Crosssports's Weblog

Howdy folks,

I hope you’re feeling rested and recovered, and are ready to do some work today!

As I often mention, I live in the Seattle area, and I recognize that sometimes the scheduling and arrangement of these workouts can be a little bit slanted towards our race calendar.

Don’t hesitate to move things around to better conform to your local race schedule.

Around here, almost all of our races are on Sunday, and the workouts are arranged to work best with this as your race day.

If you race on Saturday in your neck of the woods, push things up a day. Make it work for you.

I mention this today, because we have a pretty serious weekend in front of us in Seattle.

Friday we have the StarCross race, and Sunday we have the Rad Racing event. Two pretty damn big, national calendar level races in two days.

In September.

Hoo-boy….

Look, these races are pretty freaking fantastic.

They’re two of the biggest, best races of the season.

…and they’re in September.

Totally nuts.

It’s really freaking hard to be on form for these races without setting yourself up for a colossal valley in your fitness right when the meat of the season comes rolling around.

So, hey… do your best with what you’ve got if you’re racing this weekend. Think about doing just one of the two races if you aren’t feeling so up to the challenge of two days racing in a row.

Above all, don’t kill yourself training this week trying to cram a month’s worth of work into a week.

At this point, you can’t possibly build any fitness for this weekend, but you can sure dig yourself a hole you won’t ever be able to climb out of.

If you raced this past weekend, and you’re doubling up this weekend, next week might be a good time to take it easy for a week…

Just sayin’…

Onwards with The Workout Of The Day…

Today, surprise! It’s Two By Twenty Tuesday!

I’m going to give you two options today.

If it’s a pretty normal week for you, and you’re building things up for the “important” races further on down the road, you’re doing…

The Classic 2×20 –

https://crosssports.wordpress.com/2009/09/15/workout-of-the-day-for-914-2/

Or

The 2×20 Get-Up Style –

https://crosssports.wordpress.com/2010/08/09/the-cyclocross-workout-of-the-day-for-tuesday-8-9-2x20s-get-up-style/

If you’re racing the double this weekend, or you feel like you need to pay a little bit of extra attention to your ability to jump/accelerate/get on up on it, today you should do…

The Half and Half. And Half…

– This isn’t the same thing as doing a 2×20, it’s something to do if you need a break from the damn 2×20’s. We’re going to be working slightly different energy systems here, so even if you really like this, don’t sub it for the 2×20 every week, ok?

– This is also a good way to start working your way into Over/Under intervals, something we will be doing a bit down the road. In fact, we’re doing part of an over/under for 1/2 of this (hence the goofy exercise name dujour…)

Here we go…

Workout is best done on a flat(ish) stretch of open road, with very little traffic. You need to be able to ride hard for 20 minute, going hard enough that you can’t see very well, without needing to stop.

I do these on the trainer. It’s easier and safer.
…and I’m crazy.

– Warm up well.

Do 1/2 of a Classic 2×20. (or a 2×20 Get-Up Style. Doesn’t really matter.)

Rest for 5 minutes.

Now you’re going to do a 10 minute effort.

…but wait… there are some details to get straight before you launch into it.

The baseline for this interval is the level of effort/output you just did in the 20 minute effort.

However hard you went in that interval, you are going to try and hold that for the 10 minutes.

Easy, right?

Here’s the rub.

You’re going to sprint for 10 seconds every minute of the interval.

How hard are you going to sprint?

Hard, but not so hard that after you sprint, you can’t sit back down and keep churning away at your 2×20 level.

This takes some practice to figure out.

Don’t get all freaked out if you blow it and can’t hold the effort until the end. You tried, right?

Having said that, don’t wuss out and quit. This is some difficult s***, man. You want to get faster, right?

OK.

Here’s how this works.

Use a stopwatch. Put it on your bars.

Start the stopwatch.

Start the interval with a sprint, out of the saddle pretty hard, but not full gas.

Sprint for 10 seconds.

Back in saddle, drop into your 2×20 zone. Hold this until the minute mark, then –

Sprint again. 10 seconds.

Back in saddle, 2×20 level until 2 minute mark…

Repeat.

