cyclocross training

whoawhoa said:

I know it's a bit early but since it's going to be my focus this year, I'm about to start training more towards 'cross. But I'm not sure what all I should be doing. I'm planning running sprints, 2x20 tt intervals, vo2max intervals, stuff like that.

Anyone have any ideas for what else I could do? Weight training, other intervals, stuff like that?

I don't think it's too early if it's going to be your focus.

You might want to start with some ankle exercises to make sure you don't roll an ankle in sand, mud, or other dismounted feature (for those of us that can't just power through it 🙂 ) I you run and have good ankles you probably don't need to worry about it, but if you're like me and only ride, it might help.

I just use one of those stretchy rubber band exercise things and do 10 minutes or so each evening with resistance in each direction (except down, I figure the cycling gets that).

This time of the year I also ride the cross bike at least once a week on some single track or fire roads. During those rides I try to dismount at speed, run 20 paces or so, and remount – all at a pace that is about as fast as I can handle (running, tripping, falling, and breaking my neck being the limiting factor). I’ll do that maybe 10 times or so. By September it’s second nature again.

That’s about all I do, other than cycling specific stuff.