It's a strange feeling when your legs give out before your cardio, too big of a gear can cause this to happen. I've been over estimating my fitness a lot latelyGoal #1: Ride cross country race like it's a 20m short track...
Goal #2: After cracking, finish the best you can...
I've not done much cross country this year so I lack a good bit of pop, I wanted to race this way to work on that but also because I need to know what it feels like to crack and come back from it right now.
For me, endurance racing is all about avoiding the rough patches. I often come up on guys who were super fast at the start of an endurance race who look like crap four or five hours in. My goal in the endurance game is to avoid that. Training is part of it but pacing is crucial.
On the other hand cross country racing is about postponing the walking off a cliff feeling. If you can do an hour and a half at full speed, you'll win a lot of races. Right now, I have about 52 minutes in me. Don't get me wrong, it's getting better. Two weeks ago (Lewis Morris) I lasted 40 minutes then had to slow down so much to recover that it wasn't even worth finishing. This week at Fair Hill was better. Upon slowing, I was picked off by a few riders, dropping me to about 23rd place but was able to recover at a pace that somewhat looked like racing. The good news is, in the last 20 minutes I dug deep and managed to work my way back to 18th place. So I got through it, and from experience I know it will only get better. Room for improvement? Yes, but I can only go up from here and I'm okay with that....
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