– #PSIcx More info here. Preliminary staging will be here before Sunday.

– PSI-clocross For Life hosted by Rob Curtis and the crew from PSIMET at Emricson Park in Woodstock, IL.

– Good luck to everyone race ‘The Iceman Cometh Challenge’ in Michigan.

– Please pay attention when you are racing and entering the park in your car. There are 2 road crossings on the course and while there will be course marshals at each crossing, please look both ways before crossing. Better safe than sorry.

– Speaking of cars, no parking on the grass – anywhere.  There is plenty of parking available throughout Emricson Park, please use it or you will be ticketed. This includes team vehicles intending on dropping off team tent and compound equipment.

– Speaking of tent compounds – please try to keep the team tents in the areas near start/finish and Heckle Hill.  Areas are marked on the course map below.

– The Pizza food truck many of us have seen at events like Caldwell Woods will be there around 10:30. There are also plenty of places to eat in downtown Woodstock on the square and we encourage all hungry racers to spend their money there.

– The weather looks great if a little chilly. Please dress appropriately for both before, during, and after your race(s).

– No inside bathrooms or the warming hut again this year. All Porta-potties near the Start/Finish.

– Rt 47 through Huntley is not under construction this year but still subject to traffic, so please plan your travel times accordingly. Your best bet directions are to exit I90 on Route 47 into the town of Woodstock. A left on Lake Ave and another left on South St should lead you right to Emricson Park (on your right).

– There will be no water or powerwashers available this year. If weather becomes an issue we highly advise you get someone in the pit to work for you.

– Now that the official sunset time is literally minutes after the end of the Cat 4/5 race, PSIMET and the South Chicago Wheelmen would appreciate any help tearing down the course after said Cat 4/5 race.

– While Rob Curtis LOVES the festivities on Heckle Hill, he asks that if you bring it in you pack it out… or at least drop it in one of the trash cans. It is often tough to see trash on the ground after the last race due to sunset.

– The course: Hills, and some bumpy fields, and a high-speed trip through the woods, and hills. Need we say more? This year the main course elements of years past remain but the course has been shortened slightly so you can suffer more times up the hills.

Wednesday Nighters

Things can begin to get a little less motivating in the race department this time of year. Between the training and racing you’ve put in a lot of time going all out, it’s cold/ish and we’ve just had the time change.  The couch/beer combo looks pretty awesome.

So rather than lay down a specifically timed and focused effort it’s nice to just go out and have fun. It’s also important to maintain the mojo and if you can do that it’s worth at least a few places at the line.  I just started testing these out this season with some folks and the results have been solid!  Pick any one to rip off on a Wednesday or Thursday night’s training session on any course that suits you.  Choose one and, while fairly mindless, they’ll keep you going in the right direction:

10/40:

Do all of this on a cyclocross course. Warm up for at least 15 minutes. Peg power and/or heart rate at zone 3 (tempo) for 10 minutes. At the end of that 10 minutes ramp it up to race pace for 40 minutes. This is one 50 minute continuous effort. Warm down for at least 10 minutes.

20/30:

Do all of this on a cyclocross course. Warm up for at least 15 minutes. Peg power and/or heart rate at zone 3 (tempo) for 20 minutes. At the end of that 20 minutes ramp it up to race pace for 30 minutes. This is one 50 minute continuous effort. Warm down for at least 10 minutes.

30/20:

Do all of this on a cyclocross course. Warm up for at least 15 minutes. Peg power and/or heart rate at zone 3 (tempo) for 30 minutes. At the end of that 30 minutes ramp it up to race pace for 20 minutes. This is one 50 minute continuous effort. Warm down for at least 10 minutes.

Another benefit is that these are a great gauge for current fitness.  look at average power and heart rate for the “race pace” portions of these and they should be close to your FTP.  Hopefully that is still increasing a bit and make note for future intervals.

Thanks for reading.