Repeat…

Repeat, until you have hit the 10 minute mark.

At the 10 minute mark, finish with one 10 second all-out sprint.

If you have done the interval right, you shouldn’t be able to crank the final sprint all that much harder than the earlier sprints.

Pick yourself up off the ground, roll around and recover for a while.

Go home, get on with your day.

If you really, really want to work on your jump-e-ness, try some pure…

Over/Under Intervals –

https://crosssports.wordpress.com/2009/09/18/todays-workout-for-917/

If you do these, remember; this is a pure intensity workout. If you do it right, you’re gonna be hurting afterwards. If you aren’t you didn’t do ’em right, and you shouldn’t have bothered.

I would recommend holding off on the Over/Unders until after you have done the 1/2 & 1/2 & 1/2 a time or two. But hey – go for it if you feel like it, and it makes sense for you…

Whatever you do today, have fun!

M

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Howdy folks,

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m beat.

I did my first cross race of the season on Sunday, and I trained through it; about 4 hours of biking and BJJ on Saturday.

Phew.

I need a rest, and that’s exactly what I’m getting today.  You should, too.

In fact, that’s the workout of the day –

REST. Recover. SPIN!

Today, you’re doing a One Hour Recovery Spin –

– Get on your bike. Roll out into the street, and just spin around for an hour.

– Really small gear, no hard efforts – heck, no medium effort.

– Spin. You’re looking to move your legs around in circles, almost like there is no chain on the bike.

– The idea is to get your body moving, flush the systems out, and speed your recovery.

– When you do your recovery ride -if you have the time- just get out and spin aimlessly. At a certain point, your legs suddenly feel better.

– As soon as that happens, turn around, go home, eat, stretch, and put your legs up.

Relax.

Don’t forget; this is a good day to get some core work in if you aren’t totally spent. Lots of info up on the topic in previous posts.

If you’ve been playing along with us for the last couple of weeks, remember to pull out that list you made after your last race –

https://crosssports.wordpress.com/2010/09/07/the-workout-of-the-day-for-wednesday-9-8-listless/

It’s a good idea to update it now, while the race is still fresh in your mind.

If you didn’t make the list the first time around, or if this was your first race?
Well, sweet.

More good work to do today!

G’night,

M

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Howdy folks,

It’s Sunday, and yup… that means it’s Race Day (at least here in Seattle.)

That makes today’s plan pretty darn easy to figure out.

Go race.

It’s super early in the season. Heck, it’s barely even the season.

Keep that in mind today.

Go hard, but don’t get too down on yourself if things don’t work out perfectly.

If you’re feeling a little bit behind the eightball, and this is way too damn early to go full-gas for an hour, that’s OK.

Break the race up into manageable sections, and meter your efforts.

Drill it in small chunks.

Nail the start and the first lap, then back off for the second.

Pile it back on for the third lap, taper down a bit for part of the next. Etc. , etc.

If you’re riding at 100% right now, you’re probably doing things wrong (unless your entire season is geared around doing well at StarCross. If it is? You damn well better be fast right now 🙂 )

Above all, have fun.

SO, OK – that’s The Workout Of The Day, right?

Wrong.

Today, we’re all about Warming It Up.

I have had a couple of requests to talk about how the he** to warm up for a race, so here you go…

First of all, don’t overdo it.

I see way, way too many people spending a ridiculous amount of time on their trainers before the race, and frankly, I think a huge number of racers leave their best effort of the day back in the tent on the Gerbil Wheel before the race.

Don’t let this be you.

If you feel like you need to spend more than an hour warming up for your race, frankly you’re doing something wrong.

There’s been a fair bit written about warming up for cycling events, and if you spend any time at all reading through some of the stuff that’s out there, you will no doubt find that the only commonality is that most everyone disagrees.

Until you start reading some of the science, and some of the warm-up protocols suggested by those who have also read the science.

Here’s an interesting study –

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16177615?ordinalpos=5&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

With an interesting conclusion…

During endurance events of intermediate duration (4-5 min), performance is enhanced by warm-up irrespective of warm-up intensity

Note this interesting bit in the results –

There were no differences in anaerobic power output during the trials, but aerobic power output during the first 1000 m was larger during both EWU (203 W) and HWU (208 W) versus NWU (163 W) trials.

