Ok, taking the plunge - A n00b going XC racing

Alright - So I swore I wouldn't do it, made insinuations at the sexuality of those that do, but damnit if I can't keep myself from going racing.

So a little about me - On October 21st, 2007, I weighed in at 215lbs. I'm 6'1" and currently weighing in at 193 lbs after about 3 months of focusing on weight loss. I made the choice to use MTB'ing as my exercise regimen to lose weight and that really was my only goal. I wasn't counting on having as much fun as I'm having on my bike...

I've been riding once or twice a week since early October and doing spin classes 2-3 days a week since late October. My riding has steadily improved over the last 4 months or so and I find myself looking to target my training and workouts as well as use racing as a motivation to get better/faster/stronger. I harbor no delusions of grandeur, given my size and relatively new training regimen.

I have in the past been a relatively fast middle distance runner and understand the training methodology for running - Pile on mileage early and sprinkle in speed work at an increasing frequency as you get closer to a race, and taper training the week before a race. What I don't know if this applies to cycling as well, so I'm looking for a little advice there.

My ultimate goal here is to A) be able to have a training goal to shoot for (races) and B) to have fun doing it. I figure with more targeted training, I'm going to get healthier and lose weight even faster than before. I've already found that I am more motivated to work out harder and with more purpose now that I've made the decision to race, so even before my first race, I have some early benefit.

So, any and all advice is welcome and appreciated.

My first race will be a Novice class race up here in NorCal, 14mi and 1800' and it's in less than two weeks - I know that it's short notice and I will not be completely prepared, but you gotta start sometime!

 

Okay, the whole having fun part should sort of take care of itself... it is MTB after all!
As for training, you seem to understand periodization already from the running you've done, the only problem with trying to do that now is that the racing season is already upon you.
That's okay though, actually I'd say it's even better!
When you start out in cycling the best thing to do is just ride a lot and have fun. The best part about this is that since you are basically going from not cycling at all to riding X number of hours you will enjoy a steep uptrend in speed and ability... later, as your fitness starts to level off you can start to think about a structured training plan.
For NOW though, I'd say to spend the first week doing whatever you would consider to be long rides, then at the beginning of next week take two days "off" where you just ride an hour to an hour and a half EASY (seriously, grandmas should be passing you and giving you "the look") when you ride easy the point is not to get a workout, it's to move your blood around, clear out any dead cells, lubricate your joints. With that in mind a MTB ride might not be the best (no hills!) but if you are only interested in riding on the dirt and a road ride seems like "work" (that's perfectly valid, the point is to have fun!) then try and find a pretty flat ride that won't make you sweat.
Okay, so two days easy (mon,tues?) then you should do a couple of shorter rides at whatever you consider to be a fast pace.
Two days before the race you should do another EASY day.
The day before the race do an easy day, but make it an hour and a half and do three short hard efforts (30 sec or so) and 3 longer efforts (60 sec or so)
When race day arrives make sure that you can get a good warm up in, at least half an hour maybe an hour if that doesn't sound too long to you.
When you are doing your warm up you don't need to go too hard but you should do several efforts of whatever you consider "race pace" so that when your race starts it's not a shock to your legs.
Go for 2 minutes or so and then take a nice LONG time to recover before doing another one... spin easy for 10 minutes and then go to the starting line.
Then just have fun. Don't try to ride the descents faster than you normally ride or feel comfortable at!! It's faster to not crash than it is to crash, especially if bike parts break. It's also more fun. You will naturally get more and more comfortable with higher speeds, so if you don't feel good about riding something or going a certain speed then don't! A day or a month or a year later you will encounter the same situation and it will seem easy, so don't rush it. The whole "no pain no gain" philosophy doesn't apply to technical riding on a mountain bike.
Anyway, that's my 2 cents.

 

My formula has been distance work on the weekends, speed work/intervals, weights and cardio during the week. Seems to be helping me. Maybe assess your weaknesses after race #1 and that will help you pinpoint what you need to focus on during your training.

 

Definitely since it will be your first race you will learn a LOT. I had no competition in my first two races, so never learned about technique or strategy while racing.

