[Closed] Training plan suitable for SSCX

Why did you DNF? I'm sure you're able to ride your bike for an hour (assuming it was a 1 hour race). Sounds like you went off far too hard and blew up?

That's probably uncomfortably close to the truth I'm afraid; I've always thought of myself as being competitively uncompetitive. I knew that I wouldn't be troubling anyone's podium spot, but I did find a tiny little voice inside my head telling me to get past people (for 35 minutes, anyway. It then said give up).

I know my bike isn't optimal, but for now, that's what I've got to use.

I thought an hours ride would be easy, as I'm quite comfortable with century audaxes. Totally different sort of fitness though......

Inhaling chlorine gas whilst doing a VO2Max test should see you acclimatise to the rigours of SSCX.

Inhaling chlorine gas whilst doing a VO2Max test should see you acclimatise to the rigours of SSCX.

This is about right. Try another race and make sure you can reach the end? If you're used to long days in the saddle at a moderate tempo, then CX racing is likely to come as quite a shock! My heart rate traces from races make me sick just looking at them!

Now you know to pace yourself better. People go on about CX being a sport of hard short efforts, but really its a sport of recovery from hard short efforts. That is to say its ultimately still an endurance sport and if you don't have the endurance or threshold base you won't be making those hard efforts for long.

No idea how much time in a week you have to devote to training but I would suggest working on threshold efforts once or twice(race counts as one of thes) a week with the rest of the time spent building your endurance base, say at 4-5 on the RPE. Should mean you can get some volume while still being fresh for the hard work(s)

I don’t have a HR monitor, but I do have a Garmin Edge 25, so I think that does have some sort of training capability.

You can use the edge 25 with an ANT+ HR strap, it's very useful (IMO). I think they can be had for ~£25, a generally worthwhile investment...

Best advice I can offer is warm up, and practice riding for an hour under similar conditions, on similar terrain (with a HR monitor) on the same bike and see what you can sustain for an hour without the pressure of trying to pass others...

But yeah you'll go off a bit too hard with the pressure of competition, and opportunities to pass others, it's learning to moderate that instinct and, as you already said, "Ride your own Race"...

Inhaling chlorine gas whilst doing a VO2Max test should see you acclimatise to the rigours of SSCX.

or breathing through a wet towel?

Cocomo, showing my ignorance here, but what is RPE?

I dabble in the odd SSCX race. I ride my bikes, i don't "train".

I adopt an underdog strategy: I start dead last, this way i can't do any worse, then i hold the psycological advantage of anyone that i happen to overtake. In a 40min race, the darkest time is at around 30mins, i wanna quit every time. Start slower and build up your attack towards the end, try and gauge your effort & regain some control of your breathing on suitable sections of the course. Enjoy.

You'll make far quicker gains practicing technique as a CX beginner than banging out intervals on the turbo, say [This x 10 if you're a roadie].Technique, general riding around and one hard midweek session would see you right at this stage.

For SS cx I'd imagine you need to be a capable runner, at least once the proper mud comes in [already here at the weekend in the NW series]. Running in CX isn't quite the same thing as just general running, as in you can do decently well with it in a race without being anything special as a pure runner, but it's something you need to be psychologically comfortable with.

Enjoy, he says......

It is strange that I did enjoy it. I always had that idea that just riding my bikes, any bike, is training enough. However I would like to make a more focussed effort next time. The RPE scale looks handy, thanks for that.

I'm having to do it on a shoestring budget for now, so gears may be an option later on or even a proper bike, but for now this is it; it's down to lungs and legs.

a long time since I did a CX race but you have to remember it's still 45-60 mins and therefore it's an endurance event. You win nowt for being fast if that only gets you through 15-20 mins.

Cocomo nailed it when he said it's about ability to recover from hard efforts - but at the same time you are maintaining close to threshold while you recover. So while intervals of the traditional ride hard up hills, coast down, repeat will bring the tide in and raise your fitness in general, you need more specifically to go for a hard ride for an hour, and in the course of that ride throw in some super hard sprints and then recove rback to threshold.

HRM / RPE / Power meter all useful, but frankly it's riding the balance between 'I think I'm going to be sick' and 'Whoops, I've just been sick'.

I'm a back of the pack botherer at CX (and i've got much less fit) however warm up and pacing are my best advice.

I did 4/5 races last season plus spectating when i was sick - learnt a lot by the new year.  Is there a Cx racing thread this year? it was very helpful last year. Each race reflecting, setting goals, discussing and getting advice from some experienced people.

You’ll make far quicker gains practicing technique as a CX beginner than banging out intervals on the turbo, say [This x 10 if you’re a roadie].Technique, general riding around and one hard midweek session would see you right at this stage.

For SS cx I’d imagine you need to be a capable runner, at least once the proper mud comes in [already here at the weekend in the NW series]. Running in CX isn’t quite the same thing as just general running, as in you can do decently well with it in a race without being anything special as a pure runner, but it’s something you need to be psychologically comfortable with.

