I haven’t posted in an extremely long time and it’s mostly because I have a hard time finding the time to write decent posts. With this in mind, I’m going to post more frequently, but it’s going to be more bullet points without so much fluff.

Now that my season is about half over, it’s time to take a few minutes to jot down the lessons I’ve learned so far, so I can apply them to the second half. My second half is the most important since it is predominately about doing well in cyclocross.  In no particular order:

• I need to peak and race immediately after second build phase! This is actually a trend I’ve noticed for some time. If I don’t start racing immediately after undertaking a second build phase, then I quickly lose the motivation to train and will lose a lot of fitness by the time that I need to actually start racing. This isn’t all bad though.  Since I carry such a low CTL, between 40 and 60, I can’t actually hold a peak for very long anyway, so this might actually be my body’s way of telling me to get the engine revving and to stop messing around!
• Due to life (work, kids, family, etc.), I need to restructure my training weeks so that I am both consistently hitting my training goals whilst not burning out.  As such, I have started to experiment with doing my medium length, medium intensity rides on Tuesdays and my long ride on Thursdays with an indoor/outdoor ride option for the weekends. I’ve missed so many weekend training sessioins that I know I’m significantly behind where I could be and need to make some changes.
• Given how I’ve felt since stopping my strength and core routine, I need to keep the strength portion going through base and stop at the beginning of build, but keep my core work going once or twice a week all the way through build. I feel way less comfortable on the bike and feel like I’m pushing less power than I could be if I was stronger.

Only two weeks until the State Championship XC Race, so hopefully I’ve have some good news to report in a couple of weeks!