Thursday, December 10, 2009

Cross Fall-off

So, in every year I've raced 'cross, up until this one, I've gotten faster as the season went on. This year, I started pretty fast, and then got slower. I can say that, for sure, it is more fun to get faster...

I've spent some time thinking about what happened, mostly so I can avoid doing the same thing next year. The key event was that I got sick just after I came back from Virginia and it took me a while to recover. I was sick from Oct 12 - 28. I definitely extended my illness by trying to resume training too quickly.

From October 28 until the end of the season was only about 5.5 weeks. Not much time to rebuild after being mostly down for over two weeks.

My illness was predictable though, and I could have taken some steps to prevent it. I think that a major contributor had to do with the way I structured my year. Due to my early-season knee problem, I sort of got off to a late start. But once I got going, I didn't stop. I trained with no significant break (Transition-type phase) from early May until October! About 22 weeks! I think I would have been better off taking a break at some point and re-loading a bit. I guess I was thinking I didn't need to since I started late. I also was treating my trip to Yosemite as a break, but, given all the hiking we did, it really wasn't. From May 11 until the end of cyclocross season would have been about 30 weeks... so, I think my illness was just a matter of time. Even if I hadn't gotten sick, it seems like I probably couldn't have held my fitness through the whole 'cross season.

I'll be keeping this in mind as I start to plan out my schedule for next year. For now though, I'll be taking a much-needed break!

Cora went to the race on Sunday with my parents. One of her new favorite phrases is, "Dad fall down in the mud." She seemed to think that was pretty funny...

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