Things I have done wrong this cyclocross season.
uh, I need to race that bike, could you, and you, and you, and you, and you please get off of it? (that's me in the middle, #32) 1) Allowing Derrick St. john and Rickey Visinski to line up within 10 feet of each other.
2) Not dropping out of Cyclesmart day two after hitting the pavement at speed. I subjected myself to a great deal of unnecessary pain and frustration.
3) Buying that 11/23 cassette. I run a 1x9. This combination only works on the flattest and driest of courses. Haven't been on one of those in a looong time.
4) Not taking a rest week every three weeks. For some reason I thought I could just hammer through three months of cross racing/training, then take three months off. It made my legs hurt to type that.
5) Trying to cure the pain and frustration (and failure) of Cyclesmart day two by training extra hard. By "pain", I mean the literal type: roadrash, bumps, bruises and general muscle soreness.
6) Racing exclusively Verge races. I put way too much pressure on myself for these big events. Cross isn't fun if you're always putting pressure on yourself to do good. Grassroots races are good for the soul, and I haven't done any this year.
In summary
I didn't have anything in my legs at Cyclesmart, day one or two. There were also crashes at the start both days. I wrongly attributed my disappointing performance to those crashes when the truth was I was way overdue for some rest. This all came to a head Saturday morning when I woke up and didn't even want to look at a bike, let alone go to Plymouth and race one. So I took a solid week off for the first time since the middle of summer.
Did it work? Let's head to Lowell and find out.
Ooh! Ooh! What happens in Lowell?
ReplyDeleteI still have no idea why I act like so much more of a dick than normal when I come over here.
-t
As the infamous Greg "the leg" Montello once told me. "You'll get there."
ReplyDeleteAlthough I was slightly annoyed by this comment there was some truth to it. I think by racing with the pros you've gained some knowledge that will only help you more in the future.
You already know that.
With my little experience the verge races are slightly unfair for the way they do callups. Don't get me wrong I loved the one call up to the 5th row. But racing with the pros seems to make more sense because the fields are generally smaller and you wont get a prize anyway for racing with the 3's.
I agree that local races are way more fun.