The Cyclocross Workout Of The Day for Thursday, 11.12.15. “Easy-ish”
Howdy folks,
Last night was the second to last Wednesday Night Cyclocross Session out at The Jerry Baker Memorial Velodrome. Holy cow! It’s getting to the point in the season where – unless you’re heading to Nationals – odds are, racing is pretty close to done for the season.
How the heck did that happen?
It’s only been a few years since we switched to having Nationals in January, and it’s pretty clear that most of the local racing in the US hasn’t caught up with that change, and may never.
Might just be that local racing shouldn’t adapt to a cross season that runs through January. Up here in the PNW, at least, it’s awfully nice to get at least a few weeks of skiing in before the training for the road/Mtb season starts in earnest. That’s what January is for!
Well, at least until global climate change takes away our ski slopes forever…
So, hey… where the heck am I going with all this?
For almost all of us, we’re in the stretch run of the season. The end is in sight.
Unless you’re headed to Nationals, you probably haven’t got much racing left.
Time to buckle down, capitalize on the gains in skill and fitness you’ve made this season, and go fast the last couple/few races of the season.
Or, alternatively, time to milk the last lingering bits of fitness out of your exhausted body and soul.
Yeah…
Been seeing signs of a lot of the latter condition the last couple of weeks.
Folks are burned out.
The ones that aren’t?
They’re starting to peak, rolling faster than they have all season long.
Makes for some interesting racing, as the folks who were winning races at the beginning of the season start to fall back behind the people who were under performing early.
It’s really, really hard to be fast all season long, most folks need to make a choice; fast early, or fast late.
Right about now, you probably have a pretty good idea which category you fall in.
What’s the commonality between both?
If you’re racing both days this weekend – as we are up here in the Seattle area – you should take it easy today.
If you’re playing out the string, trying to baby your fitness through the end of the season, you need the rest and recovery.
If you’re starting to peak, well… you probably went pretty hard yesterday, so you should be recovering from that effort today so you can kill your openers tomorrow, and then go out and kick some a** on Saturday.
Rest is good. Recovery is better.
So, that’s the goal today.
Ride easy today, for about an hour. One notch above a pure recovery ride, but nothing that’s actually a hard effort.
If you’re feeling sprightly, you can throw in a couple of sprint efforts, but don’t go full gas. Make them short, and in a low gear with a focus on leg speed.
Just keep the engine turning over a wee bit, then get home and get to sleep early.
Recover.
Have fun!
M
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