Woodchuck holes are not the cyclocrosser’s friend.

Yesterday I went over to the beautiful Shenandoah Valley to race at the inaugural Luray Caverns CX race.  I was pretty excited because not only am I on some great form, but they even had a 35+ Cat 4 race, which I figured I’d have a pretty good shot at winning.

The course had one decent hill, one set of barriers, one set of logs that you could easily hop, and more twists and turns than you could ever want.  I didn’t get a great start, having lined up in the second row of the 18 starters, and left the pavement in maybe 5th wheel.  We immediately went into a downhill zig-zag section, before bombing down a decent descent and making a 180 and climbing up the same hill we had just descended.  No problems here, I rode easy, maintained position and waited for things to start splitting up.  For most of the first lap they didn’t and I just sat in.  Towards the end of the first lap we hit the barriers for the first time and I had a great dismount, made up a spot or two, set the bike down and… realized I had been a bit too hasty and rough putting the bike down and somehow had gotten the chain off the ring and past the chain catcher.  While I stopped to fix that, the lead group rode away, but again, I wasn’t too worried because I felt so good.

I? start hustling after them, chasing for a lap and then catch one rider.  After jumping over the logs, I decide I should put in a little dig to get some distance on him, stand up to accelerate and put my front wheel right into a hole (unmarked of course) and go down.  Not badly because I hadn’t really accelerated, but enough that the rider passed me.

So I’m back up and chasing again, now sitting in 7th place.  I catch sixth place (John Murray who I believe rides for the Winchester Wheelmen) and we ride together for a bit, and as I’m bombing down a hill leading to the pits I manage to find yet another hole or divot and, bang, I’m down again.  This one hurt a bit because it was at speed (when I got the skinsuit off, I discovered a nice bruise on my thigh in the shape of a the hook of a handle bar), but I got up and, yes, chased him down yet again?.

So now it’s last lap, we’re catching 5th place, and although the podium is out of reach, I’m thinking top 5 would be pretty good.  Going into the downhill switchbacks, I have a complete brain fart and start to turn too early, nearly run into the tape, slow way down and allow him to pass me.  He gets a little gap going down the hill, but yet again, I chase him down on the hill.

And here I made a tactical error — rather than attacking immediately after getting on his wheel and trying to get a gap on the power section I sat in.  It was a mistake because clearly he was a better technical rider than I while I seemed to have a bit more power — I needed a gap because he would pull away on the technical stuff.  Anyway, he would get a little gap on every corner and I would close it a bit and so on around the course until we finally caught 5th place, he got by cleanly and I had to slow down a bit and that was all she wrote, he rode off for 5th while I had to settle for 6th despite having some of the best form of my life.

Take home lesson here: in cross (and probably in mountain biking, though I haven’t raced that discipline yet) good technique is as important as good form.

Technorati Tags     cycling,race_reports,racing,cyclocross

Having done my first cross race of the season this past weekend, I was reminded yet again how much fun you can have killing yourself for 45′  riding circuits in the dirt.

I’ve pasted a copy of my race report from the Bryan Park cross race below.  I’d love to hear from others about how their cross seasons are going.

I finally dragged the cross bike out for a race — 35+ open.  The course was at Bryan Park in Richmond — site of the weekly training crit series — and the course was very much like  a crit.  Totally flat, 2 sets of barriers, lots of twists and turns.  It really was a technical crit raced on cross bikes.  I had really good legs, but didn’t have a great start.  I was on the front row during staging, but because this is a series, they did call ups and I wound up losing a row and a chance at the hole shot.  I sat in ~10th place for the first half of the race, picking a few guys off here and there, but not really closing to the leaders.  My luck for the worse turned towards the end of the race — I stacked it trying to take a corner too sharply.  Nothing serious and I was up and moving in a few seconds, but I did lose 2 spots.  Next lap, however, the fatigue must have been setting in because as I was going over the last barrier, I banged the bike  and knocked the chain off (short legs and 40cm high barriers don’t always mix well).  Lost 3-4 spots getting it back on.  I lost some momentum after that and rode with a teammate for the last three laps, actually sitting in at times as if it were a road race.  Wound up finishing 15th/ 25ish.

So a relatively disappointing finish, but boy, was it fun.  For those of us focused on the road season, cross provides such a great mental change of pace that it always rekindles enthusiasm.  Plus it’s an easy way, psychologically at least, to get some good late season intensity in without slogging through another set of intervals.  So if you haven’t already — grab a cross or mountain bike and go play in the dirt!

Perhaps the most unusual feature was the pile of woodchips used as an obstacle.  I was so surprised at coming upon it during warmups that I actually stopped and asked where the course went.  Grinning at my confusion, the volunteers pointed straight over the pile.  And over it I went.  One aspect of the race I really regret, however, was not seeing if I could ride the pile.  Several riders could, but by the time it occurred to me to try it, warmup was over, and I wasn’t willing to experiment once the race started.  Consequently, I dismounted and clambered, stumbled, and even sunk a few times as I crossed it.  Riding it would have saved a few seconds every lap, seconds that I really could have used as I finished 9th and 7th and 8th place were still within sight.

Technorati Tags     racing,cyclocross

So what explains the disappointing day?  Well the most obvious (and probably sufficient) answer is that I lined up in the back row, and on a course as tight and twisty at the one at IX, with that starting position, unless you’re a real stud, you won’t be seeing the front. But because I try to treat each race as a learning experience, I cast around for a further explanation, and it occurred to me that I may not have been breathing as hard as I usually am because the course didn’t really contain enough straights for me to reach VO2max.  What it did have was constant sharp turns and short steep hills, the kind of course that puts a real strain on your neuromuscular power.  My body’s response bears this out — I may not have been panting as I am after a race or a hard interval, but my legs were tired, the kind of tired I associate with a hard sprint workout (or when I lifted more regularly, a hard session in the squat rack).

During my V02 block, I’ve essentially neglected neuromuscular power, beyond what’s required to get over the hills that abound here in Virginia.  This neglect is borne out by the numbers — my 5″ power over the past month is nearly 10% lower than my season peak.  Just to double check this decline, I did a few sprints today as part of my race prep routine and 5″ power was down even more, nearly 20% from my season peak in May.

Cyclocross requires quite a bit of neuromuscular power because of the constant slowing down and accelerating after dismounts and tight turns.  The course at IX was just a more extreme example of this principle and really emphasized the truism that the three most important words in training for cycling are specificity, specificity, and specificity.  So, while it’s probably too late for training I do now to have an impact on any but the last few cross races, I will certainly be including some nm workouts from now on, and if I decide to focus on cross again next season, I’ll be sure to make sure I start them earlier because Sunday’s experience confirmed once again that you need to maintain that “burstiness” that comes with a well-developed neuromuscular system to succeed at cross.

Oh, and being sure that you weasel your way to front on the start line…

Technorati Tags     training,cycling,cyclocross