So I’m sure there’s a million articles about this elsewhere, but it’s always easier and more entertaining just asking anew on here.

My Trek Superfly has motivated me to go race round some muddy fields this winter, and I figured I might take it seriously enough to actually train a little.

Step 1 is to try and cut out some booze, although as I type I’ve a glass of red beside me… 😳

Step 2 was to go out twice a week (initially) and thrash up and down some hills for half an hour or more to get my sprinting and hill climbing up. I’m guessing I don’t need to focus too much on endurance for a 50 minute race…

What I’m interested in is what constitutes an ‘interval’? I’ve got a local park nearby with a road climb that takes up to 3:30, but also some off road climbs that could be 1-2 minute each. The offroad climbs appeal more as there are several different ones that could be linked together for variety, rather than just piling up and down the same road climb.

Is 3 intervals good to begin with? Or should I focus on 4 or 5? I’m hoping to fit it in with commuting home or in the lunch break…

Cheers

For cx sub 2 minute, laps are 6-8 minute long. 20sec full gas, 10sec rest, a gazillion times!

There’s no sustained climbing in CX at all, a 15 sec climb would be very substantial on the courses I’ve done. That’s not to say hill intervals won’t work for training, it’s all just breathing out your aris at the end of the day, but if they’re steep that might not be ideal as it’s a different sort of rhythm.

Good luck with it, you’ll do well – I’m relatively new to cyclocross racing but find it way more absorbing than racing mountain bikes. Nearly always something to think about.

Take a look at this:

https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/knowledge/article/izn20150710-Cyclo-cross-8-week-Cyclo-cross-Training-Plan-0

Hmm, interesting, so maybe sprints till exhaustion is all I need to focus on, that’s what the Superfly seems to want to do anyway 8)

Thanks Eskay, will steal elements of that, as usual ‘Life’ kind of gets in the way of that much structure, think I could get away with two one hour sessions a week either at lunch time or on the way home from work, then a mid week social ride and maybe a session in the pool.

Maybe unders/overs if you have some way of measuring your threshold?

2 mins under, 1 minute over – repeat 3 times.

5 minutes easy.

Repeat the above a further two times & have a nice steady cool down…increase/reduce slightly depending on how you’re feeling and time available.

I’m far from an expert but similar efforts bought me on loads…for crits, I’m lead to believe the efforts aren’t too dissimilar…

Got a turbo? If so, the GCN 20 minute fat burner is good for this kind of things. It’s basically 30 second max power intervals with 30 secs rest in between repeated lots. It hurts in a good way and would be quite like CX in some ways. Plus, it’s a very efficient use of your time.

I thought cx was merely a case of starting as fast as you can – then just killing yourself trying to maintain it.

Go off hard, attack the middle, finish strongly.

@ lunge

Is it that time of year already? 🙁 The GCN stuff is good tho I alternate between the 40 min intervals and the power (2* intervals and 1* power per week)

Ah well, best knock the cobwebs off the turbo and dig out the prodigy CD…..

If you can do more than 10x 20-30second maximum-effort intervals, then they’re not-maximal-effort intervals.

Is it that time of year already?

I tend to use them year round, time is often tight for me and a 20 minute beasting is a very efficient use of my time.

I thought cx was merely a case of starting as fast as you can – then just killing yourself trying to maintain it

Maybe, but by definition you can’t ride above threshold for an hour?

So you ride over when you need to, then slightly under to recover when possible.

No turbo, do have a cheap heart-rate monitor though.

I *think* I need to find the best combo of convenience and ease of replication.

My nearest decent hill climb to work is the Arthur’s Seat road climb. Took me something like 3m35s going as hard as I could on the road bike. There is a parallel off-road climb too.

Might just try and divide either climb into 30 second intervals, go as hard as I can for 30 seconds (90% on my heart rate monitor, if I can remember how to set it up…) then rest 30 seconds, then repeat until the top. Descend, repeat. Unless 20s/10s would be better but that sounds messy, I’d spend the whole time looking at my watch!

