Cyclocross season creates an interesting training problem.
You’re racing every weekend, but you also want to keep your fitness—or maybe even continue improving it—as the season progresses.
So what should you actually do between races?
For most masters cyclocross racers, the answer is surprisingly simple: recover from the last race, do one quality cyclocross-specific workout, maintain your strength, ride easy enough to absorb the work, and arrive at the next race fresh enough to race hard.
You probably don’t need two or three interval workouts between races.
You definitely don’t need to cram missed training into the middle of the week.
Your weekend race is already one of the hardest workouts you can do.
The goal during cyclocross season isn’t to see how much training you can squeeze between races.
It’s to find the minimum amount of training that maintains or improves your fitness while allowing you to race well every weekend.
Your Cyclocross Race Is Part of Your Training
It’s easy to separate “training” from “racing.”
But physiologically, your body doesn’t care what you call it.
A 40- to 60-minute cyclocross race can include repeated accelerations above threshold, hard starts, short VO2max efforts, high-force pedaling, running, technical riding, and very little true recovery.
That’s a substantial training stimulus.
If you race Saturday or Sunday and then immediately start thinking about the intervals you need to do Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, you’re ignoring one of the biggest workouts of your week.
Count the race.
For many masters athletes, I like to think about the week as having two primary hard efforts: The race plus one quality midweek workout.
Everything else supports those sessions.
Recovery Comes First After a Cyclocross Race
Monday should usually be easy.
That might mean completely off the bike.
It could be a 30- to 60-minute recovery spin.
It could also include easy mobility or recovery yoga.
What you probably don’t need is a “recovery ride” that turns into 90 minutes of moderately hard riding because your legs started feeling better.
Cyclocross creates fatigue that isn’t always obvious from TrainingPeaks or your cycling computer.
Running, dismounting, remounting, cornering, braking, accelerating, and handling the bike all create muscular stress.
And masters athletes may need a little more time to recover from those stresses.
Give yourself permission to recover.
You aren’t losing fitness on Monday.
You’re absorbing the weekend’s race.
Keep One Cyclocross-Specific Workout During the Week
By Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on how you feel, you can add your primary quality workout of the week.
But you probably don’t need a giant interval session.
Think quality and specificity rather than volume.
This might include a 45- to 75-minute cyclocross practice with starts, accelerations, cornering, barriers, and short race-pace efforts.
You could do something like:
- 4-6 hard starts of 15-30 seconds
- Several technical laps emphasizing cornering and acceleration
- 3-5 efforts of 2-4 minutes around VO2max intensity
- Short accelerations coming out of corners
- A few dismounts, carries, and remounts
You could also use my favorite soccer-field workout.
Sprint down one sideline, turn behind the goal and recover briefly, then accelerate hard up the opposite sideline. Continue alternating hard accelerations and short recoveries.
The goal isn’t to destroy yourself.
You’re practicing the repeated accelerations and recoveries that make cyclocross different from a steady road or gravel effort.
Finish the workout feeling like you could have done a little more.
That’s very different from finishing an interval session lying on the ground wondering how you’re going to race again in four days.
Don’t Forget Cyclocross Skills
There’s another reason your midweek workout doesn’t always need to be a traditional interval session.
You can get faster at cyclocross without increasing your FTP.
Better cornering means less braking and less energy spent accelerating again.
A smoother remount gets you back to speed sooner.
Choosing better lines can save watts every lap.
Getting comfortable riding slippery grass or loose corners can help you maintain momentum.
That’s why I like combining fitness and skills during the season.
Instead of doing five VO2max intervals on the trainer, take your bike to a park and create a short cyclocross course.
You’ll still get plenty of intensity, but you’re also improving the skills that directly affect your race performance.
Keep One Strength Session Each Week
Strength training shouldn’t disappear just because cyclocross season has started.
But this isn’t the time to chase new personal records in the gym either.
For most masters cyclocross athletes, one strength session per week can be enough to maintain much of the strength you’ve developed during the year.
Keep it relatively short.
Focus on movements you’ve already been doing rather than introducing new exercises that are likely to leave you sore for three days.
A session might include:
- Squat or split-squat variation
- Hip hinge or deadlift variation
- Push
- Pull
- Core or anti-rotation work
You might perform two or three sets of each rather than doing a large-volume strength workout.
The purpose has changed.
During the offseason, you’re trying to build strength.
During cyclocross season, you’re primarily trying to maintain it.
That’s an important distinction.
I usually do these on the interval days to keep hard days hard.
The other option is to do the strength on Tuesdays, and then cross practice with intervals on Wednesday.
Your Easy Rides Need to Be Easy
This can be one of the hardest lessons for competitive masters athletes.
If Wednesday is easy, make it easy.
