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.