I pretty much never warm up for road races, unless I Know the first few K are going to be pedal to the metal. When people ask how I can get away with this (and they do!) I always respond with “that’s what the first lap/loop/5k is for…”

You can’t get away with this in Cyclocross.

You need to hit that first K, hell that first hundred meters at 100%, with all guns blazing.

Warming up definitely improves your aerobic power output over the first K of a race.

End of story. You need to warm up for Cyclocross.

How much do you need to warm up?

Well, here’s where we get into interesting territory.

The study I linked to above basically showed no difference between the results of warm ups conducted at different levels of intensity and duration. The key was simply to warm up, get the legs turning over.

However you do it, warming up helps.

Nice.

Remember this the next time all hell breaks loose and you can barely get in any kind of a workout before your race. Even a little bit of a warm up helps.

OK, it’s just a study. Heck, it’s just one study.

Frankly, for Cyclocross, I think you need to warm up pretty hard, if for no other reason than that you don’t want the shock of that F-ing start effort to hit your body (and mind!) like a ton of bricks.

What you don’t need to do is warm up for a long time.

After a certain point, all a long warmup does is get you tired. And that ain’t good…

tired?

OK, so what should your warm up look like?

Something like this…

Get on your bike.

Ride at a super easy level for 5 minutes. No pressure on pedals, recovery day light.

5 minutes more at just one notch higher.

2-3 minutes at right around your 20 minute output level.

then

2-3 minutes at one notch/gear easier

30 second race pace effort.

recover for 2 minutes easy…

30 second race pace effort.

recover for 2 minutes…

2 full-gas start efforts, 2 minutes between them.

Spin for 5 minutes.

Go race.

Ok.

That’s kinda’ the “In a perfect world” warm up.

In reality, you need to figure in course preview, getting all your stuff schlepped to where it needs to be, registration, yada, yada…

Ideally, your race day would look like this:

Wake up.

Eat breakfast.

Ride for an hour.

Snack, take a nap.

Eat lunch (3 hours before race.)

Course preview

(while mechanic preps bikes, team staff handles everything else.)

Snack, electrolyte drink, change into race clothing.

Warm up.

Race.

Yeah, right.

Oh well, we try.

Get as close to that as you can, and remember – the science shows that any warm up is better than none!

I’ve managed to do really well in races where the only warm up I got was a 1 or 2 lap preview of the course.

If you are forced to choose, always pre-ride rather than warm up.

You get a less than perfect course preview, and a less than perfect warm up, but part of each is better than none of one!

Ok, after all that, are you ready for the reality-based warm up?

Quite frankly, this is what I wind up doing most of the time, and almost always if I wind up stuck on the Gerbil Machine. It’s the –

R.S.W.O. – The Rock Stupid Warm-up and Opener –

First, get everything you need to do before the race done. Sign up, course preview, etc., etc. More questions you probably didn’t even have on the topic of race day routine answered here –

https://crosssports.wordpress.com/2010/09/05/the-workout-of-the-day-for-monday-9-5-10-laborious/

– Get on trainer. Spin for about 5 minutes.

– 2-3 minutes at your 20 minute output level

– Shift into big ring/largest cog combination.

– Ride 30 seconds in this gear, then shift up one cog.

– Ride 30 seconds in this gear, then shift up one cog.

– Repeat until you hit the hardest gear you’ve got, or can handle.

– Ride 30 seconds in that gear, and then shift all the way back down to the Big/big combo.

– Ride 30 seconds in that gear, then immediately shift to hardest gear you can handle.

– Full gas sprint, out of the saddle,  for 30 seconds.

Back to big/big combo.

– Spin for two minutes.

Repeat The entire sequence (Usually minus the 2nd “20 minute level” effort.

Phew.

Enough verbosity. G’night!

