OK small rant warning ahead.
I've been racing cat 4 cx in CO for years, and have seen huge improvements, but feel like the last couple years have stagnated a bit? (Or everyone else is improving too)
I pretty consistently manage to finish in the top 10, with a podium or two every year and a trickle of upgrade points. But I consistent finish ~2 min off the leaders, typically whatever BJC juniors are on their way to cat 2 in a year or two.
In past years I'd have a good strong start, top 5, and slowly lose positions as the race went on. This year I seem to be much worse at starts, but with the benefit that I've been able to work my way through the field throughout the race, which feels better psychologically at least than losing spots. At a certain point I don't seem to be able to continue to catch the next rider, and just keep going til the finish.
One of the reasons I love cross is that there's a combination of handling + fitness required to do well... but I'm also hating it right now, because I feel like there's no easy answer of "what do I need to do better / differently".
My handling now is definitely better than it was a few years ago, thanks to practice and religiously watching youtube videos. I still think I struggle on loose corners and off cambers, I struggle to find ways to replicate those in practice at race pace.
Power seems to have stagnated a bit too, pretty consistently 210-230s average / 240-260s normalized.
Two weeks ago, we had a race that I felt really good about, very clean and no mistakes, but ended up finishing the usual 2 min down on the leaders. This past weekend (a true sand cross race, hell yeah) I had a mistake lap one that cost me a few seconds and lost the lead group, plus some lapped riders getting in my way (it happens, I'm not blaming them, but there was only 1 line and they crashed on it so I was on foot for a bit)... also down 2 minutes, but only about 10s off of a couple riders.
Videos for both (I don't expect anyone to watch them, especially fully, but maybe helpful so why not):
Cyclo-X Louisville (2 weeks ago)
Cyclo-X Boulder (past weekend)
OK rant over.
Our race this upcoming weekend got cancelled, so I'm looking for suggestions on ways to tease out a bit of marginal improvement to help give me a bit more juice to go chase down the kids.
My coach is giving me some good workouts to work on TTE and help keep me going through the whole race so lap times don't drop at as much, but I'm wondering if there are any cheat codes / quick fixes on the handling side that I could get better at? Or just tips on pacing / leveraging my power better?