Easter

So, Easter has arrived and a week off from work.  You might think that's a reason to go nuts on the bikes for 7 days and flog myself into the ground, but its not quite like that.  As mentioned in previous posts, March was a very busy month - mainly because of a late start to training.  So by the end of last week, I felt pretty shattered.  I was well in need of a rest week.

A rest week for me means a couple of days of relaxing, 1 or 2 spins of about 3 hours and then a couple of very short and fast sessions.  The short sessions are a maximum of 90 minutes and can be off or on road.  I use a flat road route sometimes as you have no rest time (ie descents), but you can kill two birds with one stone by going off road and getting in the technical skills and the additional workout on the bike.

The reality is I can only free up a limited amount of time, and tie that in with motivating myself to actually get out, and you not looking at much useful training.

Luckily we had an inter-club mini league run locally for the month of April.  It was 1 night a week - and 30 minutes of full on XC racing.  It was the perfect start back into XC for me and kicked off that high-intensity work I had not done since, well, last summer!

Next up is the IMBRC Club league, which kicks off in May and runs through the summer.  Same again, 30 to 40 minutes of full on racing.  As I won't be doing all the NPS rounds, having this will keep me ticking over between races.  For anyone starting off in XC, club racing is the best way to get up to speed (pardon the pun) on your fitness and technical skills, and its normally free or very very cheap to enter.