M

* If you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about when I say “20 minute level”, enter “2×20” in the search box on the right side of the page…

** The Warm Up routines I describe here are actually pretty hard, and believe it or not, are likely to be too damn hard and too long for non-elite racers.  You will need to experiment and figure out what works for you. Don’t be afraid to cut the warm up short, or go easier. You don’t get a prize for winning the damn warmup…

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Howdy folks,

It’s a Saturday and it’s a race weekend, so the operative assumption today is that most everyone is going out to the races tomorrow.

As we discussed a bit yesterday, two days before an event, we like to take it a bit easy.

The day before?

The day before an event, we need to hit it kinda’ hard.

The idea is to prime the pump (so to speak) by running through all the different levels of output your body will have to deal with the next day.

Or… well, OK, kinda all the levels of output.

You want to do a couple of pretty damn serious jumps today, but no extended full-gas efforts.

You’re not racing, that’s tomorrow.

Short. Sharp. Hit it and quit it.

Make sense?

Here you go, today you’re doing…

Can Openers –

– Warm up for 1/2 hour or so.

Follow with several short attacking efforts, IE 30 seconds at 80% of your max, or pretty damn hard.

Back off and spin for 5 minutes.

Follow with 10-15 minute effort at AT level, or CP30, or “I could talk to you if I had to, but I don’t want to” level.

Spin for several minutes.

Follow with 5-6 full gas start efforts on a straight section of paved road, level or slightly uphill.  You want to begin these from a dead stop, with one foot unclipped. Do not stop until you get at least 3 perfect starts in a row, and I mean perfect; this is the cross equivalent of practicing free throws. make ‘em count.

… spin out legs, go home and rest. Get ready to race tomorrow.

Have fun!

M

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Howdy folks,

We’re about to enter the second weekend in September, and racing has started in my area, and in much of the country.

I’m going to assume that you’re racing at  least one of the days this weekend, and If you aren’t?

Pretend you are, and set yourself up to do a race simulation this weekend.

Play everything just as you would if you did have a race, and get some training in at the same time you work on your race weekend routine.

So, about that routine…

Most folks seem to find that they do best in their races if they are able to take it easy two days before the event, and then open the pipes with some hard efforts the day before.

That’s the format we’re following this weekend.

We’re going to assume you’re racing on Sunday this week, and so, your workout today is…

Two (ish) Hour Moderate Ride –

Get on your bike.

Put it in the small ring.

Ride for 2 hours at a moderate tempo; don’t attack the hills, don’t sprint at the town line, just roll along.

OK – maybe not that slowly… just don’t kill it today.

You’re riding hard enough to see the flowers, but you’re going hard enough that you can’t take the time to smell them as they recede in the rear view mirror.

No hard efforts. Just roll steady… Sub threshold the whole way, for those who speak the techno-lingo.

This ride should be 1 full step above a full recovery ride, hard enough that you know you’re actually riding, but not hard enough that you feel gassed at any time during the ride, or when you get home.

When you step off the bike, you should feel like you could do it all over again, and that you kinda’ want to.

Make sense?

What we’re trying to do here is recover a little bit from the week, but at the same time get ready to ride hard over the weekend.

The reason you need to ride some today – and not completely without intensity – is that you don’t want to send your body into recovery mode.

If you’re watching the Vuelta on TV, or if you happened to watch the Tour Day France this summer, you might have noticed how the announcers always make a big deal about how the riders get on the bikes and do some pretty hard riding during the “rest” day.

Same idea.

If you take a day completely off, your body has a tendency to flip into full-on recovery mode; “Thank god it’s Friday, that’s over with, now I can get some damn rest!!”

This just isn’t a great idea if you’ve got a race you’re going to do the next day.

Ever had dead legs in a race, try to stand up and get on the gas at the start and find that the damn body just won’t respond?

Yeah. It does suck.

We work to avoid this by doing that riding today.

Have fun!

M

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Howdy folks,

Well, I hope you had a better day than I did. My first cross race of the season this weekend, and I break my bike. And a carbon wheel.

Blech.

Oh well. The week just has to get better, right?

Onwards!

It being Thursday, the usual game plan is to get some running in today. That could be good…

Let’s talk a little bit about running for cyclocross.

I’ve laid out the actual stats on here before (and I’m too tired to go and dig ’em out again,) but suffice to say, it’s incredibly rare that a cyclocross race actually has all that much running in it.

