00:00I've got a bobble hat on and I'm in a cold muddy field. That means one thing, cyclocross.
00:06Cyclocross is a discipline that's well and truly on the rise. You see cyclocross races last a
00:11maximum of just 60 minutes in duration which means they tend to be one hour of adrenaline-fueled,
00:17fast-paced racing. And that's why over the last few weeks I've turned my hand to the mud to get
00:22ready for today, my first ever cyclocross race. So here we go, session number one. First place
00:28to start is by building the engine. So my first session is Wout van Aert's VO2 max session,
00:34courtesy of Zwift. This is shown to build aerobic capacity even though we're working in that zone
00:39five. So it allows you to get a really efficient workout in just 56 minutes. This being my first
00:45session I have had to allow a little bit more time just to get the Zwift Hub 1 set up. But that's all
00:50been pretty easy. The Zwift Hub 1 has only got a single sprocket at the back and that means it's
00:54compatible with almost any bike. So we're starting pretty easy just building the engine. Over the
00:59next few weeks we're going to be looking to sort of touch on all the different physical attributes
01:03I'm going to need in the cross race. So first of all we're going to look at building the engine,
01:07we'll then move on to some top end and then in the final run up to the cross race itself we'll look
01:12at really sharpening both the mind and the legs ready for race day. Hello again so you join me in my
01:18second week of training, first week done and it's all gone pretty well. I've actually found that
01:24Zwift bringing a level of gamification to my training has really allowed me to escape after
01:28work, get on the trainer and actually it's been a really nice way to unwind and do something positive
01:33as well for my body. First of all this session has quite a lot of sort of randomised efforts
01:38which is really similar to a cyclocross race and then the second reason is that I'm a racer at heart,
01:43I train to race so any level of competition into my training even if it's not a live race which you
01:49obviously can do on Zwift just really helps me push myself that little bit more. That's a wrap
01:53for the Crit City Downtown Dolphin, easily the most intense session I've done so far. Hopefully we'll
01:59see some gains rolling into next week. Hi everyone so I've come into the office on my own for what is
02:04going to be my last hard session on Zwift before my race. It's Monday currently so this is sort of my last
02:10chance to really get everything out and then over the next few days I'm going to be sort of relaxing
02:15more and letting the gains absorb hopefully, fingers crossed for good legs on Sunday. So I'm halfway
02:20into the warm-up for my last hard session as you guys can see plenty of red and orange simulating
02:27anaerobic efforts. The nice thing though is that once I get to the end of this session I really can relax.
02:32I feel like I've smashed that Tom Pidcock session out of the park. Time to reap the benefits now. Roll on the weekend.
02:44So it's race day, there's about 45 minutes now until the start and I think it's safe to say I'm going
02:49for a pretty unorthodox warm-up. I'm actually warming up on Zwift. Now the reason for that is because it
02:55allows me to use the same session that I've been using pretty much for the last four weeks for some of my
03:01warm-ups. I've tried it, tested it, I know it works. I'm going to get on the course, go for a little
03:06practice, check out the conditions and then get to the grid.
03:20Oh well as expected that was bloody hard. It was really nice I managed to like get into quite a rhythm
03:27and having done the hard training sessions I've done previously I kind of mentally I was already
03:33I was ready to suffer if that makes sense which was really good. It was really interesting actually
03:36out on the course you could really see where the sort of different components of training aligned
03:40so in terms of like that building the engine there's quite a long climb just down there you
03:44probably guys will have seen. Probably good sort of two three minutes every lap and having just the
03:49ability to go again is really helpful. It's been great fun to get back into some form of competition
03:54again and amazing to try something new that I haven't tried before. All that remains to do is
03:59say a big thanks to Zwift for helping get me in some form of competitive shape. Thanks to Nick Craig
04:05for making sure I didn't crash too many times and a big thanks to Wessex League as well for putting
04:09on such a brilliant event. If you did enjoy the video drop a like down below, subscribe to the
04:14the channel for more content and I will see you again very soon.
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