La Vie Velominatus: Train Properly
There are few pleasures in life as great as to achieve a goal, to accomplish something that doesn’t come easily. Great lessons are taught through this activity; we learn that it is our determination and not our doubt that defines our limits. We learn that through studied discipline we can cultivate the skills required to work incrementally towards becoming what we want to be.
This is true for our personal, social and professional lives – and any other aspect that I may have left off. But to achieve our goals is usually a rather complicated mess; it requires introspection, it often requires reliance upon others to do their part or at least not interfere with you doing yours, and it is usually rife with hard choices of long-lasting and difficult to understand consequences.
In its most basic form, Cycling provides us a path to discovery in a less complicated model than do our actual lives. We train our bodies, we become more healthy. We become more healthy, we train more. We become stronger, we go faster. We derive more pleasure from our efforts. We experience reward for sacrifice. We associate progress with the pain of an effort. We enjoy Cycling more. We ride more. We become healthier still. We become stronger still. We go even faster. We suffer more. We associate more pain with a greater sense of achievement. And though it all, we discover it that unlike every other walk of life, in Sport we are islands: what we find here is only what we have brought with us.
Eventually, exercising will become training. The activity becomes richer with the application of the discipline that comes with this rebadging. Exercise is something you do regularly but without structure. With training comes a study of your body and how it responds to stimulus. Long rides have a different effect on the body than do short ones. Successive hard efforts have another effect, as do longer and shorter periods off the bike.
Training Properly requires discipline and patience. It means you don’t just throw your leg over your machine and pedal off to ride along tree-lined boulevards. Training Properly means having a plan for each day. It means heading for the hills one day, and the plains another. It means controlling yourself and not trying to set your best time up the local climb because you feel good that day. Training Properly means restraining yourself on a group ride and not joining in on the town line sprints if your plan doesn’t call for it. Training Properly means leaving for a ride despite the rain falling from the heavens and the loved ones whom you leave at home.
Training Properly comes down you and you alone; much can be learned from books and coaches, but the path is yours to walk. The discovery is yours to experience and to shape into what you are seeking. There are, however, some basics to keep in mind. Also keep in mind I’m not a “Sports Doctor”, “Physiotherapist”, or “Smart”. And never take medical or sporting advice from Some Guy On the Internet.
- Break your muscles down, and allow them to build back up. This is the fundamental principle of Training Properly. Hard efforts break your muscles down. You body will respond by building them back stronger than they were before. This process takes time. Be patient.
- Observe Rule #5 when appropriate. In accordance with #1 above, laying down the V is handy for breaking the muscles down, but not so much for allowing them to build back up. Lay down the V one day, then give your body a chance to build back up, either through rest or through low-intensity recovery rides.
- Learn to listen to your body. There are good pains and bad pains – learn to tell the difference. Good pains include burning lungs, gun aches, road rash, and the like. These pains will lessen during a ride or even go away completely. Proceed carefully, but learn to push through them; if they don’t go away, they get classified as bad pains. Bad pains include different types of knee pain and chronic pains in, for example, your shoulders, back, or neck. Knees are especially sacred and should be looked after carefully; see a physiotherapist for this and if they prescribe time off the bike, take it. Rushing recovery on a sensitive injury may seem tough and in compliance with Rule #5, but may set you back more than being patient and recovering fully. If you suffer from chronic pains, consult a fitting specialist and work on your position.
- Train to ride farther than you need to. Incrementally increase the distance of your training, until you can ride farther than you need to. If you are training for a Sportive or race of 140 kilometers, train to ride 160 or 200; you will arrive for your event with the confidence that you can easily handle the ride and will have something in reserve should things not go according to plan.
- Save competing for Race Day. Being competitive is for racing, not training. Set goals for a ride, and adhere to them. Don’t chase after a rider who passes you on a climb when you are on a recovery ride. Don’t lift your pace when you see a rider ahead who you think you can catch. If you don’t race, pick a day or two every week where you try to catch every rider you spot on the road – but remember that they should also be adhering to their own training plan; don’t sit on uninvited and don’t hinder their training through your antics.
