After several seasons of racing cycloCX (CX), I have come to view CX not just as a way to spend the fall having fun, but more as a racing season of its own that involves key races and specific training. For the first few seasons I pretty much trained like a burned out road biker and didn’t take my CX results very seriously. It didn’t take long before CX took on a life of its own and now is my favorite 120 days of the year.
After some thought I have decided to write several training plans. Each slightly different than the other. I wanted to create a plan that would basically help you train to “lap your previous CX self.” The goals of the program are to help you develop fitness you have never had, to help you start building a solid foundation to race from both now and in the future, and to see some remarkable growth in your strength as a CX racer.
If you have raced CX before, I don’t need to explain that it is the most brutal 60 minutes on 2 wheels. It is a full body sufferfest with the need for 2 gears: Full gas and .Full Brake… For some it races like a 60 minute time trial but if you look through a power file you will quickly observe that a competitive CX race has very little tempo. It is pedal to the floor in between short bits of rest. If you train for this type of effort effectively, you can race the full hour not just the first 15 minutes.
After racing my 3rd season of CX I found a constant theme of running out of gas 30 minutes into the race and holding on for dear life the remaining 30. I would dread the last 5-6 laps. I often could hold my position but I was no longer racing I was just in survival mode. I decided last season, with the help of my coach “Hunter Allen from Peaks,” to try to gain the needed fitness to turn CX from a season of CX training for the road to a season of racing entirely devoted to itself; to take it seriously and try to be competitive at a higher level than before. So, Hunter and I put together a plan to help me gain the fitness I would need for this very different type of racing.
I raced 12 CX races during the fall of 2006. Not once did I feel like I had the death grip just wanting the race to end. Sure there were plenty of races I wished I was stronger and got passed in the last few laps. But for the first time ever I could race the full hour and the next day get up and do it again. I have yet to see the wheels of Ryan Trebon in a CX race, but to be honest I might just not have the genetics for that.
After some thought I have decided to write several training plans. Each slightly different than the other. I wanted to create a plan that would basically help you train to “lap your previous CX self.” The goals of the program are to help you develop fitness you have never had, to help you start building a solid foundation to race from both now and in the future, and to see some remarkable growth in your strength as a CX racer.If you have raced CX before, I don’t need to explain that it is the most brutal 60 minutes on 2 wheels. It is a full body sufferfest with the need for 2 gears: Full gas and .Full Brake… For some it races like a 60 minute time trial but if you look through a power file you will quickly observe that a competitive CX race has very little tempo. It is pedal to the floor in between short bits of rest. If you train for this type of effort effectively, you can race the full hour not just the first 15 minutes.
After racing my 3rd season of CX I found a constant theme of running out of gas 30 minutes into the race and holding on for dear life the remaining 30. I would dread the last 5-6 laps. I often could hold my position but I was no longer racing I was just in survival mode. I decided last season, with the help of my coach “Hunter Allen from Peaks,” to try to gain the needed fitness to turn CX from a season of CX training for the road to a season of racing entirely devoted to itself; to take it seriously and try to be competitive at a higher level than before. So, Hunter and I put together a plan to help me gain the fitness I would need for this very different type of racing.I raced 12 CX races during the fall of 2006. Not once did I feel like I had the death grip just wanting the race to end. Sure there were plenty of races I wished I was stronger and got passed in the last few laps. But for the first time ever I could race the full hour and the next day get up and do it again. I have yet to see the wheels of Ryan Trebon in a CX race, but to be honest I might just not have the genetics for that.
