You’re racing cyclocross almost every weekend.
That means a hard race on Sunday, a couple of days recovering from it, maybe one or two decent training days, and suddenly you’re getting ready to race again.
So when exactly are you supposed to get faster?
This becomes an especially important question if your biggest goals aren’t the September and October races.
Maybe you want to be at your best for your state championship in November or Cyclocross Nationals in December.
The good news is that you absolutely can improve during cyclocross season.
But you probably can’t race every weekend like it’s a championship, train hard between those races, and expect your fitness to keep improving.
If you want to get faster as the season progresses, you need to decide which races matter most, use the other races as part of your training, protect a small amount of productive training during the week, and, perhaps most importantly, recover well enough to actually absorb all of it.
You Don’t Have to Be at Your Best for Every Cyclocross Race
This is one of the most important decisions you can make before or during cyclocross season.
Not every race can be an A race.
If you’re racing a local series throughout September and October but your real goal is the state championship or Nationals, those early races can become part of the process of getting you there.
You still race hard.
You still try to perform well.
But you don’t necessarily taper for them.
You don’t sacrifice several days of productive training so you can be completely fresh for every Saturday or Sunday race.
Instead, you accept that you might occasionally arrive at the starting line with some training fatigue.
That’s okay.
Your goal isn’t to win every weekend of the training process.
Your goal is to become the best cyclocross racer you can be when the races that matter most arrive.
Racing Cyclocross Can Actually Help You Get Faster
A cyclocross race is an incredibly specific training session.
You’re repeatedly accelerating from low speeds.
You’re producing high power out of corners.
You’re riding near threshold and above it.
You’re sprinting.
You’re recovering for a few seconds and doing it again.
You’re handling the bike while you’re tired.
You’re running, remounting, cornering, braking, accelerating, and making decisions while your heart rate is near its maximum.
It’s difficult to reproduce all of that in a normal training session.
That means your weekend races aren’t interruptions to your training.
They are part of your training.
The mistake is adding a full training program on top of all that racing.
Instead, we need to ask what the races are already providing and then use the rest of the week to fill in what’s missing.
The Goal Is Not More Hard Training
If you want to get faster throughout cyclocross season, your first instinct might be to add another interval workout.
That isn’t necessarily the answer.
You’re already getting a significant dose of high-intensity work from racing.
What many masters cyclocross racers need more than another exhausting interval session is enough aerobic training to maintain or continue developing their endurance, a carefully selected dose of intensity, strength training, and enough recovery to adapt to all of it.
Remember that training doesn’t make you stronger while you’re doing it.
Training provides the stimulus.
Recovery is where you adapt to that stimulus.
If every week becomes race, recover, intervals, intervals, race again, you’re likely to accumulate fatigue faster than fitness.
And eventually, instead of getting faster as the season progresses, you start getting slower.
Keep Building Your Aerobic Fitness
Cyclocross looks like an anaerobic sport.
But aerobic fitness is enormously important.
Your aerobic system helps you recover between repeated accelerations and hard efforts.
It helps you maintain power deeper into the race.
It also determines how quickly you recover from your training and racing.
That’s why endurance riding shouldn’t disappear once cyclocross season begins.
You may not have time for the long training rides you were doing during the summer, and that’s fine.
But maintaining consistent Zone 2 training between races can help preserve, and potentially continue developing, the aerobic fitness underneath your cyclocross performance.
If you have 60 to 90 minutes available during the week, an endurance ride is often more useful than trying to squeeze in another hard interval workout.
Use One Key Midweek Workout
If you’re racing every weekend, you probably don’t need two additional high-intensity workouts during the week.
The race itself is one of your hard days.
For many masters athletes, one focused midweek workout plus the weekend race provides plenty of intensity.
What should that workout be?
That depends on what you need.
Early in the season, you might continue doing some VO2max work if aerobic power is a limiter.
You might use threshold intervals to improve your ability to sustain high aerobic power.
Or you might do a cyclocross-specific workout with short accelerations, cornering, starts, and repeated efforts.
The important thing is that the workout has a purpose.
Don’t do intervals on Wednesday simply because Wednesday has always been interval day.
Ask yourself:
What adaptation am I trying to create that I’m not already getting from racing?
Then train that.
Don’t Stop Strength Training During Cyclocross Season
Strength training is another area that often disappears once racing begins.
It shouldn’t.
You probably don’t need the same strength volume you used during the winter or early base training, but one good strength session each week can help maintain the strength you’ve already developed.
The goal is maintenance rather than creating significant soreness or fatigue.
That means reducing volume while keeping enough resistance to provide a useful stimulus.
You might do fewer sets and fewer exercises, but continue using meaningful loads.
One short, focused strength session each week is usually much easier to recover from than trying to rebuild lost strength later in the season.
Recovery Determines Whether You Improve or Just Survive
This may be the biggest difference between the athlete who gets faster throughout cyclocross season and the athlete who is hanging on by November.
You have a limited recovery budget.
