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Bobble hat on and I'm in a cold muddy field
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That means one thing. Cyclercross. Cyclocross is a discipline that's well and truly on the rise
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You see, cyclocross races last a maximum of just 60 minutes in duration
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which means they tend to be one hour of adrenaline-fuelled fast-paced racing
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And that's why over the last few weeks, I've turned my hand to the mud to get ready for today
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my first ever cyclocross race. So here we go, session number one
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First place to start is by building the... engine. So my first session is Wount Van Arts V-O-2 max session, Curtsey of Zwift. This is
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shown to build aerobic capacity even though we're working in that Zone 5 so it
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allows you to get a really efficient workout in just 56 minutes. This being my
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first session I have had to allow a little bit more time just to get the Zwift Hub
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1 set up. But that's all been pretty easy. The Zwift Hub 1's only got a single
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sprocket at the back and that means it's compatible with almost any bike. So we're starting pretty easy just building the engine. Over the next few weeks
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we going to be looking to sort of touch on all the different physical attributes I going to need in the cross race So first of all we going to look at building the engine We then move on to some top end And then in the final run up to the cross race itself we look at really sharpening both the mind and the legs ready for race day
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Hello again, so you join me in my second week of training
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First week done, and it's all gone pretty well. I've actually found that Zwift bringing a level of gamification to my training has really allowed me to escape after work, get on the training
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and actually it's been a really nice way to unwind and do something positive as well for my body
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First of all, this session has quite a lot of sort of randomised efforts which is really similar to a cyclercross race
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And then the second reason is that I'm a racer at heart. I train to race
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So any level of competition into my training, even if it's not a live race
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which you obviously can do on SWIFT, just really helps me push myself that a little bit more
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That's a wrap for the Crit City Downtown Dolphin. Easily the most intense session I've done so far
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Hopefully we'll see some gains. rolling into next week. Hi everyone, so I've come into the office on my own
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for what is going to be my last hard session on SWIF before my race It Monday currently so this is sort of my last chance to really get everything out And then over the next few days I going to be sort of relaxing more and letting the gains absorb
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Hopefully, fingers crossed for good legs on Sunday. So I'm halfway into the warm up for my last hard session
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As you guys can see, plenty of red and orange simulating anaerobic efforts
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The nice thing, though, is that once I get to the end of this session, I really can relax. I feel like I've smashed that Tompickok session at the park
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Time to reap the benefits now. Roll on the weekend. So it's race day
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There's about 45 minutes now until the start. And I think it's safe to say I'm going for a pretty unorthodox warm up
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I'm actually warming up on Zwift. Now the reason for that is because it allows me to use the same session
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that I've been using pretty much for the last four weeks for some of my warmups
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I've tried it, tested it. I know it works. then I'm going to get on the course, go for a little practice, check out the conditions, and then get to the grid
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Oh, well, as expected, that was bloody hard
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It was really nice I managed to, like, get into quite a rhythm. And having done the hard training sessions I've done previously
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I kind of mentally, I was already, I was ready to suffer, if that makes sense, which was really good
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It was really interesting actually out on the course. You could really see where the sort of different components are training aligned
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So in terms of like that building the engine, there's quite a long climb just down there
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you probably guys will have seen. Probably good sort of two, three minutes every lap and having just the ability to go again is really helpful
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It's been great fun to get back into some form of competition again and amazing to try something new that I haven't tried before
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All that remains to do is say a big thanks to Zwift for helping get me in some form of competitive shape
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Thanks to Nick Craig for making sure I didn't crash too many times. And a big thanks to Wessex League as well for putting on such a brilliant event
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If you did enjoy the video, drop a like down below, subscribe to the channel for more content and I will see you again very soon
