Mountain Biking - XC Race Strategy

Hi All,

Just wanting to see if any of you 'gun' XC racers out there had any tips on race strategy.

We race a mainly flat 10km loop (see the link below for a look at our inner track which is about 5km - we then go out to a park for another 5km)
http://www.hamiltonmtb.org.nz/images/photos/pukete/aerialpix/plaininnerpark.jpg

The loop has some very short / steep climbs that are just enough to break your rhythm...anyway the pace is more like a sprint at a 22km/hr pace average for 3 loops (1hr 20 ish)...nothing too technical mainly grade 2 stuff with the odd grade 3 section thrown in for good measure.

My problem is that I can start well ending up in the top 5 for the 1st half of the 1st loop but fade after that ending up 15th - 20th :o or so (out of 120 riders). I'm working on hill repeats and intervals at the moment but seem to always repeat the same race senario...flat out of the start...fade...get passed...just hang on to the end...my HR is also around an average of 164 for the race (I'm 43 and 86kg)

Any ideas would be very very welcome.:D

Cheers
Tim from New Zealand

Stamina, Ride 100 miles on gravel or
dirt roads 5 - 7 times early in the season and build the base. The broader the base, the higher the peak can go.
Although 15 - 20 out of 150 is pretty good, How important is this to you?

How important is this to you?
Very!!!

Yes have spent about 3 months base training - our summer season is 12 weeks away (a 12 x race series over 4 months) ...been doing about 150km / week mainly on the road / hills with a 50km endurance ride each week.
Start the build phase this week and will up the intensity but had a off season race yesterday and although faster than before (by about 3 min overall) ... result still the same great start - fade - passed - hang onto the end (blood in the mouth kind a stuff).

I'm happy with the training and didn't go out for a win yesterday, just wanted to benchmark my training against the competition...thats all going well but I need a new race strategy to finish strong.

Well since you know yourself better than anybody why not do the whole thing backwards? Start a bit slower pace yourself for the first half hang with the crowd who passes you and pick up the pace for the second half.