The end of mountain bike racing season! Time to be lazy and eat junk food, right?

Well, that was the plan, until I found out that I would be on Thanksgiving break for the (official?) PA State Championship Cyclocross race in Marysville, PA on November 19. I couldn’t just pass that up, so I figured I could train for another two weeks and then be done for the year.

I had done a cx race last year, so I wasn’t too worried for this one. Riding fast, slogging through mud, hopping barriers, running up steep hills… nothing new.

And to make it even easier, I registered for the C race. I race Expert normally, but cx isn’t my thing, and I’m on a mountain bike, so I figured I’d take it easy. Besides, I was burnt out from the past 11 months of intense training and racing!

Here’s the thing though… someone was going to come watch me race, so I didn’t want to make a fool of myself racing the pros! (Yeah, normally I like to race the top class, but this was a girl was coming to watch me…)

I need to expand on this though before we actually get to the racing part of the story…

My main reason for doing the race was to visit my friend at Millersville University, which was closer to the race venue than my hometown. The race gave me a perfectly good reason to do that… (it’s always good to have more than one reason for making an 8 hour drive.)

Now if you’re wondering why I haven’t gotten to the race yet, it’s because I have a very important lesson for you: DO NOT spend the weekend on a college campus if you plan on winning a race!

Normally I wouldn’t stay up till 3:30 am the night before a race, but I had to make an exception this time. Fortunately, I was not worried about winning! And that gave me the perfect excuse for a poor performance!

So on to race day…

I made it out of bed (3 hours of sleep) and made it to the race at about 10 am, just enough time to get my number, warm-up for two minutes, and get to the line.

I was up against 27 other guys, 26 of them on cyclocross bikes. Isn’t there a “D” category for us mountain bikers? No big deal, I was ready to hit the first hill climb in the lead.

But I didn’t…

After a lap or so (wish I had the time to pre-ride), I had worked my way up to 4th place. Just had to move up one place to get a medal.

But I didn’t…

Somehow these guys (on true cx bikes) were holding me off. To make things worse, people passed me! I ended up moving back to 5th, then 6th, then 7th.

I realized that I no longer had a chance at a podium finish, so I started to just ride for fun. Normally I’d take my time and enjoy the course, but this course was brutal! There was a set of stairs, an almost vertical hill climb, tall barriers on a hill, and to top it off, lots of rough ground!

It was truly a challenging course, and quite long, I’d say about 2 miles. Even so, it was great for spectators, which I would realize later in the day.

Anyway, on one lap a guy sprinted past me, and it turned out that that was the last lap. I didn’t even realize it! (Not used to those 30 minute races…) So I came in 8th, 1:39 off the leader I think.

I can’t complain - I just wanted to finish the season!

After getting changed I got to sit around and enjoy watching the rest of the races and listening to Mike and Ray announcing the action. I’ll gladly go to more cyclocross races in the future as a spectator!

I got to watch the junior race, which was dominated by VisitPA’s Taylor McClain. It was also announced (a few times) that Taylor is indeed single. Ladies, act fast!

Alas, that was the end of my race weekend. I needed to get back and spend some quality time with my bed.

I must applaud High Speed Cycling and the VisitPA team for putting together a great weekend. I missed the Saturday night activities and Sunday’s team relay, but I heard they ruled.

Even so, my weekend was great! Sometimes racing needs to take a backseat to your friends, especially after an entire season of going to bed early!

My friend Maureen said it best, “You think you’re in shape, then you do this workout…”

I had been reading Graeme Street’s emails for quite a while, but I kept delaying my purchase of his program. I wanted it, but I wanted some new bike parts even more! Looking back, I think I would have been better off buying the Cyclo-Core program!

Before I tell you all about this conditioning program (you can read the basics at cyclo-core.com), let me give you a quick intro about myself. My name is Levi Bloom, I’m currently 20 years old, and I started bike racing in 2002. I usually compete in either the Expert or the Elite/Pro class in mountain bike races, and I completed the 2004 Boston Marathon, so I considered myself to be in pretty good shape.

Then I did this workout…

The first time I tried it, it was a disaster! I don’t think I completed the full set of reps for any of the exercises. Some of them even made me collapse to the floor! It was intense, to say the least. But that’s the point! You go hard for 30 minutes straight, get extremely sweaty and worn-out, and then fall over - but you’re left with plenty of time to do other stuff!