Be patient. Have discipline. Train Properly. Vive la Vie Velominatus.
I started riding seriously about six years ago. Every year I’ve gotten faster and every year has brought a little more focus on training properly. For Christmas I got six months of training with a coach that is pro on a UCI Continental Pro team. I’m gonna hurt some people.
Beautifully said Frank
I absolutely agree
It permeates our culture today, that we can get something for nothing. This is a most untrue falsehood that is out there. If I get something for nothing…thats a gift. But if I pursue something as you well say, my passion, it then follows that anything worthy, anything worth doing is worth doing right and it will require something of me in order to reap the reward.
And the fact is as you spell out, the rewards for us Cognoscenti are so numerous, its going to hurt. The rewards are worth every painful stroke.
But do you play one on TV?
@Cyclops
In a similar vein, did he stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night?
Chapeau on a well written article, Frank! I especially liked the explanation of the difference between exercise and training.
Rejoice in thy suffering… then go again !!
I wish I had enough time to train properly. But my work life is already organized and planned, causing a lot of stress, so I don’t want to ruin my precious leisure time by making plans and setting stretched goals. I ride my bikes whenever I find the time, and I like to ride them fast! Your rule_#3 is my number 1 since many, many years. It helped me to improve my performance while investing less time each year in training. But your rule_#5 only applies to cyclists that regularly take part in races. Since I don’t, I try to make the training with my companions as competitive as I can.
I am only in my fourth year of riding and my second of training. I am much faster but squandered some of my hard earned fitness by not obeying #5 above and laying down too much V in group rides. This year I am saving everything for race day.
I like it and as always admire the writing but I think it misses an important factor to Training Properly and that’s Eating Properly. Broken down muscles can’t repair without the necessary materials to do it.
Maybe that’s Part 2, already written and in the queue for publication next week.
@snoov
Excellent point. I think Cyclops wrote something about nutrition that generated a lot of great discussion about year ago? Worth searching for that thread. But, I agree, nutrition HAS to be part of “training” and I think that Fronk most likely implies nutrition when he uses the term “training”, but I might be mistaken.
@Tartan1749
OMG, those commercials are classics! Remember the nuclear meltdown commercial? “Are you new to the team?” “No, I’m with the tour group. But I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.”
@Buck Rogers
It’s the hardest part for me, I love a bit of chocolate so I do. It’s another side of the discipline Frank talks of, discipline to go out when it’s not nice, discipline to stick to the program and discipline to put the correct fuel in your gob.
@Lister
When you open the ‘savings’ purse on race-day, make sure you find what you expected to spend! Go ahead and register hard efforts for your race-day psyche — and find a group that wants to invest big in training. Saving it can often become a bust. I’ll shut up now and take my own advice.
Point #3 is tough too. Having just gotten over a nasty bout of pneumonia, it was hard not to go out and ride with the team. The race season started 3 weeks ago, and I just got back on the bike last Friday. Better part of valor told me to wait until the cough had totally gone away, and I’m glad I did, tough as it was. I know I would have gotten sick again riding in the cold air we’ve had until recently. But it’s gonna be 15C tomorrow! No knee warmers, jacket or insulated arm warmers! Bibs and Gillette only.
@frank
Spot on. This was just what I needed, a gentle kick up the ‘rse, I’ve been mentally flabby, a bit anti-V over the last week and haven’t been putting in the efforts I’d planned. Once the little people are dispensed with I’ll be on the rollers for a solid 2 x 20.
@scaler, thats the hardest lesson I have had to learn, when to rest….
I learned that a couple years ago, and it does help recovery a ton
but never had a pneumonia, so that must be a kicker and must drive you crazy resting
@Buck Rogers
You’re thinking of Steampunk’s Guest Article: Cutting Weight.