Rob Kelley

TRAINING BIBLE COACH

www.ROKcoaching.com

Photo: Jason Knauff

– Thanks again to Rob Kelley, Peter Kelley and the entire Bicycle Heaven crew for another fantastic Campton Cross event. Rob’s review of the day is on his coaching site here. In the Elite women’s race Danielle Smith Arman for the 2nd week in a row won the day and took over the Pactimo Series Leader Jersey from an absent mechanical stricken Kelli Richter. Back in town Tricia Fleischer was 2nd and Brittany McConnell visiting from Iowa rounded out the women’s podium. In the men’s race Joseph Maloney came down again from WI and took his 4th win in as many attempts and consequently also earned the Pactimo Series Leader Jersey in the process. Brittany’s husband Kevin McConnell came with her from Iowa to take 2nd with Mike Phillips taking the 3rd step of the podium. Full results are here and here and updated series standings are here.

– Next week the CCC makes its final stop in the NorthWest suburbs as PSIMET takes us to Emricson Park in Woodstock, IL for Psi-clocross for Life. Look for the usually course preview on Thursday morn.

– We’re now in the belly of the season and more than half way through the series. Keep your fitness sharp and your bike(s) in tip top shape. We haven’t had any really bad weather to truly destroy any drive trains, but now is a great time to get your bike(s) into your favorite CX shop for a tune up to make sure they are running perfectly for the rest of the season. Need a recommendation for a shop? We know a few that would love to service your rides.

– Pro Bike Express still has a few spots open for those of you traveling to Austin, TX for USA Cycling National Championships in January. Don’t miss out and “Travel like your train…”

– And finally… Looking for a nice (non-denominational holiday) gift for the cycle-crosser in your life who has everything? Remember the CCC has a limited run of 2014 series T-Shirts & beer Coozies for sale. Check ’em out and grab one or three before they’re gone.

– Rob Kelley, Peter Kelley, and the entire Bicycle Heaven crew bring you the 9th edition of Campton Cross in beautiful Campton Hills.

– Remember to use #CamptonCX on Twitter and Instagram, if you’re into that sort of thing.

– More details here. Preliminary staging will be here before Sunday.

– Remember reg closes 30 minutes before the scheduled start of each race. If you’re late, you’re not racing. We’re even giving you an extra hour to sleep in this year… again. Please find your way to the park near the corner of Rt 64 and Brown Rd in Campton Hills/Wasco… NOT the other Anderson Park in Oak Park. The map on BikeReg is correct as well.

– We know Halloween is tomorrow, but don’t throw away your Halloween costume. Race director Rob Kelley will be the judge in the annual costume contest. Remember when NECX set the bar really high? Well, they were up to it again last weekend too. Bring your A Game and put those pictures on the Internets.

– TDogs BBQ will be back again as well as Reems Brats, plus Hot Chocolate sold by a bunch of cute kids … so plenty of food.

– Rob Kelley says there will be live tigers, if he can find someone with actual real life tigers.

– Sorry, but NO alcoholic beverages are allowed in the park. So you know, be discreet with your High Life.

– Weather looks great but chillier than last week.

– Rob and the crew encourage riders to NOT warm up on/around the soccer fields to the East of registration. The village has asked us to keep off the areas visible when you pull into the park. If you carefully ride North on Brown Rd for about 200 meters you can hop onto the Prairie Path/Great Western trail (see the thick yellow line in the map below) which is a great place to warm up. Thank you.

– The Course: Similar to years past but definitely more of a power course with a new field/maze section in the NorthWest section of the park. That’s the great thing about CX, each track is different and you have to be good at every type of course to do well. Also a log jump/barrier after the 2nd woods section. See here for a handlebar camera preliminary preview of the course, plus a few other videos from over the years. The taped up course can be seen @rokcoach Saturday evening and rokcoaching.com.

No reps this week, all fun.  See below for a video of our kind of new course for this Sunday, along with a few videos taken over the past 9 years.  Can’t believe it’s been 9 years!:

See you there.

www.ROKcoaching.com

– Thanks again to Jim Nowak and the entire ABD crew for another great Sunrise Park event. We had another beautiful day in the mid 60s at #ABDcx.  The Sunrise Park course was a drastic change from the tight course last week in Carpentersville by having lots of long straightaways and wide flowing turns.  It was a fast course in many sections, and still technical in others with many off camber turns, woodchips and the uphill logs that proved to be a place to catch (or lose) a couple spots.  Danielle Smith (Tenspeed Hero) finally got her win that she’d been hunting for after a couple 2^nd place finishes in earlier in the season.  In case you didn’t catch it from race announcer Todd Busteed as she crossed the line, Danielle just got married 2 days earlier!  Joseph Maloney (KS Energy Services / Team Wisconsin), a familiar face by now, won his 3^rd race in the series putting him in 2^nd in the overall standing in only 3 starts. Another result of note comes from the lower cats, Federico Rios, won the men’s 4s last week, upgraded mid week and then won the 3s Sunday, not a bad start to his season. In case you haven’t seen it yet, John Gatto has put together some great videos after each race.  See this Sunrise Park’s edition here.

