Sometimes extreme peaks can occur due to clicks/pops on the record (scratches cat-hairs etc.).
When transcribing my LPs my first step after capture was to export a 32-bit WAV and process that through Brian Davies’ ClickRepair and then reimport that back into Audacity for further processing - see this sticky thread: https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/click-pop-removal-clickrepair-software/1933/1
I would suggest though trying Audacity’s latest click removal provided by Paul L (not available when I was converting my LPs) - see this thread: https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/updated-de-clicker-and-new-de-esser-for-speech/34283/1
I think you will need to use the alpha test version of Audacity for this until the next release of Audacity - see: http://www.gaclrecords.org.uk/win-nightly/
WC