Is there a consensus for training for the (un)expected ?? Race scenarios are (un)scripted. “Races are decided over very small differences.” — (not my quote) Usually my willingness to answer an attack is the biggest difference — while training. And I agree that there is a subjective line here with training and the group. Which comes first, the training or the group (chicken and egg metaphor) ??
@mcsqueak
Indeed! Thank you!
@scaler911
Yes, I have “the Flu” and have finally kicked the fever that I had had for the last 5 days. Still recovering and dying to ride but will have to wait a day or two I think. Last ride was one week ago. Killing me.
@snoov
Yeah, I am either black or white on these things. I either eat too much or just shut them off completely. I have literally not had a donut since 2008 and a chip of any form since 2010. If I eat one of either of them, I will eat the whole bag/box. Drives my VMH crazy!!! She says, “Just eat one or two? Why this all or nothing?” I truly cannot explain it, that’s the way I am with certain foods. Better to skip them completely.
Frank knows my story, but it bears repeating for everyone, as a lesson in Point #3:
After riding an entry-level steel-frame mountain bike on the road for 15 years, I bought my first road bike in July of last year. I was 54 years old at the time, and I figured that I’m not getting any younger, and with a road bike I could ride farther and faster.
I still remember that first ride. I had an ear-to-ear grin–I’d never dreamed that I could ride that fast on a bicycle! I quickly fell in love with road cycling. I would ride an average of three times a week, and by the end of the year, I had worked my way up to confidently doing rides of 50 miles (sorry for miles instead of kilometers, but I’m 55 stinkin’ years old, and my brain can only process so much).
In early January of this year, I started getting a little pain in my left knee, which would usually become apparent the day after riding. Now, one that all active people have in common, be they cyclists, runners, skiers, footballers, whatever, is that we don’t want seem like wimps, so we’ve been conditioned to “suck it up” and play through the pain. Which I did. I kept on riding, the knee would get increasingly painful. It got to the point in late January when the left knee was so painful I could barely walk.
I made an appointment to see my orthopedic doctor, who is also a road cyclist (we spent the first ten minutes talking about gear, routes, etc). Based on the X-rays and physical exam, his diagnosis was quadriceps tendonitis, which is considered an “overuse injury.” His prescription: 4-6 weeks of rest.
I resigned myself to taking the entire month of February off the bike, which was very difficult, espcially when I’d see other riders on the road, and see emails from my bike club advertising rides that I couldn’t do. It wasn’t easy, but I kept the promise, and didn’t ride at all in February.
I got on the bike again last Thursday, March 1. I also rode on Monday. Let me tell you…nothing is more humbling than going from riding 4-hour, 50-mile rides to riding 1-hour, 15-mile rides. I feel like a beginner all over again. BUT–the feeling of riding and having no knee pain during the ride–and even better–no pain the following morning, is fantastic. I plan on s l o w l y working my way back up to speed and distance, and hopefully by summer I’ll be back to where I was.
@Cyclops
This deserves to be article in its own right.
Frank’s article brings up some really good points. I, for one, have the whole “resting recovery” thing down to a damn science.
It’s the “training” thing that has me buggered. Training for what? I don’t have anything big on the calendar like the Keepers Tour. Scaler911 and gaswepass have me pretty much convinced to try racing this year, so we’ll see how that goes.
However I hate to call what I do “training”, since I have no regimented plan I don’t think it can be considered that. During the darkest months of winter I used my trainer a lot in order to keep most of the fitness I had gained through the previous spring and summer.
But that was simply so I wouldn’t slide backwards.
I think what has kept me from adopting a more formal plan is that I am afraid of turning cycling, which right now is the main thing I “do” outside of work and spending time with friends/family into something with so much structure that I don’t enjoy it. Right now I ride when I want, and don’t ride when I don’t feel like it, which is kind of nice.
However I know that if I were to add more structure I’d be getting more out of myself. Right now I’m leaving potential performance on the table, and it will be a big deal to move beyond that. I have to decide when that time has come.
