filipw wrote:Lack of focused training is starting to show in my racing. Maybe time to take a break from racing and just ride ? I'm going on hols for 4 weeks in September, so no riding then. A bit nervous that i will lose my fitness while my opponents are training their little black hearts out.
You may want to take what I say with a grain of salt, as I've just worked out that I raced against you on the weekend.
So, to address the purely physiological question. Given you are on holidays for 4 weeks in about a months time (I am assuming no cycling during the holiday period), you could use the next month to get some solid structured training in. You could actually load up your last week of training with a heavy "training camp" style block (as you will have 4 weeks of "recovery" directly after this). You will lose some fitness in the 4 weeks off, but perhaps not as much as you expect (studies are varied but some suggest only a 3-5% loss). You can certainly keep racing during this next months training period. I've personally been doing Base training on Mon/Wed/Fri and racing on Sunday's (although sometimes I've had to dial the Monday session down a bit). I've been able to manage the fatigue so I am slightly fresher coming into race day.
If you have an indoor trainer, you could look at doing a month of TrainerRoad (full disclosure - I work for them, so I am biased). I'd recommend the first three weeks of the "Sweet Spot Base" training plan and then something like the "8 Days of California" as 8 hard days of training before your holiday.
Your post suggests that you might be a bit mentally drained. Your holiday will certainly give you a good opportunity to freshen up that side of things. Only you will know if you really need more time off from racing than that. However, if you treat the next few month as a block of base training, you could treat the weekly races as a bit of fun or even use them to try new tactics or work on specific skills.
I wouldn't worry about anyone else. People will train; or not train; will go up grades; will go down grades. The important thing is to continue having fun in this great sport.
Everyone in the race on Sunday had you marked as the "danger man". You must be doing something right!