CX fitness - apparently it's not the same thing

[jmgorman]

tldr: I'm as fit as I've ever been, but can't turn it on in cross races. Besides fixing my head, what can I do?

So, I'm as fit as I've ever been. Down to race weight, stronger than ever, seem to have the engine. Only, the engine doesn't seem primed for cross. I can't seem to really go-go-go for more than a couple of laps, even though right after, I'm prepared to keep going. I've been managing to double up races without suffering too much, riding the same speed in the second race. I know this is partially mental, but is there something else I should be doing to address this? Is there a magic interval? Should I stop the two-hour hill rides twice a week? Do I need to sacrifice something to the spirit of Eugene Christophe? Does anyone have any ideas?

[Too Tall]

Try a HUGE warmup on a trainer. Arrived a little gassed. It was the key for me otherwise I pop within a couple laps.

[ned]

+1 on the warm up. Need to hit the rev limiter during your warm up--not just ride around. Yes, stop the 2 hr hill rides. Cx season is race on the weekend, short intervals on Tues or Wed, day of skills practice with some very short efforts, remainder of ride time is easy. If you have enough gas left to double up races, you're doing it all wrong. Cx is all about puke threshold.

[Jake Rosenfeld]

Theres all sorts of intervals you can do but the one that works the best for me each year is the start drill interval.

I have a ride that is 20 minutes out to a 35 minute loop around a local lake and 20 minutes home.

once I get to the lake I stop for30 seconds, then start like its a race and hold that for 60 seconds at fuuuulllll bore. At the end of 60 seconds, pedal normal and recover for 5 minutes then stop for 30 seconds and repeat the drill. do this for 5 or 6 times and then cool down (I ride the 20 minutes home)

This will help both your starts and portions of the race that require huge effort outputs.

[11.4]

Remember that cross is a race where everyone is fighting for the front right from the start. That means the first few laps are the hardest -- for everyone. So work on hanging in for another lap or two. The others are suffering too, and the pace will likely ease a bit and you'll find you're doing just fine.

The only other thing is that cross has more repeated hard accelerations than practically any other racing. So if you are training to get up to speed and hang there, like in a road race pack, it won't work in cross. You have to train to accelerate hard but briefly many times. It's very trainable, but you can't rely on endurance training or limited intervals to get you there.

[boots2000]

Warmup like too tall says, but maybe some more specific work.
Describe your 2 hr hill ride in detail.
Maybe you could change it to make it more suitable.

[Shinomaster]

tldr: I'm as fit as I've ever been, but can't turn it on in cross races. Besides fixing my head, what can I do?

So, I'm as fit as I've ever been. Down to race weight, stronger than ever, seem to have the engine. Only, the engine doesn't seem primed for cross. I can't seem to really go-go-go for more than a couple of laps, even though right after, I'm prepared to keep going. I've been managing to double up races without suffering too much, riding the same speed in the second race. I know this is partially mental, but is there something else I should be doing to address this? Is there a magic interval? Should I stop the two-hour hill rides twice a week? Do I need to sacrifice something to the spirit of Eugene Christophe? Does anyone have any ideas?

Shorten one of your two hour rides to one hour but go harder maybe.. also It takes a few races for your body and brain to adapt to the agony.

[holliscx]

It's not your fitness, but your tire pressure bro

[Britishbane]

Try a HUGE warmup on a trainer. Arrived a little gassed. It was the key for me otherwise I pop within a couple laps.

This! Cannot say how much this.

Similar boat: I've been on the bike a fair bit this year and got blown out the first two cross races this year. Did not compute in my head. This weekend I broke out the trainer for day two of charm city. It was like a light switch was thrown, had legs and lungs when I needed them and was actually competitive (relatively). Without the trainer, even with riding around prior to the race, I was blown up 8 minutes into nittany and day one of charm.

[BSUdude]

Theres all sorts of intervals you can do but the one that works the best for me each year is the start drill interval.

I have a ride that is 20 minutes out to a 35 minute loop around a local lake and 20 minutes home.

once I get to the lake I stop for30 seconds, then start like its a race and hold that for 60 seconds at fuuuulllll bore. At the end of 60 seconds, pedal normal and recover for 5 minutes then stop for 30 seconds and repeat the drill. do this for 5 or 6 times and then cool down (I ride the 20 minutes home)

This will help both your starts and portions of the race that require huge effort outputs.

Now that we're in the season stuff like the above is what will help, since you can't really keep building your engine if you're racing each weekend. Something else that will help your legs w/ cross accelerations could be something like 10s sprint-20s coast back down to 10mph, 10s sprint-20s coast back down. Do a couple sets of 10 minutes of those once a week for a couple weeks. The good thing about training your top end is that you'll notice the benefits of this workout after only doing it a couple times.

Also another poster hit the nail on the head...first 1/3 of the race will be the toughest mentally. If you find yourself hating life and wanting to give up in the first 1/3, this means you're doing it right. Embrace it as long as you can and it will likely ease up in the middle third. Then the final third either hang on or make people hurt depending on how you feel.

Also of course warmups with hard efforts are important...was assuming that was a given.

[DOOFUS]

1) long, hard warmup

2) chuck the long rides. training sessions 75-90min max.

3) now that you're racing, only 1 hard day/week

4) 30-30s, or 15sec on 15 sec off microbursts, 1 min intervals, or VO2s. screw everything else. it's too late to develop FTP, and the variability of 'cross makes steady-state training of little use once the season starts (or, a month before the season starts, really).

