Sometimes everything goes wrong...almost

Not everything is easy...or definite.

Photo credit: Kurt Maw

When I was younger, and a Cat 4, I read an article from my coach about planning for the day of the race.  What to prepare, when to leave, how much time to allow, etc.  I still follow that roughly to this day.  One of the key bits of this is arriving at the race and not being [too] stressed out.

When you are late, it seems like everything goes wrong.  But if you are repeatedly early and on time, you develop a muscle memory for what to do before the race and you know what to expect. This routine becomes tested when life throws you a curve and you have to adapt based on the time left. 

Like when you arrive 40 minutes before the start of a cross race.  So what do you do?  Evaluate the nice to haves and need to haves.  First of all, you won't arrive at the race magically late.  On the way, relax and do a mental checklist.  Then...well, you need a number, and you probably need to visit the porta-john.  You need to have your kit on and you need that number on your kit.  Don’t fuss with warmup and race clothes, just put on the race kit.  Then, when you are done with that, you probably have 20 minutes to go.  So, pull out the race bike, evaluate the course, put in the right tire pressure and go.  No pit bike, no pit wheels.  Just go.

Ride to the start, maybe ride to the start as fast as you can to get some blood pumping.  Evaluate staging and then ride the start so you don’t take the whole field out going left when you should go right.  Come back to the start and be there before they start staging.  And so it is done.

At this point, you are probably thinking “no warmup, ugh!!” but you have one bit on your side: Adrenaline.  This cagey chemical in the body is helpful and hurtful.  But in this case, it’s getting you ready for the whole ordeal because deep down you are nervous and scared.  Both things that excite the adrenal glands.  Vocalize to yourself that you’re nervous and then relax and give it your best.  One thing that will happen is that the first lap will feel horrible because you aren’t fully opened up.  So be patient, and let that happen.  On the second and third laps you will begin to feel better and start hunting folks down.

Photo credit: Benjamin D Bloom Photography

This happened to me this past weekend, and a guy next to me that I’ve known for a long time said “Eh, whatever.  You have no expectations, you will probably just relax and have the best race.  It’s not like you are late all the time, then it would be a problem”.  It wasn’t the best race, but what it wasn’t was my worst.  I got 5th with a late surge.  Sometimes you get thrown a curve, and you have to wait on it, adjust and get to the line.  Once on the line, hit it with what you have.  Yes a perfect warmup would have been nice, but you are here to race, so practice racing.

The Wednesday Night Training Race....

Why you should really do that training series

When I was younger, racing as a Killer B in CX, for some reason, I thought it was ridiculous to race the Wednesday night CX training race.  I have no idea why.  Perhaps I thought it was not enough training volume.  Perhaps I wanted to do some “quality training” or “key workouts”.  But, in reality, that’s not correct at all.

The Wednesday night series that seems to be almost everywhere: Catamount, Fifth Street, Wednesday Night SuperPrestige, or Wednesday Night Worlds at Alpenrose.  These are fields of varying ability with one goal: 40-60 minutes of drilling it cross style.  When you are done, you have done some quality training.  What else?  You have practiced the age old skill of turning without falling while riding on the rivet.  There is no doubt, when it’s a race or practice race, your psyche knows and puts the game face on.  Things are tougher and you can utilize this as a chance to try things. What you ask?

The Start

Let’s begin at the beginning.  Line up roughly where you would for a Saturday race.  Listen for the whistle and concentrate on clipping in and getting going.  Did you choose the right gear?  Did you go hard enough for too long or not long enough?  Evaluate the start terrain and make decisions: “Do I need to be in the top 5 before that corner”.

The settle

How far do you hammer to get off the line?  The start is a sprint, and you go into a pretty significant debt.  But it takes much longer to recover the longer you sprint.  Evaluate how far you go before you settle into the pace of the race.  There is usually a sprint, a tussle to get with the group, and then a settle to a pace you can maintain.  Push the envelope and see what the results are.

Changing lines

Perhaps early in the race you see someone ahead taking a different line and it seems faster.  Try that next time.  See if it can help you through a corner.  Also, concentrate on looking through the corner and not at the post at the exit of the corner.

No left hand

The front brake can be the death of you.  Applying it in a corner basically makes you lose a little cornering traction and increases the odds of crashing or sliding out by 709%.  Why do you hit the front brake?  Because you are coming in at what feels like a pace that is too hot.  How do you fix this?  I practice a philosophy that my co-worker Bryan preaches: Slow is Smooth, and Smooth is Fast.  Next time through a hot corner, approach it slower, physically remove the left hand from the brake lever, but keep the right one in the brake position.  Tweak the speed you enter this, and play around with finding a hot smooth line by starting slower.  You’ll also give yourself a chance to recover with this technique and as soon as the power section opens up, you’ll be able hit it harder.

Take a break

There are no crossresults points on Wednesday.  So after you dig too hard on the first lap, sprint too hard out of a smooth section, ride a lap a notch down.  Then re-enter the scrum and hit it again.  Sometimes hammering all the time is good, and sometimes, you don’t get enough of a clear view of the trail because you are hammering.  Taking a break lets you bring the heart rate down, and look at some features at a slower speed, and then attack them on the next lap.  Also, coming off of a recovery lap, practice closing a gap to someone as if it was a real race.  What if that racer up ahead is the $12 zone??  Practice closing because it’s hard.  And don’t worry about people who are going to be pumped that they beat you.  There’s no points.  And there’s no harm in looking at the long game: Saturday and Sunday.

In closing

So, in short, there are so many benefits to the weekday race.  You can practice so much technique in a real atmosphere and make improvements before race day.  And who knows, maybe you’ll even get a brat and a beer in the parking lot.