for those of you that like to come out strong in late september, and race a FULL 'cross season... how do you do it without fading towards the end?

seems like most people who love cross, rarely miss a weekend of racing.

however, i find that when im racing sat & sunday, i really cant except too much more out of my body during the week, except maybe a moderate-intensity ride on wednesday. this is especialy true after i have been racing for a while.

ideally, i would take a rest week...then rebuild... but again, i dont want to miss any races.

october/november isnt that long, and doesnt leave much time for a rest/rebuild period...
(im not too concerned about december.... ill race, but dont have too much expectations for nationals).

thoughts?
comments?

That's pretty much all you need to do. You'll have good fitness from the road season. Volume isn't necessarily something you need to worry about either. Race and Recover. Make sure you keep your cross specific skills up to snuff and you'll be fine. If you find that you aren't recovered from the weekend's races you may have to bag the midweek effort.

There isn't much else you can do unless you're willing to really prioritize races and determine those that truly don't matter and be willing/able to bag them.

That's pretty much all you need to do. You'll have good fitness from the road season. Volume isn't necessarily something you need to worry about either. Race and Recover. Make sure you keep your cross specific skills up to snuff and you'll be fine. If you find that you aren't recovered from the weekend's races you may have to bag the midweek effort.

There isn't much else you can do unless you're willing to really prioritize races and determine those that truly don't matter and be willing/able to bag them.

ok... thats pretty much what happend last year.
thanks!!!

i think in order to extend your "peak" period as long as possible during the cross season, you've got to avoid those mid-intensity rides during the week. If you're racing on the weekend and have a hard workout scheduled for wednesday, every day inbetween has to be rest & recover--soft pedal! that's my plan anyway for this year...doing a whole lot of build in august & september, then just enough to maintain in october 7 november. will see how it works.

Instead of doing intensity mid week during the season add a tempo (or if possible a motor pacing) effort. Folks seem to lose their aerobic capacity by focusing too much on their anaerobic capacity. They essentially race them selves out of shape. The best tell tale sign of the above is when you find your self repeatedly fading the last 10-15 minutes of a race. Another sign is if you find that your capacity for work isn't increasing year over year. Peak form/fitness and speed can't be held for 3 months. You will start consuming something; usually it's your aerobic capacity that gives out. If you’d like some examples of tempo workouts, I’m free to elaborate.

Aerobic Capacity=Base.

You've got to have a lot of base and be well rested before cross season.

FWIW, two hard days are enough. If you're racing two days, great! If only one, do a criss-cross threshold ride or a few sets of long AC intervals mid-week when fully recovered from racing. An easy endurance (or tempo) ride and then technical work/openers/activation before race day.

When wanting to peak, you just need to increase volume and intensity for a few weeks and then rest/taper before goal events. You can easily manage a racing season (every weekend) like this...read John Ackland's Endurance Training book.

That's interesting you say that, I had a typically lousy cross season last year and pretty much folded at nationals. I got some workouts from a friend to use on a Tacx trainer over the winter, the first step was doing a ramp test. I was suprised to find I was weak as a kitten after 11 months of racing and a week after nationals. After training for 2 months at tempo and nothing anaerobic, I was putting out 40 watts more at the same heart rate. I found that really informative.

thanks everyone for the responses.

i had built up a huge base this spring, and only had a few weeks of racing before i crashed hard & had to take may & june completely off the bike. early-july i was back on the trainer.
so, i dont have to worry about coming off the stresses of a full road season. i did 6 weeks of base/build... and am now starting my intensity phase & plan on racing the beginning of october.

the mid-week workout that i did last year didnt have an anaerobic.. it mostly consisted of tempo & threshold work...

it seemd to work pretty good last year...but just wondering what others did and if there was a way to improve or maintain the fitness i built back in the summer.

at first my job situation was allowing me even more time to ride. then in the last few weeks as I'm doing more freelance and watching my kid I've lost some form with too littlew time in the saddle. I'm hoping I can get it back next week. cross your fingers for me.

When you have too little time to train, just make every training session hard. It is only a 1-hour event and you'll be trashed at the end, but you'll perform.

I get on the track and flog myself as much as I can in prep

If short on time increasing the intensity is the way to go. Also, it is important to be careful with your diet when you can't get out as much. If you are riding 15 hours a week then I find I can be a bit more liberal with my diet, working on the "when the furnace is burning hot, you need to feed it theory", but when I am not riding as much I find it give me more time to be eating, often out of boredom often times. So, when time is tight I do harder workouts and make sure I keep my weight down.