sgtrobo

Howdy.

I've been riding and "racing" for a few years now and I'm not getting any better. I'm having fun, and my health is improving, but I'm still slow as the dickens. I finally decided to take things seriously as I would like to at least not place in the bottom 5-10 of every race I enter.

So for cyclocross, how important are "base miles"? i.e. the longer, lower intensity miles during the winter in the months after cyclocross training? I got myself a good turbo trainer (Wahoo Kickr) and I planned on doing the Zwift "12-Week Winter Plan (Advanced)" and over 1/4 of my hours will be spent in warmup/active recovery (power Zone 1), and well over half my hours in Endurance (power Zone 2).

Since this is the offseason, and I'm planning on hitting the 200-mile Seattle to Portland road ride in July, does it make sense to work through this 12-week program with the idea of increasing my "base endurance"? Or is the 'base miles' concept just a bunch of oldtimer training voodoo that doesn't really pass the reality test?

radripperaj

I have been racing for a few years as well and I have to say I dont think having base miles is that huge of a deal cross. Im sure there will be some who disagree with me. Im not sure how much time you have/want to dedicate towards training, but maybe look at the "time crunched cyclist training plan book". you only need 6 hours a week (but can do more). Also they have cross specific training plans in there. Its all HIIT training and I noticed a huge improvement the first time I used it and small but still noticeable further improvements each time afterwards.

chas58

I've been using Strava's fitness application, and it is interesting that I can do zone 4-5 for an hour, or zone 2-3 for 3 hours and have the same results. HIIT is great for power, base miles for endurance. I'm not sure base miles do a whole lot for velodrome racing, but they would make a big difference for a 200 mile journey, and make sure you don't peter out for a 1 hour cyclocross race.

I found a great article on how to use that concept for training, but unfortunately it was taken down shortly after I found it.

The basic idea was to use your fitness and recovery to build up your fitness over a period of time (3 months?) and then take something like a week off before the tour (or several days off before a race) to let your body fully recover and be at your maximum fitness with maximum freshness to get peak performance. You can be the strongest rider out there, but if you are not fresh, you will not be at optimal performance.

redlude97

you don't need traditional base miles for cyclocross. I would use a trainer road sweet spot base build program. FWIW I've done 1 Day STPs on little to no specific training, just longer unstructured rides in the spring into the summer.

Doge

How is this off-season? Nats is next week.

To answer your question I know very little about cross, but I am a quick study. There are skills - no comment other than learn those.

Fitness - go to the gym. Get stronger. You do not need base miles for 60 min.

Jakedatc

Most people are not elite racers going to nationals.

Also, many of us live in areas that it is winter for real now. ie I just got 10" of snow on the ground. Our last race was a few weeks ago.

Doge

The OP @sgtrobo is in the PNW. Unless in the mountains, it is just water. Cold miserable water, but unlikely snow.

There was a statement that cross season was over. A statement about not getting faster.
A question about how important base miles are for cross - a 60 min event max. Several said, inc me, not important.

Then a statement/question about a 200 mile race.

My response to getting faster and 200 mile road "race".
Base miles are required and very important to that 200 mile race. The base miles required for that will do little to get you faster. Speed comes from intensity and recovery. I like the gym for intensity, others do bike intervals, power sets - but it is exactly what you don't do on 200 mile rides without 25 hours/week of training. Recovery is diet and sleep and not getting intense too soon.

OP - if you want to be faster, don't work so hard on endurance. Do shorter races. Do gym, speed intervals.
If you like fondos it will be hard to get the speed.

Jakedatc

According to BikeReg and Crossresults the last real race was Dec 17th in that area... there is a small race Jan 17 but there are only 5 people signed up so... It is the off season for many, including the OP

I agree that shorter hard ride training is better than slow base.. I said that in another thread when I said the 3 lap Hilly race on Zwift was pretty close to a CX race.
I also think that adding offroad mtn biking and CX rides that include hard hills and run ups is also a good idea over the summer to get your skills dialed in. I made huge gains this year being better on trails. Having power is good but you lose a lot of time on more techy courses.

sgtrobo

yes, it is the offseason for me. My last race was a few weeks ago.

I need an overall level of fitness as well as cross-specific fitness. I've only been riding for a few years now, on and off, and after an injury last season, I lost a good bit of my fitness as I was off the bike and gained way too darn much weight.

Thanks a ton for the discussion here gents, really appreciate it

redlude97

worry about cross fitness later, try to start structured high intensity training around July so you can peak in sept/oct

sgtrobo

perfect! The 200-mile Seattle to Portland is in July, and I was hoping to focus on the longass ride from now until then, and after the ride, give myself a few days and then hit up the high intensity stuff right afterward to prep for CX season

thanks!

redlude97

Yep, if you are carrying any fitness into the offseason this year you can maintain some of that intensity with a single interval session a week, but don't make it a focus of your offseason.

sgtrobo

ok. Going to be a pretty intense year overall though. Long miles for the Seattle-to-Portland followed almost immediately by CX season. Don't want to burn out early. Makes sense. thanks.

hubcyclist

I'm a huge proponent of sweet spot work. For various reasons I've been doing almost exclusively sweet spot work since the summer to rebuild fitness and just raced CX to do something fun and learn (needless to say, without doing much above threshold I was more toward the back than the front!). I think long z2 rides have their merits, but I find a lot of bang for the buck doing 90-120mins of various sweet spot intervals.I personally love trainerroad and use it in erg mode to control my trainer and the quality of my workouts is phenomenal.

I've gotten my ftp up from 230 to 270 this year, although all but 5w of that gain was playing catch up from a bad winter/spring because my ftp was 265 last year lol I would personally love to get to 280 and finish dropping 15lbs I've put on so I can be at a nice even 4.0w/kg. I'd like to get back into road racing this year so in 6 weeks I'll be starting to do some build work just so I'm not completely incompetent. I'm also considering doing a granfondo this summer with 13000ft of climbing so that may be a focus if I do go to europe. There's room for everything as long as you manage yourself correctly, if you haven't already, try to get something like golden cheetah and start to become familiar with the performance management chart and it'll start to give you more insight into how deep you're in training (along with just listening to your legs). Good luck!