This is most timely. Most of my training has been indoors with weights recently. Squats suck. They’re boring. They’re the opposite of awesome. But they’re good for me and good for training. They make me stronger. Nice reminder to keep at it for another couple of weeks. Weights twice a week and a couple of shortish rides at moderate pace (today: 50ish km””outward leg into 45+kph winds). Will taper out the weights soon and increase duration and intensity of rides. My weight is good””about where it was at the end of last year, but with more muscle and less fat””but the cardio needs work. Stage two: cardio. Will be ready for a nice Wisconsin Cogal in three weeks, and peaking in time for Ontario & Vermont Cogals in May & June. Vive la vie V!
@motor city
Yes, I want to read an article about cyclops hurting people! What should be call him? The Idaho Icepick? The Butcher of Rexburg? The Powerful Potato?
Oh, I guess reading about the coaching from a pro would be nice as well…
@mcsqueak
Super points that I struggle with as well.
I am back into regular road racing this year for the first time in over 15 years and I have a “plan” and some structure, but with my current life with work, five kids under 11 years old and a beautiful wife who has seen me go on three deployments to the MiddleEast in the last 6 years, it would be too stressful for me to start writing out a specific day-by-day plan as there is no way in heck (still on the no-cursing bandwagon Steamy) that it will happen and will only stress me out.
I get out for, when healthy, four rides a week, plus or minus one, with one being long, one intervals, and two steady or recovery rides for around 200 k’s per week. I do train with HR but not power and I love what I am doing. If I were single, I would ride 6 days a week with power, 400 k’s and try to be a Cat 2 within the next two years.
As it is now, I already made my main goal of the entire season of getting my cat 4, so now I am deciding if I should try to up my goal and try to make a cat 3 by the end of the season or focus more on getting ready for the Paris-Roubiax cyclo in France in early June and the 200-on-100 in VT at the end of June?
I guess, ultimately, in the end, it’s how’s having the most Volupte on the bike that wins.
@Steampunk
What? Where? When?
Did I miss this somewhere???
@Buck Rogers
All part of the training, my friend. If you can’t curse, that energy will be available for blasting out the V.
This raises a really fascinating question. Does training properly increase one’s chances of experiencing la volupté? It would seem that, yes, the stronger and more adept one is on the bike, the more likely to reach that perfect condition. But training, by definition, would seem to establish a series of conditions that would prevent la volupté from occurring.
I must confess that I am very good at training properly off the bike. Weight-training, eating properly, etc. On the bike: meh, I just like to ride a lot of the time. Listening to the inner rhythms of body and machine, and experiencing the ride is often too tempting. The plan is there, but maybe I’m too old to insist on some kind of competitive definition of proper training (I did that for many years as a soccer player). I don’t need to race. I have a routine: rides need to fit specific times on specific days and I try to make the most of them. I have goals for the year, but since they are primarily personal ones, logging umpteen intervals or hill repeats doesn’t appeal nearly as much as enjoying my time on the bike.
All this to say: an additional step might be added to the list above. “Training properly” is a personal and private endeavor; it should not be interrupted by external forces, but nor need it be shared with others. Training properly requires a silent, hermit-like dedication to improving one’s relationship with body, bike, and road.
“Training Properly means restraining yourself on a group ride and not joining in on the town line sprints if your plan doesn’t call for it.”
This has to be one of the hardest parts of training for me. I’ve been able to get a nice crew of solid riders to go on regular lunch rides at my office. Most of them are younger than I (in their mid 20’s to early 30’s) and are some pretty serious athletes in other sports. Inevitably many of these rides turn into hammerfests with each kid trying to out do the other or to set a new PR on one of the many Strava segments during our loops.
There are few things that give my 40 something year old legs more pleasure than dropping to the small cog and riding them off of my wheel while I still can. But now that the summer racing is near and it’s time to get serious I have to be a little more thoughtful on these rides. That feeling of angst in watching them power away up a hill or on our finishing sprint is tough to deal with, and I have to admit there have been a few times when I let the moment get the best of me and join in.