[big boom]

Wow...this thread comes at a great time for me. Did my first CX race ever on the weekend and same experience as the OP, felt better and quicker at the end of the race and once that was done wanted to do another one right away. I'll have to give the hard warm up a try...showed up about 20 minutes before race time due to for lack of a more polite reason "family obligations"

I found I had the legs on the bike to keep up with people but it was the getting on/off where I wasted time and energy. Will have to find an open field to work on my remounting and try the hard warmup method. I'm guessing for all the crits i did this year I rode to them so I was warmed up and ready to give'r.

[SpeedyChix]

This one needs a triple like.
It's all about developing the hard short efforts and dealing with a few seconds of recovery. You'll find the CX race full of repeated hard full-on efforts and you'll want to learn to be able to deal with the couple of seconds here and there where you snag a hint of recovery.
A favorite of mine that develops remount skill and carries at the same time is 30-30-30: Sprint for 30, coast/dismount 30 and then run for 30. Repeat for 10 minutes. Rest 5-10 and do two more blocks.

1) long, hard warmup

2) chuck the long rides. training sessions 75-90min max.

3) now that you're racing, only 1 hard day/week

4) 30-30s, or 15sec on 15 sec off microbursts, 1 min intervals, or VO2s. screw everything else. it's too late to develop FTP, and the variability of 'cross makes steady-state training of little use once the season starts (or, a month before the season starts, really).

[ZenNMotion]

It's not your fitness, but your tire pressure bro

This may have been tongue in cheek but don't discount it. Plus the head part. If you're bitching about Charm City there were at least a couple of spots where the tires made a difference, even on a dry course, especially the sand- if you couldn't ride all of it, there's at least 20-30 seconds per lap right there. And your head- were you one of those dudes who spent most of the race riding the same wheel? That guy is just slowing you down, think past him, don't wait to pass, don't be timid, push him to the outside on those turns, keep moving forward.

[jmgorman]

A favorite of mine that develops remount skill and carries at the same time is 30-30-30: Sprint for 30, coast/dismount 30 and then run for 30. Repeat for 10 minutes. Rest 5-10 and do two more blocks.

Damn - that sounds like some kind of hurt!

The hill ride is about two hours, 40ish miles, 2500', conversational until it turns upward the third time, on the gas to be the first to the top of some steady 3-5min efforts, a couple of rolly sections. Just got started on it, so not keen to stop, but consensus seems to be that I need my intervals more. I guess I'm just worried about losing fitness if I'm only really on once or twice a week for the next 10 weeks.

Yesterday I intentionally tried to sit comfortably (though still plenty fast) until 3 to go, where I was trying to catch ahead of me. I managed to do it, but then lost some ground on the last lap. I'll definitely start doing a better warm up (I'm guilty of just doing the ride around) and try to sit out any long rides. Suppose I need to give up the early week gym sessions as well?

Doofus - does one hard day/week mean one hard interval day and the race day, or just race day with some maintenance intervals (at a lower total work level) through the week?

[SpeedyChix]

Yeah it hurts, but then, so does a cross race. It'll have you working on your mental game too.

During CX season you'll watch you're overall fitness fall (in a "conventional" sense) but you're top end short stuff has to get really sharp. If you're working with a PMC chart you'll see the decline start on that.
Part of the thought of one or at most two hard sessions a week is that the weekend of cross racing will leave you gassed and in need of recovery and same thing happens from those hard workouts during the week.

[Shinomaster]

I swear the summer I would up with the best race speed was when I didn't do any three hour rides in the high hills, instead I did one long hill as fast as I could which took about 40 minutes..( also did some flat 2 hour rides). I was flying that year. The fitness from slower sustained climbing didn't seem to translate to racing so well.

[Delicious]

Lots of good advice here. SpeedyChix is spot on that CX is all about a strong metal game add being able to bang our short, repetitive efforts all race long. Like really short efforts. Much shorter efforts than I think a lot of people train for. Think # of pedal strokes, not # of seconds.

Looking at power meter files of races really opened my eyes to the types of efforts required in a typical CX race (mudfest tractor pulls not withstanding). Conventional thinking on microbursts is to do intervals in the 15/30 second range, which are probably helpful but still much longer than a typical CX 100% effort.

Looking at files from Nittany shows about 30 distinct "sprints" in a 7 minute lap. That's one every 12 seconds on average. Think 5 FULL GAS pedal strokes, followed by a few seconds of coasting and/or tempo riding. Also, there was not a single section with over 20 seconds of continuous pedaling. Granted, Nittany is a very flat grass crit style course, but I'd suggest that race efforts look very similar for a lot of CX courses in the US.

Find a mid-week CX practice/Wednesday Worlds near you and get in on the simulated race heats. This is by far the best way to get your body used to the violence of CX type race efforts. If you want to tune the cross engine, kill the 2 hour rides. Sounds like you've already got good base fitness. You can train for cross doing by making nearly all your rides an hour or less.

This is a power profile of 7 minute CX lap:
Nittany Lap.JPG
Make your 5-7 minute interval efforts look like that.

[lukasz]

OP: IMO you don't need to change anything. You have the fitness and it is only September. You're going to race yourself into shape. It is too late to do exercises to adapt. Also try braking less.

[big boom]

OP: IMO you don't need to change anything. You have the fitness and it is only September. You're going to race yourself into shape. It is too late to do exercises to adapt. Also try braking less.

Guilty...brake way too much around the corners. Really have to learn how to handle a cross bike!