Need advice on how to warm up for hour long xc races. Any tips?
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XC Race Warm up Advice
Spin to win!
What is "long"? 3 hours? Nine? Anyway, spin a small gear up and down a flat part. Once you're standing at the start (where, depending on the track, you usually should be early to have a good starting position), you can hop or jog in place or do some stretching exercises. Just make sure (unless you're really damn fast, but then you probably wouldn't ask for advice here) you don't get suckered into the way to fast starts. You'll be catching all those guys who attack the first climb at max pulse a couple of hours later.
Oh, I just saw "hour long". Then you want to go full throttle from the start. And definitely spin, spin, spin before.
First get a turbo trainer.
Alows you to time your warmup perfectly to your start time. As you can ride very close to the start line.
You should spend at least 30 mins warming up.
Starting with an easy spin and working up to near your lactic threshold briefly towards the end. Especially if your race is only an hour long. This makes being good and warm extremely important.
For more info I'd suggest Joe Friel's books/blog. He has lots of good info for endurance sports
http://www.roadcycling.com/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/4/458
Or here's the long version of it.
An hour long XC race is similar to a Crit/TT effort so here's the uber technical technique to it.
Lots of good infos in here and from a BC girl too!
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