But, first of all, just keep doing what you are doing. On your weekend rides, try to work as hard as you can. You can't practice race pace; it just doesn't happen.

Figure out your nutrition. Is it one lap, two? A big loop? How long are the laps typically? Since you'll be going harder and faster than you knew possible, make sure you have what you need. You can use a Camelbak if you feel comfortable, but I like bottles for XC. I use one with water and one with an energy drink. I switch between the two for my 14mi XC race. I use a gel 15 minutes before hand, and then about every 45 minutes. This keeps my energy level high enough to finish it out.

As for strategy... you can try to keep up with everyone in your class, but if you burn your matches too early then the last few miles will be painful.

The first race I did with competition there was one woman in Sport (last Oct). She passed me, but then got stalled, and repassed me early on. Then another female sport passed me.. and finally about a quarter through the lap another did. She didn't take off quite as fast, so I kept up. She crashed hard on a descent. I tried to be nice and slowed a few times to see if she was all right, but she never replied (head phones). Basically, she fell a bunch on the downhills, but climbed faster. Her crashes were her undoing, as eventually I passed her and finished 3rd.

A month later I went out with sport women and wound up being out in front. I tried to slow up thinking I was going too hard, but just turned out my pace was faster. No one passed me at all that race (from my own class).

Justin likes to mark a few guys in his class and then just settle in behind them. Being behind someone they get nervous about you keeping up, and may try to explode and wear themselves down. That, or if they make a mistake and crash, drop a chain, etc.. pull around!

But, figure out if you need gel/energy drinks and make sure you have done a few rides with them so your body is used to it.

Then do a race report

 

Been spending quite a bit of time chatting up one of the trainers at the gym, she and I are working up XC race type spin workouts, here is the first one that I came up with (song playlist included! And yes, I have extremely varied taste in music):

1. (4:12) Warmup
Music: Hip Hop Police, Chamillionaire featuring Slick Rick

2. (9:05) Climb, medium resistance, medium cadence (80 rpm). Start standing, then switch to seated while maintaining cadence. Move in and out of the saddle as desired. Increase resistance while maintaining cadence
Music: The Nobodies (Burn 69 Mix) (German Mix), Marilyn Manson; Toxic, Britney Spears

Recovery/Water

4. (8:31) Climb, heavy resistance, low cadence (60 RPM). Vary seated and unseated to maintain cadence. Pile on resistance as desired to work on climbing strength
Music: Jump Around, House of Pain; Without Me, Eminem

Recovery/Water

5. (8:30) Speed work, light to medium resistance, high cadence (100 RPM)
Music: Madonna, Hung Up; American Idiot, Green Day

6. (3:39) Short Intervals, medium resistance, varied cadence. Start by maintaining cadence from 5 (100 RPM) and then sprint during chorus of the song.
Music: The Beautiful People, Marilyn Manson

Recovery/Water

7. (8:41) Climb. Two songs, increase resistance at each song. Seated or out of the saddle or varied, whatever works for you. Match cadence to the song:
Music: What I've Done, Linkin Park; Stronger, Kanye West

Recovery/Water

8. (4:21) Sprint to the finish. 100+ RPM Cadence, light resistance.
Music: Son of Detroit, Kid Rock

9. (3:25) Cool Down
Music: Numb/Encore, Linkin Park/Jay-Z

Total Time, 50.3 mins.

 

Sounds interesting...our regular instructor will occasionally mix in long climbs (~8-9 min with two or three consecutive songs). On the other hand, having 2 or 3 per workout may be too much?

Here's a good song for a variety of cadences: Proud Mary...slow in the beginning, then fast with a neat alternating pattern in the chorus (you could use that to do "jumps").

Just don't forget that the fly wheel on the spin bike will pick up more momentum than a bike because it is so heavy. It is super easy for me to put in 2-3 hard pedal strokes in a really heavy gear and then increase my rpm. Not completely equivalent to a real bike.

 

Sounds pretty cool! Looks like some good intervals. Do you have a course profile?

 

Another thing that helps during spin: visualization of your race course. I try to hear the crunch of my tires over those stupid pebbly parts near the 4X course, see the turns and hills on the trail, smell the plants and dirt, etc. Sounds corny but it helps put you in that state of mind.