The best remedy I have found for this is to have my head handed to me in an early season crit because of all of the gamesmanship during our mid week rides. Usually only takes one of those to set me straight.
@Dino
Wiscot just wrote the entry. I hope it will be up shortly. The short of it: afternoon of Friday, March 30: 80km through wine country west of Madison.
@Steampunk
This was the winter I finally committed to training on the rollers a couple evenings during the workweek. Not only am I riding stronger than I have in a couple of years, the legs have more souplesse leading to more frequent moments of volupté.
@snoov
@Buck Rogers
It’s those frikkin’ chocolate and peanut butter girl scout cookies that get me every year. Without fail, we will get our order, and I will grab a glass of milk and a few of those, and a half-hour later, I’ve eaten the whole damn box.
Regarding training, I don’ race (I don’t count the one or two “T-words” that my wife coaxes me into doing each summer), and I don’t really even do group rides much, so I don’t consciously train on the bike. Nevertheless, I’m also a runner from way back, and a lot of the basic training concepts Frank lists above translate pretty well from running (and probably a lot of other distance-type sports), and vice versa. I find myself falling into those same training patterns on the bike–intervals; alternating hard efforts and recovery efforts; etc.–without really even thinking about it.
@Steampunk
Dammit. There’s virtually no way that I’m going to be able to make that work.
@Nate
Similar experiences from the weight room. Going uphill was a revelation: lots more power. Fitness needs a bit of work, but that will come in time.
Of course, I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced la volupté. But maybe my definition sets too high a standard. Or I just need to ride gooder…
@doubleR
Good luck! Hope everything will be ok and stay ok!
@snoov
Indeed, the difficulty with these articles is that if you cover everything, eventually you wind up writing a book, and if I’ve understood correctly, there are already some books available.
In all seriousness, though, diet is a huge part of it, and worthy of its own article and as @mcqueek points out, @Steampunk wrote one on nutrition before, though it was focused on dropping weight moreso than general diet.
I personally am in the practice of watching what I eat; I weigh my pasta before cooking it, and so forth. But diet and training are two separate components that together make you a better Cyclist. In my view, diet is a discrete unit from training.
But to your point, to understand the great mystery, we must study all its aspects, and to become the best Cyclist you can be, eventually diet will come into it. But its all part of the progression – start with casual riding, progress into good training, and when you are ready for the next step, incorporate a better diet.
Great point.
@grumbledook
Hard training rides are fun and very much valued – provided everyone in the group understands what the groups (or at least your) goals are for the ride. What I’m talking about in item #5 there is this sickly habit that people have of lifting the pace on a casual ride until suddenly everyone is riding á bloc instead of observing their plan.
If you’re not racing and going on the Rule #5 Wednesday Night hammer fest, that is every bit the time to ride your guts out. But joining the Thursday friends and family Casually Deliberate ride and getting competitive with all the people out there just trying to enjoy a relaxed day, you’re missing the point.
Another excellent point – thanks for bringing that up.
@Buck Rogers
I would say I include nutrition more in the “discipline” part of it – that discipline to put down the fork and not reach for a brownie right before bed. Or to pour back that last glass of wine rather than finishing the bottle.
I’m working bit by bit to get back into training and eating right again. But life seems to get in the way of life.
@Buck Rogers
First and foremost, if adding structure etc etc reduces the fun, don’t do it. I for one am not a Pro and don’t get paid to ride, so I do it in a way that makes it fun. That doesn’t mean that want to ride every time I do it, but I do it in a way that, on balance, makes it enjoyable for me.