It’s the off-season, you don’t need to be riding for hours a day. And if you’re riding an indoor trainer, well, you understand.

Don’t get me wrong, the work-out won’t kill you! You can cut out some of the reps or add more as you get stronger. It’s easy to adapt to your fitness level and extremely easy to get started.

The best part… You don’t have to worry about severe injury! You won’t be lifting heavy weights or putting undue stress on your body. You’re looking for functional strength, not huge muscles that are only good for the weight room.

I’ve seen some of the exercises before, but not put together in a workout like this. If you’ve been doing a lot of core exercises, specifically body-weight exercises, you’ve probably seen some of these before. Heck, I was doing some of this stuff during high school football!

But the thing is - I haven’t really done it since! There’s a big difference between knowing the exercises and doing some occasionally and having an intense workout program that you can follow along at home in your living room. None of my workouts ever put me in as much pain as Cyclo-Core.

Although I think of myself as a darn good athlete, some of these exercises really made me struggle. But that’s not to say that you have to be an elite athlete to attempt Cyclo-Core. It’s up to you how hard you push yourself, how many reps you do, how many circuits you attempt, etc.

You’ll have the choice of either doing body weight circuits or functional resistance circuits. The body weight exercises are very intense, and even though the pace is fast, it seems to go on forever! (Look into the Cyclo-Zen program if you need to increase your mental toughness.)

The resistance workouts will require an inflatable ball and a couple small (10-20 lb) dumbbells. No big deal, these are great to have, and you can find them at Wal-Mart. I’d also recommend using a yoga mat for all the exercises, especially if you?re on a concrete floor.

Where the body weight exercises are very hard physically and mentally, the resistance exercises just take some time to figure out (although some of them are very hard, too.) Most of these I have never seen nor even heard of. These really took some getting used to! I had to watch Graeme for a while before I figured out the movements. Some of them were still nearly impossible - this DVD will keep me busy for a while!

All in all, this is good stuff. I’m kicking myself for not doing it last year! (Don’t make the same mistake!) One complaint though is the lack of demonstration of the exercises. It’s just a minor set-back though. What I recommend is going through the DVD once to watch for a while before trying to get the technique down. You won’t have time to do this if you’re actually trying to work out.

I was actually doing a quick recovery ride on my rollers the first time I watched the DVD. I just wanted to get a feel for what I would be doing, which was a big help.

Speaking of help, this has definitely helped my back. About a year ago I had a couple wrecks on my BMX bike that injured my back and right shoulder. It took a while to get comfortable riding and even longer before I could do any sort of core conditioning.

Because of that setback, I was having back problems during all my mountain bike races. My back would just give out and I could barely maintain my posture, let alone ride fast and in control. It’s hard to believe (even for me), but that back pain seemed to disappear after just a few Cyclo-Core workouts. (I also thought my abs looked a little more defined, but that might be my imagination

Be careful, though. One lesson I learned the hard way: don’t start out too fast. Even though you?re only using your body weight and only going for 30 minutes, this takes its toll…

(Click here to see a graph of my friend’s heart rate as he did Cyclo-Core.)

Although the season is coming to an end, I still had some mountain bike races to do during my Cyclo-Core reviewing. I did the conditioning workout a couple times in the week leading up to a Sunday race. I felt fine until the start of the race - then instant pain! Yeah, that’s how it usually is, but this was a bit different. I realized that my body was totally sapped of energy before the race even started! It was a tiresome day, but I took it real easy for the next week, and I was back to normal after that. (And ready to get back to Cyclo-Core.)

My final verdict is…

So that’s what I think of Cyclo-Core. The only thing I would change, is that I would have bought it much sooner! There’s just something about it… it works! I think Graeme says this somewhere, and it’s true: If you’re ready to evolve your training, this is what you need.

Click here to order Cyclo-Core for yourself!

P.S. By the way, I’m the president of the Babson College Cycling Club, and I had some of the team get together to try out Cyclo-Core. We did a short video (a comedy!) documenting our workouts. Check it out!

P.P.S. I can’t wait to start Cyclo-Zen and Cyclo-Speed!