Cyclocross Racing - this happens every year....

....sometime around the middle of road season I start getting sick of RRs and parking-lot crits and get antsy for some cross racing! (I actually DIDN'T ride today in favor of staying in and building up my cross bike!?!)

Anyway, since moving to hyper-competitive Colorado, I've been getting my ***** handed to me on the road and am assuming the 'cross scene here isn't going to be any easier, so I thought about purchasing one of the trainingpeaks.com cyclocross-specific training plans. Does anyone have any experience with these? I tried one of the road biking plans this winter and saw some decent results, and for the price, it's a ton cheaper than a 'real' coach.

Also, for those of you who do road and cx racing, at what point in the summer/fall do you usually start doing cx specific workouts? -I ask because I've heard that running really kills your speed on the road, but in years past I've lived in places with big gaps in the race calendar between road and cx so it hasn't been an issue for me.

It seems like you don't have your goals or racing calendar very well sorted out, and buying some prefab training plan isn't going to help you in that respect.

If you have any A-level road races left on your calendar, then focus on those. If you want to write off the road season, then take a week off, and start in on your cross-specific training.

The fact that you skipped a day of riding just to wrench at home indicates to me that you need to take some time off the bike, regardless. Sure, it's discouraging not to get the race results you had hoped for, but that doesn't mean you should just give up the entire road season. Maybe take a few days off and reevaluate your direction.

good advice, Flargle....that's kinda funny that it's so obvious I'm a bit burned on the season.

Danimal, I know what you mean. I race road just to stay in shape for cross :)

What I started doing this year is enter in some mountain bike races. Man it's a lot of fun and a hella good work out. I'm going to get a descent MTB soon currently I am on a '94 Paramount. I hit the trails every Tuesday now. It changes things up nicely.

I start running about 1 month before my first cross race. I'll go out twice a week and work my self up to about 1 mile - thats it! I'll practice cross and to run up hill repeats with the bike too.

after re-evaluating what i actually want out of my remaining road season (to keep me in shape for cross) it looks like i'll be on the same track as jfmckenna; first week of august start doing some short runs and also get some trail riding in.

mtb racing sounds pretty sweet....i may have to hit up craigslist for a beater mountain bike sometime soon

mtb races will help you out a lot, last spring/summer, i was purely road, and this summer i've only been racing XC and 24-hour mtb races while doing a lot of training on the road. bike handling is great.

depending on your budget you could probably score a decent new hardtail for around six to seven hundred dollars that would be race worthy, be wary of used mtb stuff because the tech has changed so drastically and you could end up paying more than something is realistically worth.