I think what you’re describing here, Buck, is training – you’re not following a day by day plan, but you’re doing whats right for your body to get stronger – push it, let it recover. Do long rides, do hard rides, etc. I’m similarly busy and don’t follow a daily plan. What I most certainly do, however, is decide before I go out, what kind of ride I’m doing. What did I do last time? What will compliment that for me? What rides do I have planned this week, and how should I ride today based on what’s coming? Its all very loose, but it also structured around the basic tenets of training. And, one of the biggest things, is the discipline to stick with your plan, but maintain the flexibility to change it if you need to. If you have a Rule #5 ride planned and you go out and you’re flat and dead and you don’t respond to the intervals, then save them for another day and give your body more time to rest.
Indeed it does – you’re not the only one it happens to!
@mcsqueak
Good points, ones I have studied over many years.
Training for what? is the issue. When I was racing, and wanted to do well, then I trained. I’d do all the base, the intervals, the diet. And you know what? I hated riding.
So I started ‘just riding’ again. Sure, I rode fast, slow, climbed, sprinted, raced my mates, layed down the V. For fun. And if I raced, I was fit enough to do as well as I ever could, even better, because riding wasn’t a chore.
Two years ago I had a major goal; to join the 3 hour club at the Karapoti Classic mtb race after narrowly missing it twice. I knew I needed to be in top shape, and while my mates got actual ‘training plans’ and followed them religiously, I vowed to use my knowledge of myself to prepare. If I felt good, I’d do the hill repeats. Or I’d throw in a couple of sprints on a longer ride. Or I’d just do nothing and drink beer if I felt like it.
I didn’t put undue pressure on myself physically or mentally, and arrived at the start line as best prepared as I could ever be. All I needed was to ride the best I could and have good luck. And it all came together, my goal was completed, and I could walk away happy. The training plan guys had burnt out weeks before and came up empty.
Moral? Pros train, the rest of us ride.
@Pedale.Forchetta
Thank you, my friend. Right now I am “cautiously optimistic.” Each day feels a little bit better than the day before…it’s a great feeling just knowing I can ride once again.
Thank you for again motivating me to go out and ride with a purpose.
(Long time velomilurker, first – okay second – time poster.)
@frank, this is a great article and I appreciate that it captures a wide gamut of motivations for why folks ride. Some ride to win, some to challenge oneself, some to engage in an occasionally-social activity with outstanding health benefits, some to eat. I happen to subscribe to all of those. Except the first.
But the wonderful cycle (pun intended) of suffer, recover, then suffer faster is so addictive. Maybe some day I’ll Do Something Meritorious on a bike.
I admit that I’m somewhat afraid of getting burned out by all of this excruciating fun. Has this happened to any of us? Since I’m posting here, I’m obviously keen to know why it might have happened and what it took to get back into it.
@brett
+1
What a fucken spot on article. Following a trip to the Alps last year with a bunch of mates, it was pointed out to me that I rode like a complete idiot… on the Marmotte course, I went up the Croix de Fer like a stabbed rat; sat on the front into the wind to the foot of the Telegraphe; summitted the Telegraphe first…. then blew up at Valloire… the detonation could be heard reverberating through the valley, and I crawled up the Galibier as everyone, and I mean everyone, came past me like I was going in reverse… the awful thing was, one of the guys I was riding with’s Garmin was picking up my heart rate rather than his… pretty much at 175 the entire ride… which he kept calling out to everyone with great mirth. I was given a stern talking to back in Bourg by our patron along the lines of ‘get your shit together, stop being a dick, and ride to your real potential, not your self-delusional perceived ability’… so on return, I found a coach who’s sole job has been to get me not to train full-gas / ride full-gas etc. all the time… and manage my HR down on rides… saving the V for when it will have maximum impact (“Sverpunkte!”)