I don’t doubt the threshold stuff is effective but frankly it looks like it needs more gear and time than I’m willing to commit, although I might as well hit a couple of spin classes in the next fortnight until my wrist heals… 🙄

A HRM won’t be any good for short maximal intervals like that, the lag is too great. You will have to go by feel (or buy a power meter!!).

Might just try and divide either climb into 30 second intervals, go as hard as I can for 30 seconds (90% on my heart rate monitor, if I can remember how to set it up…) then rest 30 seconds, then repeat until the top. Descend, repeat.

That’ll work. I only do it on a turbo as I find it easier to do it in a controlled environment, I just have to worry about hurting myself and not about cars/people/where I’m going.

The key with any interval work is to be disciplined. So when it says 30s in the red, you do 30s, not 28s. You also don’t stop when it hurts/you feel sick, you stop when the session is done. They’re really hard if done properly but there is a good sense of satisfaction at the end of it.

Cx magazine have a lot of training advice on cross but the gist of it is find a playing field or woods with a few hills and repeat some drills for about an hour (unsurprisingly) cx has some unique skills not just the obvious like dismounting – starts and sprinting out of dead corners are probably the two others that have no real cross over from mountainbiking. Depending on who has set the course out you can spend an hour just sprinting out of dead corners. I hate those courses.

A HRM won’t be any good for short maximal intervals like that, the lag is too great. You will have to go by feel (or buy a power meter!!).

This. ^^ Heart rate won’t catch up in time during a short interval. You just have to pin it.

Do some intervals like you’re suggesting. 20s on 20s off. Don’t worry about pacing for something like that. It’s just full gas every time.

Maybe do one session with 20s and another day with 10s, 30s, 1min. Then do other days with some threshold and vo2max intervals. Maybe something like:

Day 1 – Short intervals
Day 2 – Threshold: 3 x 15min / 2 x 20min
Day 3 – Off / Easy
Day 4 – 8 x 3 mins
Day 5 – Off / Easy
Day 6 – Long steady ride
Day 7 – Off / Easy

On the easy days you can practice some skills. And maybe in VO2 sets you can practice skills on the way down to sharpen-up for when you’re blowing out of your arse. 🙂

20sec full gas, 10sec rest, a gazillion times!

Vomit inducing 🙂

Might just try and divide either climb into 30 second intervals, go as hard as I can for 30 seconds (90% on my heart rate monitor, if I can remember how to set it up…) then rest 30 seconds, then repeat until the top. Descend, repeat. Unless 20s/10s would be better but that sounds messy, I’d spend the whole time looking at my watch!

I don’t doubt the threshold stuff is effective but frankly it looks like it needs more gear and time than I’m willing to commit

HRM isn’t that useful for efforts as short as CX tbh. HR lags behind effort too much. And power meter whilst nice is not needed – no need to spend any money at all – just sweat!
Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE) is your friend.
Sweetspot(90min pace) ~6.5/10
Threshold(1hr pace) ~= 7.5/10
VO2Max(5min pace) ~8.5/10
Max Sprint (~20s pace) = 10/10

IMO, look for stuff like 30/30 sessions @ 8.5/10, and under/overs to practice recovering at a still quite hard effort.

Day 1 – Short intervals
Day 2 – Threshold: 3 x 15min / 2 x 20min

Disagree with that. Need fresh legs for quality threshold work, and they’ll be anything but fresh after a session of short intervals the day before.

A HRM won’t be any good for short maximal intervals like that, the lag is too great. You will have to go by feel (or buy a power meter!!).

Aha! Thanks for that, I had always wondered, I did a winter of spin classes based on heart rate monitors and when he told us to reduce our effort 10%/20% etc it took so long for my heart rate to drop that I gave up looking at the monitor and just went on feel. Glad I wasn’t doing it as wrong as I thought I was! 😀

Day 1 – Short intervals
Day 2 – Threshold: 3 x 15min / 2 x 20min
Day 3 – Off / Easy
Day 4 – 8 x 3 mins
Day 5 – Off / Easy
Day 6 – Long steady ride
Day 7 – Off / Easy

This is over-estimating how serious/committed I am, but I think I would aim for something like:

Day 1 – Threshold: 3 x 15min / 2 x 20min
Day 2 – Off/Easy
Day 3 – Long steady ride
Day 4 – Off/Easy
Day 5 – 8 x 3 mins
Day 6 – Swim (30 laps front crawl, always leaves me knackered)
Day 7 – Off / Easy

Although for ‘Threshold: 3 x 15min/ 2 x 20 min’ I might just substitute laps of Arthur’s Seat. I could do a lap in 10m30s if I was absolutely gasping on the road bike, maybe just do 4-5 laps, building up from warm up pace to full gas and back to cool down?