What I feel like when I am racing CX…A narrative with myself at nationals…
2006 Elite CycloCX nationals.
“Dude this is nuts..120 studs all around me ….5 rows back from Johnathon Page and Ryan Trebon…7 rows of guys behind me. I wish I had some UCI points to get me a bit further up at the start…Ah it doesn’t matter..5th row is about where you belong. 58 guys in front of you lets just see if I can finish 59th like my race number..The gun fires my mind is blank but totally on task. Stay upright and out of trouble. Push your elbows out…Stay up and move up. I am grabbing at every little pocket before another rider fills it. 70 are behind me and all believe they should have started on the front row. 50 guys in front of me trying to get to the first corner at the front….Don’t wreck dude it will be over before this thing gets started. Elbows and wheels are everywhere...As we fly through the first corner I almost close my eyes. It looks like a blender of legs, gears, mud, and a rainbow of jerseys. Mid-way into the first lap we are already 45 seconds back from the leaders. Guys are grabbing the inside line on every corner just trying to move up and get into the action. I keep telling myself to pedal hard and rest. Each chance I get I move up a few spots. We hit the run-up. It is so loud!!!!!! I can barely see with all the people and noise. It is like being in a tunnel. Everything was so cloudy. The Noise powered my legs all the way up the hill…. I can’t tell if I am breathing. They are screaming Chris Horner’s name. We are shoulder to shoulder. I remount my bike at the top right behind Chris Horner…well, maybe he was only there because he had a technical earlier…but still…it’s CHRIS HORNER on a bike and I’m with him!
That was one of the coolest moments I have ever had on the bike. I can’t believe I am here. For the next 9 laps I was in awe. Lap after the lap the crowd and the racers didn’t back down. I raced for 60 minutes into 29th place. There wasn’t a racer in front of me that didn’t deserve to be there. I was able to race from Gun to bell-lap. One year ago I would have lapped myself. One year ago I would have been 100th in this field.
At this moment CycloCX had gone from a way to CX train and stay in shape to a full personal obsession. I finished on the same lap as the leaders in a race just the year before I would have been lapped twice. CycloCX has gone from a way to CX-train to the sport I now CX-train to do.
CYCLO CX 120 DAYS
So the prep for CX is pretty simple. Race a full road or mountain season so your legs are prepared for the beating they will take in CX. It is easier to arrive in September in shape to train for CX than to survive a long winter and race the road bike. But the hurdle most riders run into is that they are so burned coming into the CX season that training is the last thing they want to do. Well this might not be the training plan for you. For the best results I would say end your road racing in July and take a bit of a mental break before so you are amped when you get the CX bike out and still reasonably fit that you are not starting from scratch. CX usually starts the first week of October and ends a few weeks before Christmas. If you are lucky enough to live or race in Europe you would get to race CX for 2 more months.
So training for a successful CX season really gets started in August. If you are racing a local or national series you will be expected to have reasonable form by early October. When I say reasonable form I mean ready to hammer for 60 non-stop minutes. That is a ton of hard pedaling and if you expect results you better be ready to hammer. Every season it seems like more and more racers are racing CX. It is no longer the sport that the un-trained summer cyclist can race off the couch and place on a podium.
Our season in Utah starts early and plenty of the local talent races some of the national events so the big-guns come swinging early. I have found that racing into shape in CX isn’t that much fun so the purpose of this plan is to be fit early and get stronger as the season progresses. The wear and tear of CX is mega on the body. I find that if you start behind the 8-ball it makes for an impossible task of getting ahead during the CX season. Think of it as a Road Bike season that starts in April and ends in May. You have just 8-10 weeks of key races. Most CX races are a series so the Points in October are as important as the points November. If the goal isn’t a race series you can obviously back off a hair early and come on strong at the end. But if the goal is collecting points whether UCI for nationals or local points to be the big fish. You better not be to far off you’re A game in October and expect to see a miracle by late November. I don’t want to be misunderstood here. I am not saying you need to have 100% form in October. But if you come in too rested or to out of shape the season is just too short to see a huge improvement in just 8 weeks. You will certainly get stronger but that is all relative. Do you want to be faster than the year before? If so, let’s do some things differently…and see if we get some results. 
