CX Racing is Hard!

In case you forgot, like I did, training is not racing. It seems like this is a lesson you have to learn all over again each fall. No matter how many weeknight cross practices you attend or how many times you jokingly talk to your teammates about how brutal cross is but its still fun you just aren't prepared for the first lap of the first race of the season. There is a reason that there are "tune up" races two weeks before any of the actual series kick off their schedules. The opportunity to test out your cross skills once again at race speed and to ride for 40 minutes after you have already started seeing red 6 minutes in is invaluable. No matter how hard you think you are "pushing it" on Tuesday night racing is the only true test of your legs and lungs.

This weekends Huber's Applecross was that wake up call for me. I came off the road season in pretty good shape and figured the transition to cyclocross this year would be seamless, or at least not shocking. But as I was reminded, even the accelerations of late summer crits don't adequately prepare you for the constant barrage of obstacles and maximum effort accelerations that follow over the course of a 45min cross race. There is no draft, no lull while riders sort out tactics.

So if you haven't toed the line yet this season, prepare yourself, the time is coming and it will hurt worse than you remembered (or expected if this is your first season). But after you cross the finish line, collapse on a picnic table, and finally take a drink, you wont be able to wait to do it all over again. Its kind of like the first time your parents take you on the roller coaster you were to short to get on last summer. You may have cried like a baby when the bar locked down over your lap, and screamed like bloody murder on the big drop, but when you pulled back in the station and got out all you could think of was running to get back in line for another ride.