Unless you’re used to riding / training 3 times or more a week then tonight is your last chance to get some serious work in and recover fully in time for the weekend.

If you’re used to doing sprints, fast group rides or just steady pull sessions at this time of the week then stick to the program – but with one big difference. Keep the intensity the same but reduce the time by a least 30%. So if you were doing flat out sprints for 30 seconds, cut them to 20 seconds. If you’re used to doing sets of 5 then resting cut them to sets of 3. That way you still get the stimulation and feeling of speed but you aren’t taking your muscles to exhaustion.

While you’re working it’ll also pay big psychological dividends to concentrate on the feeling of speed and how fast you’re going. Rag the bike round corners that bit harder than you normally do, sprint between sections of singletrack and just generally fool around going fast. Don’t take it to the point of pain, just enjoy the acceleration and speed, and then keep remembering how fast you are for the rest of the week.

Repeat after us, I am fast, I am flying, I am invincible……