– We are aware of some issues with the results between what One2Go emailed/tweeted and what was posted to USAC / CrossResults. We will have the results corrected by Wednesday at the latest. The full lap time report is here thanks to One2Go Event Services.

– Next up, the CCC heads a bit farther west for Campton Cross hosted by Bicycle Heaven and ROK Coaching. Halloween is this Friday, so save some candy for Sunday and bring your “A” game costumes. We can’t wait to see what Tony Reinks has in store for us this year! Look for the course preview on Thursday at the regular time.

– If you need moar CX racing, head on down to Peoria this Saturday for Wildlife Spooky CX. Proceeds help little furry animals. Part of the HICX series.

– And finally… a heads up that the Mid West Regional CX Championships (MWRCXC ) will be held 12/14/2014 at the John Ball Park at 1300 W Fulton Grand Rapids, MI 49504. The event will be hosted by Tailwind Racing and they have decided to stage the Men 1/2/3 (top 20), Women 1/2/3 (top 20) and Masters (top 8) based on USAC points. The other categories will be staged based on pre-reg order. Online registration opens this Friday, October 31st at 10am on USACycling.org. The race flyer is here. 

– #ABDcx  Remember to check out the standard preview page here.

– Preliminary staging will be posted here before Sunday. If you upgraded this week and want 1/2 your CCC series points to follow you to the next category, please contact us at ChicagoCrossCup at gmail before Saturday to let us know.

– Parking on Foster Ave is allowed but on NORTH side only. There should be “No Parking” signs along the park (south) side. If not, please respect this. Also Parking is allowed on Struckman Blvd (better option), or at Sycamore Trails School (preferred).

Recovery is a cornerstone of fitness and form. If you are a cyclocross racer you are almost surely training at a level that induces fatigue, while recovery allows your body to repair and increase form and fitness.  Back in the day, pre-Joe Friel periodization model, overtraining was the norm in endurance sports.  It’s pretty easy to do if you have an obsession like we do for cross.

Overtraining can have effects ranging from tired legs on race day in its most common form, to an extreme as severe as the premature retirement of a professional athlete. Per Mr. Friel “overtraining is best described as a decreased work capacity resulting from an imbalance between training and rest”.  If you have a bad race there is at least a decent chance that you have not given yourself the rest needed to recover up to that point.  When many athletes have worse than expected results though they do the opposite of what is necessary to address the issue….they train more.

Classic symptoms are lower power numbers, higher heart rate, general fatigue, irritability and a disinterest in training and racing. You don’t want to get to this point!  We know that most people can handle 3 – 4 weeks of hard training and racing before needing a “week off” for recovery.  So your best bet for success is to look at your season ahead of time and plan those recovery weeks into your schedule so that you feel good when it counts.  If you’re racing cross every weekend you may have a less than stellar race directly following a recovery week.  This varies from person to person and can be disconcerting if you’re not used to plugging rest into your program but, trust me, it’ll pay off in the weeks to come.  Assuming that you are racing every weekend during the ChiCrossCup series, a typical recovery week looks like this:

Monday – off or strength training (strength maintenance phase this time of year)

Tuesday – off

Wednesday – 1 – 1.5 hour zone 1-2 ride

Thursday – 1 – 1.5 hour zone 1-2 ride

Friday – off

Saturday – opener

Sunday – race

Likewise, you need to include recovery days within each week. These can be easy zone 1-2 workouts (“workouts” because strength training and running count) or completely off.  2 – 4 rides with high intensity and/or long duration per week, including race day, are about all a human being can handle.  Take easy recovery rides in between them.

Thanks for reading!

Rob Kelley

TRAINING BIBLE COACH

www.ROKcoaching.com