When you are running, it’s intense… but it’s for a short distance, and almost always up hill.

That’s why we train short, sharp, and uphill when we’re working our running.

Specificity, baby.

So, OK.

When you run, run hard, run short.

For most of us, it’s really not worth making a priority out of it, ’cause you just don’t run all that much in the races.

Now that the races are starting, though… when the hell are you going to get your running in, even the small amount we’ve been doing?

If you’re a normal, non-independently wealthy, day-job having person, you probably have a pretty damn limited amount of time to train.

Most of the time, once the season starts up, I stop programming running workouts into my training clients schedules.

Between racing, group skills sessions on Wednesdays, and other bike-oriented workouts, most folks get plenty of running in without devoting a day’s training specifically to it.

The time you would dedicate to running – during the season – is probably best spent working on something else.

Having said that, you need to keep track of how things are going in the races.

If you start getting dropped in all the running sections?

Yeah, maybe then you need to focus on the running a bit, or maybe schedule in a running-oriented phase of  training if you start to notice you’re going backwards relative to your competition.

make sense?

So… about today.

Did you race on Monday?

Are you racing this weekend?

If the answer to both of these questions is “yes,” and if the race this weekend is one you care at all about, you probably shouldn’t be running today.

So, don’t.

Today, you’re doing…

Steep Hill Accelerations.

Here’s the drill:

– warm up well, 15 – 20 minutes or so.

– Find a hill that takes you 2-5 minutes to climb at full gas.

– The hill should be rideable in the big ring, but better done in the small ring.

– You are going to do a continuous series of accelerations on the hill. Like this:

Start climbing seated, at a comfortable pace.

After 10 seconds or so, get out of the saddle and accelerate hard. Punch it for 5 pedal strokes.

Sit back down for 5 pedal strokes.

Attack again for 5

Repeat to top of hill, 2-5 minutes, depending on your gas tank.

– Recover by coasting back down the hill.

– Do a set of 5-10, rest for 10 minutes, and repeat.

– Say “ouch,”  spin out, go home, and lie down…

Notes:

– Accelerate as hard as you can, while still being able to complete the interval.

– Vary the gear throughout the intervals; attack in a big gear, then a small gear. Mix it up. Figure out what works best for you, and work on what doesn’t.

– Don’t just coast when you sit down after the attack; you are working on your ability to respond to and initiate attacks, so you need to attack from a fairly stiff tempo, and then settle back down to that, and then go again.

– Ouch.

– You will probably find this to be very frustrating if it’s your first time doing an interval session of this type. Don’t worry about it – it gets better, I promise.

If you didn’t race last weekend, if you aren’t racing this weekend, or if you just really want to get some running in?

You’re doing…

More G**Damned stairs, Damnit….

https://crosssports.wordpress.com/2010/09/01/the-workout-of-the-day-for-thursday-9-2-yeah-were-running-again/

Have fun!

M

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Howdy folks,

All recovered from the first race of the season?

Well, if you raced on Monday, that is.

If you didn’t, You might feel left out for the next couple/ few paragraphs…

OK, so you raced.

What worked really well, skill-wise?

What worked kinda well?

What did you kinda stink at?

What did you totally suck at?

Take a few minutes to think about this…

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

OK.

Now, write those thoughts down.

You’re going to save that list, and for the next couple/few races, you’re going to add to it, modify it, whatever.

Here’s an example:

Good –

Basic Cowboy dismount.

– Nailed it, perfect every time!

OK –

Shouldering the bike

– Went OK, not as smooth as I need it to be.

Acceptable –

Basic remount

– bobbled a couple of times, but no real stutter step (yay!)

– Still not as fast as other folks in the race.

Bad –

Start

– Needs work, I’m losing ground on the fast guys in the first part of the race.

Totally sucked –

form over barriers

– Clipped a barrier and landed on my ass. ‘Nuff said…

See how that works?

Ok.

Go back and modify your list if you need to.

Now, for the Workout Of The Day.

Tonight is Cyclocross Skills Practice.

Warm up well.

Stretch, loosen up, get your game face on.

Look at your list.