“Dude this is nuts..120 studs all around me ….5 rows back from Johnathon Page and Ryan Trebon…7 rows of guys behind me. I wish I had some UCI points to get me a bit further up at the start…Ah it doesn’t matter..5th row is about where you belong. 58 guys in front of you lets just see if I can finish 59th like my race number..The gun fires my mind is blank but totally on task. Stay upright and out of trouble. Push your elbows out…Stay up and move up. I am grabbing at every little pocket before another rider fills it. 70 are behind me and all believe they should have started on the front row. 50 guys in front of me trying to get to the first corner at the front….Don’t wreck dude it will be over before this thing gets started. Elbows and wheels are everywhere...As we fly through the first corner I almost close my eyes. It looks like a blender of legs, gears, mud, and a rainbow of jerseys. Mid-way into the first lap we are already 45 seconds back from the leaders. Guys are grabbing the inside line on every corner just trying to move up and get into the action. I keep telling myself to pedal hard and rest. Each chance I get I move up a few spots. We hit the run-up. It is so loud!!!!!! I can barely see with all the people and noise. It is like being in a tunnel. Everything was so cloudy. The Noise powered my legs all the way up the hill…. I can’t tell if I am breathing. They are screaming Chris Horner’s name. We are shoulder to shoulder. I remount my bike at the top right behind Chris Horner…well, maybe he was only there because he had a technical earlier…but still…it’s CHRIS HORNER on a bike and I’m with him!
That was one of the coolest moments I have ever had on the bike. I can’t believe I am here. For the next 9 laps I was in awe. Lap after the lap the crowd and the racers didn’t back down. I raced for 60 minutes into 29th place. There wasn’t a racer in front of me that didn’t deserve to be there. I was able to race from Gun to bell-lap. One year ago I would have lapped myself. One year ago I would have been 100th in this field.At this moment CycloCX had gone from a way to CX train and stay in shape to a full personal obsession. I finished on the same lap as the leaders in a race just the year before I would have been lapped twice. CycloCX has gone from a way to CX-train to the sport I now CX-train to do.
CYCLO CX 120 DAYSSo the prep for CX is pretty simple. Race a full road or mountain season so your legs are prepared for the beating they will take in CX. It is easier to arrive in September in shape to train for CX than to survive a long winter and race the road bike. But the hurdle most riders run into is that they are so burned coming into the CX season that training is the last thing they want to do. Well this might not be the training plan for you. For the best results I would say end your road racing in July and take a bit of a mental break before so you are amped when you get the CX bike out and still reasonably fit that you are not starting from scratch. CX usually starts the first week of October and ends a few weeks before Christmas. If you are lucky enough to live or race in Europe you would get to race CX for 2 more months.
So training for a successful CX season really gets started in August. If you are racing a local or national series you will be expected to have reasonable form by early October. When I say reasonable form I mean ready to hammer for 60 non-stop minutes. That is a ton of hard pedaling and if you expect results you better be ready to hammer. Every season it seems like more and more racers are racing CX. It is no longer the sport that the un-trained summer cyclist can race off the couch and place on a podium.
Our season in Utah starts early and plenty of the local talent races some of the national events so the big-guns come swinging early. I have found that racing into shape in CX isn’t that much fun so the purpose of this plan is to be fit early and get stronger as the season progresses. The wear and tear of CX is mega on the body. I find that if you start behind the 8-ball it makes for an impossible task of getting ahead during the CX season. Think of it as a Road Bike season that starts in April and ends in May. You have just 8-10 weeks of key races. Most CX races are a series so the Points in October are as important as the points November. If the goal isn’t a race series you can obviously back off a hair early and come on strong at the end. But if the goal is collecting points whether UCI for nationals or local points to be the big fish. You better not be to far off you’re A game in October and expect to see a miracle by late November. I don’t want to be misunderstood here. I am not saying you need to have 100% form in October. But if you come in too rested or to out of shape the season is just too short to see a huge improvement in just 8 weeks. You will certainly get stronger but that is all relative. Do you want to be faster than the year before? If so, let’s do some things differently…and see if we get some results. 
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