That went fast!  It’s hard to believe that the ChiCrossCup is up again.  Hopefully you’re in stellar form and ready to rip. Regardless, taking a bit of time to plan out the schedule is key.

Recovery is absolutely crucial, and weekly and monthly stints should be worked out now.  If you wait for your body and/or mind to pick a time for rest based on how you feel it will inevitably come at the wrong time.  A weeks’ worth of training and racing should be with 2 or 3 hard days including race day.  Age, experience and time of the season all have a hand in your set up, and a typical “on” week should look something like this:

Monday – Strength training or off completely

Tuesday – Easy ride for 1 to 2 hours

Wednesday – Hard ride.  Bandit race, intervals, etc.

Thursday – Easy skills ride.  Starts, barriers, turns, sand, etc.  Keep it under 1.5 hours and focus on the finer points.

Friday – Off

Saturday – Opener – 1 to 1.5 hours with 2 or 3 short, hard efforts

Sunday – Race

 

Monthly schedules are usually 3 or 4 weeks of hard training and racing followed by a recovery week.   Start with your most important race, presumably Montrose, and work backward.  Most bike racers come in with optimal form 2 weeks after a rest week.  As example the scenario below should produce your best results in the 3^rd and 4^th weeks:

Week 1 – Rest week

Week 2 – On week with race on Sunday

Week 3 – On week with race on Sunday

Week 4 – On week with Race on Sunday

The downside to all of this is that with races almost every weekend you’ll have a few that fall at the end of your recovery weeks.  Those are most likely going to be your worst results because it takes a couple of high-intensity rides to re-boot.   You just can’t be your normal stellar self every weekend, but you can give yourself the opportunity to choose form based on the importance of each race in the series.

See you in the deep, dark Woods of Caldwell.

 

Rob Kelley