Start going down the list, from worst to best.

You’re going to practice everything on that list.

Spend the most time on the things you are the worst at, and next to no time on the stuff you’ve got wired.

Stay at it long enough to make some progress, but not so long you get totally frustrated.

You should have your work cut out for you!

It will look something like this:

Warm up, 10-15 minutes.

Skill #1 – 15 minutes.

Skill #2 – 12 minutes

Skill #3 – 10 minutes

Skill #4 – 5-8 minutes

If you really need to work on something like Starts, don’t just blast starts out full gas for 15 minutes.

Be smart about this, folks. The more technical the skill, the more you can work on it. Something like the start is equal parts learning the skill, learning to pump the intensity, and developing your speed and strength.

Learn the skills, then work the engine.

If you stomp on the gas first thing in the night, you’ll be flat and clumsy the rest of the night.
The harder the effort, the later you schedule it in the session, make sense?

Along those lines, Finish up the night with a simulated race session.

Try to use a course that will emphasize the skills you stunk at in the race.

Try to link “bad” skills sections together, and really work on relaxing on the parts that are tough for you.

Don’t forget to have fun, and force yourself to smile the most when you’re screwing up the worst.

Spin out your legs, go home and relax.

If you didn’t race, you can do the same thing – it’s just not quite as easy.

Make the same list – as best you can – and have at it.

Not into this whole thing at all?

Take a gander at last Wednesday’s session –

https://crosssports.wordpress.com/2010/08/31/the-workout-of-the-day-for-wednesday-9-1-yeah-more-skills/

Have at it, and have fun!

M

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Howdy folks,

The holiday is officially over.

Damnit.

If you raced yesterday, I hope it went well, and that you had a blast!

If you didn’t race, Well… I hope you had a great day anyways.

So, what about today?

It’s Tuesday, and that means 2×20’s, right?

Not if you raced yesterday, it doesn’t.

Ditto if you had a hard day of non racing.

Sound like you?

No 2×20’s for you today. Maybe later in the week 🙂

Today, you’re taking it easy, and doing a nice, relaxing…

One Hour Recovery Spin –

– Get on your bike. Roll out into the street, and just spin around for an hour.

Really small gear, no hard efforts – heck, no medium effort. Spin. You’re looking to move your legs around in circles, almost like there is no chain on the bike. The idea is to get your body moving, flush the systems out, and speed your recovery.

When you do your recovery ride -if you have the time- just get out and spin aimlessly. At a certain point, your legs suddenly feel better.

As soon as that happens, turn around, go home, eat, stretch, and put your legs up.

…or, you know, go to work.

Or School.

Or whatever real-world hassle you have to deal with. 

If, on the other hand, you took it easy yesterday?

you guessed it.

It is, in fact, 2×20 Tuesday!

You can do the Classic 2×20 –

https://crosssports.wordpress.com/2009/09/15/workout-of-the-day-for-914-2/

Or the 2×20 Get-Up Style –

https://crosssports.wordpress.com/2010/08/09/the-cyclocross-workout-of-the-day-for-tuesday-8-9-2x20s-get-up-style/

Have fun!

M

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Howdy folks,

A few folks have asked, so here’s the low-down…

Cyclocross Workouts at the Marymoor Velodrome will begin on Wednesday the 15th, and I will once again be part of the coaching staff at these sessions.

It looks like they have me scheduled to lead the workouts for the Junior riders, and unless any of the “B” riders I was working with last season really want me to continue with them, that’s cool with me. Please drop me a line or leave a comment on here if you have thoughts on the topic.

I will be leading one more Wednesday workout at Woodland Park – on the 8th – and will then switch to Tuesday nights, and will continue doing those until it gets dark too early to be practical, or interest dries up completely. These sessions start at 6pm, and as always, are free with donations willingly accepted (I take time off work to do these and the Marymoor sessions, and don’t receive pay for either of them.)

Questions? Feel free to drop me a line in the comments section or to crosssports at gmail dot com.

M

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Howdy folks,

Well, it’s Labor Day. I hope ya’all are lucky enough to have the day off (I’m not 😦 )

If you live in the Seattle area, there’s a race today, and it’s worth doing if you haven’t got anything else going on. In fact, for many of you, you can pretty much change channels right now, because your workout today is…

Go Race!

