Saturday, November 10, 2012

October-Cross season summary


I guess I could summerize this season as an experiment that went bad. So far the season has gone from bad to worse. For some reason I thought it would be ok to jump straight into the CX season from an extended road season. It definitely hasn't worked out like I had hoped it would, but you gotta do it wrong a few times before you learn how to do it right, at least in my case that's how it usually goes.

I think the first part of my issue is the lack of preparation in getting ready the full body beating you take. Running up hills fast, dismounting and remounting, bunnyhopping, Etc. All things I didn't practice, and it came back to bite me  with constant injuries and poor execution.

The second issue is a lack of anaerobic fitness + full body fitness. I could go pretty good for 30-40 minutes, but after that, I seem to fade pretty fast.

I kept thinking I would improve as the CX season went along, but it's pretty much been the opposite. The Ruts and Guts weekend was supposed to be the peak of the season. I guess techically I finished in the money every day, but not really where I was looking to finish. 19th Friday, 20th on Saturday, and 17th on Sunday.

Anyway, I've been thinking about it a lot, and pretty much pulled the plug on the existing CX season. The main deal is I aggravated my bad knee on the first practice of the season, and each time it gets better, I re-aggravate it from running-jumping etc.at every race I've done.  I did a fun run thing with my daughter last weekend, and it's been pretty sore all week. I really want to start the upcoming road season as injury free as possible.

A couple of photos from Ruts and Guts-

Day 3 at Ruts and Guts

Day 2 Showdown at sundown
I'm pretty excited for the 2013 season. Mentally, I'm still excited about cyclocross. Pretty sure next year I will be better prepared. Right now I'm pretty eager to start up some big mile weeks.