 

I'm with you on that one, since there is only a spin class two days a week that I can hit, I do at least one day a week on my own and I'm always trying to visualize it into an actual ride.

 

Toxic, Britney Spears

Everything sounds good dood but ahhh hmmm well to each his or her own but uhhh Britney Spears? I mean all the other music will get me a bit pumped but the Britney? I know I know your taste is extremely varied.

Good luck in your race!

 

I love mah White Trash Brit Brit!

 

You gotta go with whatever moves you!!

I personally like Avril Lavigne's "hey hey you you I don't like your girlfriend"...good cadence!

 

I think I had that going in my last race and hit next... FWIW, I kinda like a few of the new Brit songs also.

Hate to give up my secret, but I like to start out my race with "Stronger" by Kayne.

 

Stronger is a great song, you should hear my 5 year old try to sing it... LOL!

My next playlist needs to fire off with Kickstart My Heart by Motley Crue - If that song doesn't get you cranked up, nothing will!

 

That's a spin class classic! Love it!

 

Here's a simpler strategy that will guarantee you a win in your first race: simply listen to "Danger Zone" every time you work out.
Also, when race day rolls around be sure that while you warm up you are on the "Highway to the Danger Zone"... you actually don't even need to be riding your bike at this point, and it will stay nice and clean for the race.
When you take the line someone may decide to say something about this, and that would be a good time to tell them that you were just listening to "Danger Zone". They will probably be pretty intimidated after that, then you just have to wait for the "Go!!!" and blow them all out of the water. Or dirt.

 

Go real fast, hate everyone in front of you and chase them down and try not to crash...its really that simple.

 

Today's spin workout (it's raining cats and dogs up here)

1. (3:54) Warmup
a. The Struggle Within, Metallica

2. (4:43) Getting up to speed, resistance to match cadence and music. 80 RPM
a. Kickstart My Heart, Motley Crue

3. (6:54) Intervals, two songs. Increase pace to 100 RPM, then sprint during chorus for each of the songs.
a. Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting, Nickleback
b. Rock is Dead, Marilyn Manson

Recovery/Water

4. (4:18) Maintain medium cadence (80 RPM) with low resistance, get the heart rate down a bit.
a. Bark at the Moon, Ozzy Osbourne

Recovery/Water

5. (7:54) Sustained high cadence, over 100 RPM. Resistance at your preference, maintaining high cadence is important – Don’t cheat yourself, work HARD here. Seated for the first 5 mins, standing for two minutes then take the last minute or so as recovery.
a. Electric Blue, Astral Projection

Recovery/Water

6. (9:08) Intervals, two songs. Pyramid Intervals, 1minute recovery, 10 second sprint, 1 minute recovery, 15 second sprint, 1 minute recovery, 20 second sprint, 1 minute recovery, 30 second sprint, then back down to 10 second sprint
a. Hot For Teacher, Motley Crue
b. Reload, Rob Zombie

Recovery/Water

7. (4:10) Maintain medium/high cadence (100 RPM) with low resistance, get the heart rate down
a. Eat The Rich, Aerosmith
Recovery/Water

8. (7:45) Intervals. 45 second sprint, 1 minute recovery x 4. Crank up the resistance during the intervals to really work hard
a. The Hand That Feeds (Photek Straight Remix), Nine Inch Nails
Recovery/Water

9. Cool down
a. Rock and Roll, Led Zeppelin


Total Time, 52.3 Minutes

 

Here as well.. I haven't ridden since a short ride last sunday. Not even indoors.

 

Ok, today was my last hard training day before my first race -

10 minute warmup at 100 rpm, light resistance
6 x 3 minute sprint intervals (120 RPM for the first 4, I had to drop down to 100 RPM with more resistance for the last two) with 1 minute recovery between
6 x 30 second sprint intervals (120+ RPM) with 30 seconds between
1 x 5 minute sprint to the finish (100+ RPM)
10 minute cool down

I did this workout w/o music so that I could focus on being mentally tough by myself, without music to distract and/or motivate me.

I'm tired, even though time wise, it was a short workout.