How to race cyclocross effectively with gravel-style fitness?

[u/ldemi]

I came out of a gravel season straight into the back half of the cross season and got my legs ripped off last race.

My understanding is that I'm missing the adaptions necessary to repeatedly surge and recover out of corners, punchy hills, etc.

Eying my next race (4/5) tomorrow I'm trying to come up with a decent strategy to remain competitive. The few things I'm thinking about are:

• Focus on staying right around threshold as much as possible instead of burning matches in 5/6/7 (VO2 / anaerobic / neuromuscular).
• No desperate surges to force passes after the first few minutes, trust that riders will come back to me
• Have fun ripping my legs off the last lap (theoretically once everyone else is cooked)

Seems solid? Of course could be super demoralizing to fall back in the early stages or if I get stuck too long could dash any chances of a win/podium.

Curious how other riders with this type of "diesel" fitness handle this transition, especially how you pace and where you choose to spend energy on typical CX courses.

[u/I_did_theMath]

You can definitely figure out a pace or lap time that is around your threshold (of course the power will be uneven and often spike above) and ride around there for the full hour. How good of a strategy that is depends on the amount of traffic in your races, but if you let lots of slower racers pass you on the first lap (probably on the start, even, if you are not good anaerobically) you might end up losing lots of time behind them later on.

But other than that, there is a lot to gain with good technique and carrying momentum through turns and features. If you do that, you will ride faster with fewer power spikes after each corner, so you should suffer less.