Training Week

“Don't do anything in practice that you wouldn't do in the game.”

- George Halas

Last week ended up being a pretty good training week, despite the bad weather. I got in all of my scheduled rides and workouts, and by the end of the week, I felt pretty good on the bike.

This week, I'm going to the Rhino's Tuesday night cyclocross workout, so that will be a pretty good test to see where I stand. My guess is that it won't go so well, but my first cross race is still 4 weeks off, so that's OK.

At the 'cross workout, we usually do several short "races", each is maybe 6 laps of a fairly short course. I figure that two laps on our training courses equals one lap on a real 'cross course. Most people, myself included, don't really treat these workouts like real races though.

I think these workouts are very effective, but I also think I can get more out of them. My plan for this year is to treat these like real races. So, what's critical in a 'cross race? The first thing is the start. Since the race is so short, it's important to get up front early and push hard; coming from behind just doesn't seem to work that well. To that end, I want to start each training race like I would a real race... really drop the hammer at the beginning. I'll try to hold that high pace for the first lap; maybe try to build up to two laps by the end of the year. The second thing I want to work on is to quickly get back up to my cruising speed after I have to slow down to clear barriers, for a corner, etc. It's going to mean that these training races hurt more, but it should also make them more effective.