With #CXisCOMING the hashtag for many of us and the fall season arriving, its time to start thinking about transitioning out of peak summer cycling form. Should we think about just riding easy during this period, or including a bit of intense work?No ‘cross last year for Dr. StephenCranking up Summer FitnessThanks to my broken/dislocated foot from 2019 and COVID-19 in 2020, that was two years without any racing or competition for me. Luckily for me, I love riding my bike and competition is only one facet of why I love the sport.Even without a competitive goal or club training rides and races, Ive spent this summer working on riding solo pushing my Fitness Signature as high as I could get it. This involved a pretty polarized approach to training. Namely, I was mostly riding at endurance pace, sprinkled in with a weekly MTB ride where I let the terrain dictate intensity, then every 10 days or so a ridiculously hard all-out interval effort.Ive been pretty successful in maximizing my Xert Fitness Signature, with a Threshold Power of 240 W, High Intensity Energy of 26.0 kJ, and a Peak Power of 1164 W.How to DetrainNow Im flat out into teaching two courses online and getting my lab reopened, but CX in on the horizon, Im already starting to think about transitioning my fitness and building up for the winter of 2022/23.The first thing I, and most non-professional and professional racers, should be doing is to take time off the bike….
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