August 1st.
Back when I was a bright eyed bushy tailed ‘Cross rider, when life was a blur of training, sleeping, eating and trying to earn a quid, August 1st was a marked page in my diary. In fact it had a bloody great fluorescent-marker ring around it. Because August 1st , around about 8am, was the appointed start time of PROPER TRAINING for the imminent season.

Not that I hadn’t been training before that, oh no. In (back then..) normal fashion I had done next to nothing from mid-February until I awoke from hibernation when the clocks changed in March, then tried my hardest to look like a respectable road racer from the end of April until around the time the Tour started in early July when I’d drive down to the Alps, usually in the company of some far more talented bike riders, to get my head kicked in on a daily basis on what would be euphemistically called a “Busman’s Holiday”; bike riding in the name of enjoyment and relaxation rather than for physiological gain. Looking back the competitive element felt like it consisted of as many vertical metres as could be achieved in daylight hours on the bike, combined with a tan line contest, who could eat the most pizza, and who could run the gauntlet, fighting off kids as you went, and scam the most Mars bar ice creams from the Tour publicity caravan. The other competition was throwing rocks at Marmots but no-one ever made a strike so that was a draw.Tim Gould won the climbing contests and David Baker won anything to do with eating, whilst I never quite made the podium in any activity. Much like my bike racing, thinking about it.
 
So Tour finally over, laundry done and car de-loused after a fortnight sleeping in it, the last week of July was a week of growing nervous anticipation. I swear I was more nervous on July 31st than I was on the eve of a big race. It was like starting back at a new school after summer holidays; I needed eight weeks of routine, school dinners and discipline, with some hard homework thrown in to keep me on my toes, before half-term gratefully arrived in the guise of the first big race at the beginning of October. Like mid-term exams I could figure out if I had been working hard enough and more importantly working on the right subjects. Nothing worse than turning the exam paper over and finding none of the subjects you’d been revising for.
 
And just like new school, on July 31st I laid out my uniform, shoes were gleaming, and my pencils were sharp and ready to go. And then after a sleepless night it was time, 8am August 1st.
Looking back on the few years I had this routine, those eight weeks from August 1st to early October were my favourite time of year. Physically it was the hardest thing I have done, three-session days trying to keep up with imminently better athletes, but the excitement and anticipation that I was doing more and doing it better than ever before, and the thought that no-one else could possibly be training this hard outside of our training group, made it worthwhile to the point of addiction.
 
As I write this it’s August 5th which would be around ten sessions in and the fifth run, so walking upstairs to bed would be an ordeal and appetite would be on fire but just one day to go and then a recovery day, so it’s all achievable if you break it down into manageable chunks.
 
If you have an eye on the coming season and your pencils aren’t sharpened yet, maybe it’s time to start making plans.
 
‘Cross and Roll....
 
Simon.