville.
Silver rush is a 50 milemountain bike race.
Essentially, take the flatelements out If that exists in
the Leadville 100, make it morerocky and technical.
And it's still up in Leadvilleand it's still at 10,000 feet.
That's Silver Rush and theyplaced that like three weeks
(25:12):
before.
So that's the context behindwhat Renee is saying, but it's a
great prep for Leadville itself.
Yes, Right.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
So using that training load, and then what are
you going to do in the threeweeks and I think in context to
you know some of our athletesand the challenges I see with
that kind of specific scenarioand it could be like big hundred
mile gravel race and thenyou're going to do another one
in two weeks is that, if you'renot coming into that first
(25:42):
stress with enough behind it, ifyou're time crunched, and
that's really going to put youin the hole, I'm going to
recommend don't try to do thosetwo races so close.
It's different if you'retraining 15, 20 hours a week and
something like a 100 milegravel race or the silver rush.
(26:02):
You know these five, six plushour races that you can absorb
that a lot easier and then comeback in maybe a week, 10 days,
two weeks.
So you have to, you know.
So taking it, you know anotherlevel to our athletes and you're
trying to peak for your eventand we're talking about oh, you
(26:26):
got to have a high training load.
Well, you have to be carefulwith that training load as well.
You know you can't go do a protour level training camp and
then think that your body'sgoing to bounce back in two
weeks, when that's, you know,too much of a load for you.
So the load going into yourtaper counts proportional to you
(26:49):
as an athlete, then knowing howyou respond.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
Fully agree, and I think too for the Time Crunch
listeners, is that that tapertime period it's more art than
science.
I think the science woulddefinitely say if you have a big
load, if you're a high volumeathlete coming in duration or
increase the duration of thetaper, that's good.
(27:13):
You want to reduce volume, keepor increase intensity and
decrease everything that Emmawas talking about with, like the
stresses of life, physical,mental, all these things
increase recovery, okay.
So kind of the higher volumeathlete you are, the longer
duration is.
But the lower volume athleteyou are, the more time crunched
athlete you are, it's a shorterduration.
(27:35):
But from there it's soindividualized and it's very
artistic in that way.
So in my opinion, kind of likewhat to?
What Renee was saying is like ifyou have a couple big races,
you know, you know coming up inthe year and they're tightly
packed together, I would try tochoose something earlier in the
year where you can practice ataper so you get to learn what
(27:56):
works for you and what doesn't.
So whether that's a two peakedapproach for the year or you
just have another time periodwhere you can kind of test that
taper for you, I highly suggestthat, but it's very
individualistic on all theseminars and symposiums and
everything.
It's always the art and scienceof tapering right.
(28:18):
There's always those twocomponents to it.
And there's always those twocomponents to coaching, whether
you're coaching yourself oryou're coaching somebody.
So keep that in mind when itcomes to that taper.
But when we're looking at thesewomen at the elite level, yeah,
it's longer for sure, andthere's more to it.
Not everybody needs a taper ora peak.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
That you know if you're doing something huge like
Leadville Mountain Bike Race9-10 hour event, super huge,
like physically demanding event,you got to put a lot of work
into that, that kind of eventreally, you know, to have that
load going in really fatiguingto get the level of training to
(29:12):
handle that demand.
But if you're like I just wantto keep up on the group rides,
have some fun, maybe I'll do acentury here there.
You know you might not need areal taper or a peak and that's,
you know, a little, a littledifferent, is kind of feel good
all the time, which could be awhole nother episode that we we
(29:34):
talk about.
But you know, just because youhave an event doesn't mean you
have to.
You know do the classic taperyou know could be enough for
three or four days, easy Freshenup.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Yep, I completely agree with you and yes, of
course this is getting my brainspinning about a future episode.
Uh time you know the taperingfor a time crunched athlete,
because, uh, there's a lot tosay there and I w I would to
keep it real simple and to thepoint.
I agree with you.
You don't need to do a classictaper, however, even get to more
(30:09):
specifically, when I've gotsomebody going into a weekend
where they're racing two critsSaturday and Sunday, or maybe
they double up on Saturday, sothey're racing three crits in
total, I call it a taper week,but it's not really a taper week
, it's a freshening up week.
Okay, the overall volume maycome down a touch.
I'll keep some intensity inthere and all that kind of stuff
(30:31):
, but I definitely try tominimize the other stressors
that are going into it.
Because, in my opinion, as acoach, if we're racing, no
matter what it is, I want to bea little bit more fresh.
I'm going to even the trainingraces.
I'm still going to use them astraining races in part of the
whole CTL bill, of whatnot, butI do like my athletes coming in
fresh.
Most time crunch athletes canget fresh in two days, maybe
(30:56):
three days mostly, and that isif they're really good at
controlling their life stress.
If they're not good atcontrolling their life stress,
then we're going to.
That's probably where we have awhole longer sort of uh
conversation about all of that.
But good point, I appreciatethat.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Yeah, I knew, I knew we were going to have a have too
much to talk to, uh, but we'vegot uh eight more stages to go,
so we going to cover a lot ofreally good stuff this week.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Yeah.
So I guess, looking ahead tostage two, it's a little
different than stage one, it's alittle bit more flat and I
don't know what are yourinsights.
Maybe if anyone else is playingthe To Sew fantasy tour for the
Voms who would they pick?
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Well, it's a little bit lumpy, so a little hilly,
but the finish isn't going to beas hard as today.
Like Lorena Wiebes hands down,best sprinter in the women's
peloton bar, none Even betterthan Voss.
Voss is pretty good and Iactually between the two of them
(32:09):
, but since Weavis is on myfantasy team, I'm going to pick
her for tomorrow, but I wouldexpect it to be a sprint finish.
It might not be the wholePeloton.
Things could get spicy, butwe'll just have to see.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
Yeah, yeah, I agree, I've got my stage pick on Vibas.
It's a flat stage I don't knowall the details about it and if
they get some crosswinds and itchops up the Peloton, yeah, it
could be a reduced bunch sprint,which even favors Vibas
probably even more.
She's got a good kick, so I'llbe picking her and, yeah, I
guess anything else.
Before we round this, thiswhole episode off.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Well, it's already an exciting race.
Just in that one last kilometerwe had some gc impact racer out
.
Longo bergini lost a minute,demi lost a few seconds on that
finish pfp ready to race I lovepfp.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Don't ever count demi out.
She'll.
She'll be there, so, but let's,let's leave it there.
Let's leave it there for today.
We'll keep this short and sweetfor all of our listeners who
are crunched on time and don'thave hours and hours to listen
to podcasts.
But we'll be back tomorrow withmore race coverage and training
talk for the two to France.
Farms of XF.
Coach Renee, thank you forjoining me today and thank you
(33:43):
for putting this whole projecttogether.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
Adam, thank you for joining me today and thank you
for putting this whole projecttogether.
Adam, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Can't wait to see you every day this week.
My new best friend.
That's really what I'm lookingforward to.
All right, ciao, bye, bye.
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