I had lots of bad habits, which have taken so long to break. For example, it has taken six months for me to be able to go out and ride 100km at a HR of 130 – 140 and no more, no matter who goes past; or do a short ride of mixed tempo (i.e. not make it a long ride); and I’ve been riding with groups a lot less, as it doesn’t fit with ‘training’… he lets me out once a month to let loose with mates and go full gas… but no more than once a month. One of the most important things he’s told me is to learn to rest: he tells me all the time that I don’t overtrain, I under-rest (job, kids, life, etc.) and that I need to do all my training at L1 or L2, with only a little bit above threshold until 2-3 weeks before an event (at which point he makes me do really painful things that hurt and make me feel sick – e.g. interval training, balls out). He’s also put me onto a book ‘Racing Weight’, which is super helpful in terms of eating properly whilst training, and peaking on weight as well as training. (I’m with all you guys… like the Modfather, I’m either ‘on’ (and really ‘on’), or I’m ‘off’, in which case, I’m seriously off the reservation)… the discipline is spilling over to other areas of my life, too… which is great
I’d recommend getting some help from a coach to anyone who is seeking structure, as I really had no idea what I was doing… I love the structure it gives me, and the measurable progress. Only downside is the pressure he’s putting on me to get power. Not sure how long I can hold out… as it would mean more data that I could look at with no idea how to analyse (heaven).
We shall see in Belgium whether it has done my cycling any good – that’ll be a ‘no’ if I’m spat out the back after 300m on the first ride, methinks.
“in Sport we are islands: what we find here is only what we have brought with us.” Mint, just mint.
VLVV.
@cal
Absolutely. I spent a long time away from my bike for this reason. Too much focus and structure can kill the fun of something very easily. I relaxed, and it became more fun, and as was said before, first and foremost we should enjoy the sport – we’re not getting paid to ride our bikes. (I’m not, at least.)
Further, what @brett alludes to is totally spot on. You have to know your body, work it, rest it, listen to it. But that also doesn’t mean training by numbers and getting a training plan and never deviating. That’s why there are V points to the list, not a thousand like it should have if it were a training guide. I would say what Brett is describing is the holy grail of Training Properly – give your body what it needs to be as good as you can (want to) be. For Brett, a training plan and loads of structure don’t work; it was better for him to go by feel, relax about it, and have more fun at it. But he also sprinted, climbed, rode easy, rode hard and did all the basic things the body needs to become fit and be able to do a monster ride like he did.
All this brings into sharp relief the point that everyone is different, and everyone should approach this stuff in a way that works for them. And don’t take advice for Some Guy on the Internet.
This is the only thing I disagree with from Brett’s good post.
I have been very lax in my riding lately – due to a number of factors such as sloth, indolence and laziness.
Not coincidentally (I think), over the last 6 months I haven’t been getting a plan from a guy i pay to give me ride plans (Aussie Road & TT champ, Olympian – so he knows his bones). Without someone to “answer to”, I let things slide, then riding 6 days a week dropped back to 4 and dropped even further. And before you know it, I was a street hustler giving it away to strangers for $20 a throw. Actually, that last bit isn’t true – its another story entirely.
I have a two day bike ride/race coming up at the end of this month. Pain is on its way.
One piece of training wisdom that took me a very long time and about 4 different sports to understand – you only get faster when you are off your bike.
@frank
That was my best received comment so far as a Velominatus. I worried, and paused before submitting it as the last thing I want to do is get anyone’s back up. I am very very proud of my Grey Cog and thank the keepers for their sterling work.
I’ve been out and now that I’m home I see that the discussion has added plenty depth to Franks article, lots of food for thought. Chapeau to all.
@cal
I’ll raise my hand as well on this one.
Road and raced and followed it religiously for about 7 years from ’87 until around ’93/94. Awesome at first. Loved the racing, training, was doing well, moving up cat’s and then I started to put a ton of pressure on myself, really started over training and also started to go backwards in race results. Finally just burned out and was dropped early in a race one day and I turned the bike around, went back the the start, put it in the car and did not ride again for about ten years.
Not sure what got me back on, just bought a Lemond CX bike one day and started riding again. That was in ’06 and now I am in heaven again on the bike, have been for the last 6 years, and am only getting stronger each year. I think the key is that I now know that I will never be a pro and I am just enjoying the heck out of it.