Again, sort of ignoring the science for something simple that I know I can repeat…

HRM might work on longer efforts, 1 minute on/1 minute off.

Still some lag but after a few times you’ll be able to go off feel.

Do you commute to work? A lot of my cx training is done to and from work just popping into parks and chasing my tail between trees for an hour. Unlike Eddie11 I love the courses with hard accelerations out of hairpins – I did pull a stomach muscle once training though 😳

I might just substitute laps of Arthur’s Seat. I could do a lap in 10m30s if I was absolutely gasping on the road bike

Yes. Just don’t smash the climb and freewheel down. That’s for the VO2 days. Try to ride a bit over threshold on the climb and keep pushing on the descent. As metioned above, over/unders are ideal for cross threshold work as they are good for recovery adaptation.

Disagree with that. Need fresh legs for quality threshold work, and they’ll be anything but fresh after a session of short intervals the day before.

Well, as with most things, it depends. If you’re training FTP of a time-triallist, then I would agree – partially. There is a reason that threshold sessions/tests start with a couple of all-out efforts before the meat of the workout, and that’s to deplete your W’ so you are training your aerobic capacity rather then tapping into anaerobic systems to ‘top-up’ the effort.

Given the OP needs to work in a bunch of high intensity workouts, you have to balance this requirement with other stresses.

I would caveat this with the fact that the length and intensity of these workouts has to be balanced against the baseline fitness of the athlete. I wouldn’t advocate an untrained rider doing 50 all-out sprints on day 1 and then 3×20 on day2. The plan is to build improvement over time.

Lots of emphasis on cardio training and much less on skills; practice your skills while in the red, find a 4-5 minutes loop preferably with some steps or other run up and aim to beast yourself for 30 minutes with a concentration on smooth and skilful while breathing out of your arse.

Skills are vital.

Practice your start. You need to be able to go from stationary with one foot on the ground to full on sprint.

There is little use in being strong and fit if you can’t transfer that to forward momentum. So, riding off camber up down and along the flat. How to hit muddy sections. Getting on and off. Sand if it features. How to take hairpin corners. How to be smooth through roots and stony sections so you can run lower pressures. In a race this is all done at threshold while you try to ride round a rider in front of you and stop the guy behind coming past.

If you are new to racing then just enter some as training will only get you so far. You’ll learn a lot by just getting amongst it.

Lots of emphasis on cardio training and much less on skills; practice your skills while in the red, find a 4-5 minutes loop preferably with some steps or other run up and aim to beast yourself for 30 minutes with a concentration on smooth and skilful while breathing out of your arse.

Practice your start. You need to be able to go from stationary with one foot on the ground to full on sprint.

There is little use in being strong and fit if you can’t transfer that to forward momentum. So, riding off camber up down and along the flat. How to hit muddy sections. Getting on and off. Sand if it features. How to take hairpin corners. How to be smooth through roots and stony sections so you can run lower pressures. In a race this is all done at threshold while you try to ride round a rider in front of you and stop the guy behind coming past.

Absolutely this – plenty of very strong (think Elite road) riders have turned up to CX in the past and wondered why they’ve had their arses handed to them by 3rd cats. We’re not talking MTB XC skills, CX is a different game again.

keep it simple – get to a park or waste ground – work out a mini course 1-2min lap.

ride as hard as you can for 5mins around your lap.

3-5mins easy around the lap

and repeat 4 times

maybe reverse the lap for some variety.

if on a turbo under and overs represent the cx race efforts.