And for masters athletes, that budget matters.
Work stress counts.
Poor sleep counts.
Travel counts.
Standing around a race venue all day counts.
Driving three hours home after racing counts.
So does the race itself.
If you finish Sunday’s race exhausted and Monday’s legs feel terrible, you don’t automatically need to train hard Tuesday because the calendar says you should.
Give yourself time to recover.
An easy spin, walking, mobility work, yoga, good nutrition, hydration, and especially sleep may do more for your championship performance than forcing another workout into already tired legs.
The question isn’t: Can I complete today’s workout?
It’s: Can I complete today’s workout and actually benefit from it?
Those are very different questions.
Fueling Is Part of Your Recovery Plan
If you’re racing every weekend and trying to continue training, you can’t spend half the week trying to dig yourself out of an energy deficit.
Fuel the race.
Eat carbohydrates before and during your race-day warmup and racing as appropriate.
Start replacing carbohydrates soon after you finish.
Get adequate protein throughout the day.
And continue eating enough during the next couple of days to support recovery and training.
This is especially important if you’re also trying to change your body composition.
Cyclocross season is not the ideal time for an aggressive calorie deficit.
You need enough energy to race, recover, train, and adapt.
Underfueling might make the scale move, but it can also make it much harder to get faster.
A Sample Week When You’re Racing Every Weekend
There isn’t one perfect schedule because recovery from cyclocross varies enormously between athletes.
But a week might look something like this:
Monday: Recovery
Rest, easy walking, mobility, or Recovery Yoga.
Tuesday: Endurance
Easy to moderate Zone 2 riding. If you’re still carrying significant fatigue from the race, keep it short and easy.
Wednesday: Key Workout + Strength
Threshold, VO2max, or cyclocross-specific intervals depending on your current training goal and one focused strength-maintenance session.
Thursday: Endurance
Easy endurance riding.
Friday: Endurance or Recovery
Usually easy. The goal is to absorb Wednesday’s training rather than create more fatigue.
Saturday: Openers or Easy Ride
A short ride with a few brief efforts to prepare for racing. If you’re racing Saturday, shift the schedule accordingly.
Sunday: Cyclocross Race
This is one of your primary high-intensity workouts of the week.
The exact days aren’t important.
The pattern is.
Race. Recover. Train. Recover. Race again.
Not:
Race. Train hard. Train hard. Race again.
Watch the Trend, Not One Bad Race
This is particularly important during a long cyclocross season.
You might have a mediocre race in October because you’re carrying some training fatigue.
That doesn’t necessarily mean your training isn’t working.
If your goal is a championship race several weeks away, some fatigue can be acceptable.
Look at the bigger picture.
Are your training numbers improving?
Are you producing more power during your intervals?
Are you recovering better between hard efforts?
Can you hold your pace deeper into races?
Are you making fewer technical mistakes when you’re tired?
Are you finishing races stronger?
Those trends tell us much more than one result from one Sunday afternoon.
Then You Have to Let the Fitness Come Out
If you’ve spent September, October, and November racing and training consistently, eventually you need to stop trying to build fitness.
This is where tapering becomes important.
As your championship race approaches, training volume should begin to come down.
But that doesn’t mean eliminating intensity.
Cyclocross requires high power, repeated accelerations, and the ability to go very hard.
We want to maintain those qualities while reducing enough training load to shed accumulated fatigue.
That might mean shorter interval sessions.
Fewer repetitions.
Short, sharp cyclocross efforts.
Plenty of recovery between them.
The goal changes.
Earlier in the season, we’re trying to create adaptations.
Before the championship, we’re trying to reveal the fitness you’ve already built.
Can You Really Be Faster at the End of Cyclocross Season?
Yes.
In fact, if state championships or Nationals are your biggest goals, that’s exactly what your season should be designed to accomplish.
But improvement doesn’t come from trying to win training every week.
It comes from stacking weeks of productive work without accumulating more fatigue than you can recover from.
Use your races as high-quality cyclocross training.
Keep enough endurance work in your schedule to support your aerobic fitness.
Do one purposeful midweek intensity session.
Maintain your strength.
Fuel your training and racing.
Prioritize sleep and recovery.
And don’t be afraid to race slightly tired in September or October if you’re trying to be at your absolute best in November or December.
The goal isn’t to prove your fitness every weekend.
The goal is to keep building it until it’s time to show it.
Three Things You Should Know About Getting Faster During Cyclocross Season
1. Your races are part of your training.
If you’re racing every weekend, you don’t need to cram multiple additional hard workouts into the week. Use the race as one of your primary intensity sessions.
2. You need enough recovery to actually improve.
More training only helps if you can adapt to it. For masters athletes especially, sleep, fueling, easy days, and recovery need to be treated as part of the training plan.
3. Decide when you want to be fastest.
If state championships or Nationals are your biggest goals, don’t try to peak for every race along the way. Train through some early races, continue building fitness, and then reduce training load so your best form comes out when it matters most.
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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