If Friday is easy, make it easy.
Not tempo.
Not “Zone 2 with a few hard hills.”
Not chasing someone who passed you on the bike path.
Easy.
Those easier sessions allow you to maintain aerobic volume without adding much fatigue.
And that’s important because you’re trying to balance two competing goals throughout cyclocross season:
Maintain fitness while protecting race-day performance.
Still, it’s important to keep the endurance riding at Zone 2 pace, building aerobic fitness with all the adaptations that come with it, but without the fatigue that comes with hard efforts.
A Sample Cyclocross Race Week for a Masters Athlete
If you’re racing on Sunday, a typical week might look something like this:
| Day | Training |
| Monday | Off or 30-45 minutes very easy + recovery yoga/mobility |
| Tuesday | 60-90 minutes easy endurance. |
| Wednesday | Cyclocross-specific intensity and skills, 45-75 minutes. Strength training |
| Thursday | Easy endurance spin |
| Friday | 45-75 minutes easy endurance |
| Saturday | 30-45 minutes easy with a few short openers |
| Sunday | Cyclocross race |
That’s not an enormous amount of hard training.
That’s intentional.
The race provides a major high-intensity stimulus. Wednesday gives you another dose of intensity and cyclocross specificity.
The remaining days help you recover and maintain aerobic fitness.
What If You Race Saturday Instead?
Move everything back approximately one day.
You might do your primary cyclocross workout on Tuesday, strength on Wednesday, endurance Thursday, and a short opener ride Friday.
Again, the exact days matter less than the pattern:
Recover → endurance → quality → strength → recover/endurance → prepare → race.
And that pattern should change when your body tells you it needs to.
Masters Athletes Need to Pay Attention to Recovery
This is where a generic weekly schedule starts to become less useful.
Maybe you’re 48 and recover quickly from a 45-minute race.
Maybe you’re 62 and your legs still feel heavy on Wednesday.
Maybe Sunday’s race was dry, fast, and relatively smooth.
Maybe it was a muddy running race disguised as a bike race and your back, calves, and hamstrings are still sore three days later.
The calendar doesn’t know the difference.
Your training needs to.
If you’re still carrying substantial fatigue on Wednesday, skip the hard workout.
Do endurance instead.
Or take another recovery day.
You already got your high-intensity stimulus from the race.
Trying to force another one because it’s written on the schedule can create more fatigue without creating more fitness.
Don’t Try to Make Up for Missed Training
This becomes especially important as the cyclocross season gets longer.
Work gets busy.
Kids have activities.
You travel for races.
The weather gets bad.
You miss Wednesday’s workout.
Don’t squeeze it into Thursday, push strength to Friday, do openers Saturday, and then race Sunday.
Sometimes the best training decision is simply to let a workout go.
You don’t need to win the training week.
You need to be ready to race.
Can You Actually Improve Fitness While Racing Every Weekend?
Yes.
Especially early in the cyclocross season.
The combination of racing, one focused midweek workout, endurance riding, and strength maintenance can provide enough stimulus to maintain—and sometimes improve—fitness.
But as the season progresses, the priority may gradually shift.
Early season might still contain a little more training volume and progression.
As you approach your most important races, the goal becomes less about building fitness and more about expressing the fitness you’ve already built.
That’s when you may reduce the duration of your midweek cyclocross workout or remove some intervals while maintaining a few short, hard efforts.
You want intensity without accumulating unnecessary fatigue.
The Goal Is to Keep Racing Well
Cyclocross season can tempt you into thinking you’re not training enough.
Your weekly hours might drop.
Your long rides may get shorter.
You might only do one structured interval session.
That’s okay.
You’re racing.
The goal during a busy cyclocross season isn’t to accumulate the biggest training load possible.
It’s to recover, maintain the fitness you’ve built, sharpen the specific abilities cyclocross demands, and show up every weekend ready to race hard.
For a masters athlete, sometimes doing a little less between races is exactly what allows you to keep getting more out of them.
Three Things You Should Know About Training Between Cyclocross Races
1. Your race counts as a hard workout.
Don’t build your weekly training as though Sunday’s race doesn’t count. For most masters racers, one additional quality workout during the week is plenty.
2. Maintain strength instead of trying to build it.
One short, focused strength session each week can help preserve the strength you’ve developed without creating unnecessary soreness and fatigue.
3. Freshness matters more than squeezing in another workout.
If you’re choosing between one more hard session and arriving at the starting line recovered, choose recovery.
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Paul Warloski is a:
- USA Cycling Level 1 Advanced Certified Coach
- RRCA Running Coach
- Training Peaks Level 2 Coach
- RYT-200 Yoga Instructor
- Certified Personal Trainer
- Certified Nutrition Advisor