Pretty self explanatory, right? Go hard, kick some “A” if you can. Have fun.

If you haven’t done a bunch of races in the past, use this (and other…) early season races as a way to figure out what your pre-race routine is going to be.

Here are some hints to help you figure things out…

– Pack things up the night before.

It’s better to miss some sleep trying to find something than it is to miss the race. I’ve  done both, and there is nothing worse than trying to figure out where the hell you left your damn helmet, as you watch the clock tick inexorably down towards race time.

– Get up early enough so that you can eat your pre-race meal about 3 hours before race time.

Oddly enough, this can be even harder if you have a late race. What do you do when your race is at 2pm? Eat breakfast at 11? Wake up super early, so that you can have breakfast and then lunch at 11? Blech. You need to figure this stuff out for yourself. Good luck.

– Always pre-ride the course.

Find out when the course will be available for preview, and get there much earlier than that.

One of the promoter’s main jobs is to lie to the racers. Assume that whatever time they tell you the course will be open for preview is wrong, and that you will be left scrambling around trying to figure out how and when you can get on the damn course.

– Don’t rely on the course preview for your warm-up unless you have done the race before.

See above. Even if you’ve done the race 100 times before, have a plan B for your warm-up. Bring a Trainer.

– Don’t over do it in your warm up.

I can’t tell you how often I see people leave their best legs on their trainer on race day. There is absolutely no reason to do 2 hours of warm up for a race. More on warming up in a later post. I promise.

– When you get to the race…

First, drive around enough to find a good parking space.

It’s usually worth the time spent, and don’t forget, you aren’t just looking for a spot that’s close to the race, you’re looking for a spot that’s secure.

At least once a season some poor soul at the local races gets their car cleaned out, or stolen in it’s entirety.

Don’t let this happen to you. Be conscious of where you park, who is around the area, and if anybody will sound the alarm if they see your car getting f-ed with.

A couple of hundred people with cars full of expensive gear that they are going to leave unattended for hours at a time sounds like a description of a shopping spree to some folks. Forget this at your peril…

– After you park, grab your spare bike or wheels, walk to the sign in area, sign in, and ASK where the pits are, and what side your number goes on.

I can’t tell you how many times I have seen people wandering aimlessly searching for the pits when all they had to do was ask. Get directions, and get your stuff down there before you do anything else.

Sometimes getting to the pits is a giant pain in the ass, and it can take forever to get there.

You don’t want to discover the pits are 10 minutes away 15 minutes before race time.

– You’re signed in, spare is in the pit, now you go back to your car and pin your number on.

you know what side it goes on, ’cause you asked. Don’t be that jackass that is too f-ing lazy to pin their own number on, and needs to hit somebody else up for some help just before race time.

Do it your own damn self, everybody else managed to, ok?

– Give your bike a once-over, make sure it’s ready to go.

– Make sure you have your pre-race food and drink ready to go, set aside and easy to find.

– NOW get on the course. after all that other stuff is taken care of.

(I’m not going to talk about pre-riding now. Yeah, yet another future post…)

– Pre-ride until you’ve got things wired, then go back to the car and get on the trainer to warm up if you need to.

– Finish your warm up with enough time to change clothing if you need to, and then get to the start/staging area with more time than you think is necessary.

Race. Have fun.

Done a million races?

OK.

Make sure you’ve got things wired, so that when the “important” race come up further down the road, you aren’t screwing things up by showing up too early or too late, missing your warm up, or doing stupid things like forgetting your socks.

So, enough of all this race talk.

Not racing today?

OK.

It is Monday, so our typical ride for today is the One Hour Recovery Spin –

https://crosssports.wordpress.com/2010/08/08/the-cyclocross-workout-of-the-day-for-monday-8-8-and-on-the-8th-day-we-rest/

If you rode hard this weekend, or if this is just another work day for you, this is what you should be doing.

Not working, not racing, feeling pretty psyched to go hard?

Check out yesterday’s post. Or Saturday’s.

Have fun!

M

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