Interesting. Short uphill and offroad?

So. It looks like hard road intervals, with ss rides approximating race conditions and a some running?

Garry_Lager's observation about technique is spot on IMO. Especially at this point in the year, with the season just about to start. Expecting big fitness gains in a short space of time is not going to end well. Being smooth saves an awful lot of effort over multiple laps of a CX course, and racing in any discipline is all about the conservation of effort. "Slow is smooth and smooth is fast" so the saying goes.

An earlier point about cross races being all about recovery from short efforts is also right IMO. If you're going to practice specifically for CX racing then a lot of your training has to look like this. Short, intense bursts followed by brief recovery, then go again. The efforts themselves aren't the important part in many ways, it's the bits in between that count. The more you train like this, the less you'll feel like you're about to die in between efforts and that's what you're aiming to take to races.

Power meters, heart rate monitors and so on all have their place, and can be useful here but in all honesty for CX training you're as well just going all-out in short interval sets. That's what you'll be doing on race day, nobody's looking at their Garmin monitoring their 3s average power in a cross race. Maybe van Aert does but the people you're racing won't be!

For SSCX, it's worth thinking through a typical race and where you're disadvantaged through having no gears and paying attention to that. For me, that's on a long, flat straight, quite often the start straight. You've really got to spin like a Keirin rider at that point! Leg speed drills are helpful there. Sprinting out of corners is something you've got to be good at and able to use to your advantage where you can. There's an interval set right there, sprinting out of successive corners. That's how I approach it.

I've raced SSCX for several years now - I'm v40 and a top 10 type in the Scottish series - and I reckon targeted short, hard intervals are the way to go. You need a base obvs (I commute about 20 miles a day on a fixed which is invaluable) but intervals are ace for CX, geared on not.

As an example, last night I was out doing 30 sec all-out sprints up a slippy grass hill, descending back down between each one, turning at awkward angles, before spinning seated on the flat for a further minute. Stop for 2 mins, feel a bit sick, then go again. Five of those, followed by an easy recovery spin for ~10 mins, then 2 mins all out round a short technical loop, before an easy spin to cool down. Hard (the all-out bits are absolutely all-out) but fun, albeit in a type 2 way.

I maybe do 3 sessions like that a week in the run-up to the season, two once the racing's underway.

My summer's 'training' all went to shit after a broken collarbone followed by being constantly ill with bugs that Monk Jr has brought back from nursery, adorable little petri dish that he is...

I'm focussing on technique (if I can ever get over my fear of the local teenagers laughing at me as I ride around cones in the park...) and on the day prep, I reckon I lost 5 to 10 places a race by having to stop and let my airways open up again after the first 15 minutes, hoping a better warm up will cure that!

Always tempted by SSCX, felt like I only ever used one or two gears a race anyway...

I've raced a few seasons in the London League on SSCX in the V40s and you definitely be competitive, especially when/if the mud comes - when it does, make sure you're geared low enough that you can still grind through it.

There's not a lot you can do to build your endurance now, so as has been said up there - try to get out for 1-2 hard sessions a week and make sure you give yourself plenty of time to recover. Practice your dismounts/re-mounts and get used to running with the bike.

Having said all that, I'm racing with gears this year.

Always tempted by SSCX, felt like I only ever used one or two gears a race anyway…

I think I could have overgeared, but also thought I could have gotten away with two or three gears, max.

I'll stick with the SS for now, but I'll try something similar to what 2Tyred is doing. I've got 4 weeks til the next round, so I'll try to get some structured riding round work, home, family etc.

Dont think you need an HRM for cx interval efforts, with HR lag it doesn't reflect the intensity of such short intervals really.

I am not very good, but I love training for CX. My go-to session: either cone out two hairpins ot just use some handy trees 50-75m apart. Sprint out of the courners and along straight, naturally recover as you coast to go round teh hairpin. 3-5 min intervals. Either sprint both straights or recover one of them. Sprint both but do in a slight gradient (one up, one down) and its like a overunder interval. As said you'll make up more time actually cornering efficiently than with fitness but this sort of training does both.

A mixture of sweet spot, V02 Max and threshold interval sessions on a turbo will get you to where you need to be. I was doing 3x turbo per week and 100k ride on the weekend. (If not racing). Got me to category 2 (road racing) and could put down 375w for 20 mins at 77kg. Holla at me if you want my turbo routines (all based on power zones).

I'd like to give it a go on my sscx. What sort of gearing you single speeders you use normally now that is dry? I know it's quite personal. Done many races on ss mtb and I have it dialled but on the cross bike off road...where to start? I'm a spinner, commuting on 38x18 or 38x16 for fast cadence. 38x22 would be a good starting point?

39x17 got me round

Because I was using 26 x 2.3 with a 36/18 ratio, which gave me 53.22 GI, I changed the tyres to 26 x 1.3 and bumped the rear down to 17 which then gave me 52.38 GI so pretty spinny.