NEW YEAR, NEW CYCLING RESOLUTION

Embrocation Cycling Journal

NEW YEAR, NEW RESOLUTION

By : Molly Hurford

To be a cyclist is to be granted a great opportunity. It sounds silly, but bear with me on this one. To race bikes means a few things, first and foremost being that you’ve got the ability to ride a bike. Think about how many people are never afforded that opportunity, either because they never learned as kids, or because for physical reasons, it’s not a possibility for them. Whenever I deal with leg cramps or hurting knees, I try to remember that at least I can pedal my bike, even if some days are harder than others. The second is a little more blurry and I know that there are exceptions to the rule, but to race bikes is certainly to live a privileged existence. I’ve heard plenty of amazing stories of people growing up with little money, even less opportunity, and every barrier in the world, but still managing to get bikes and start racing. For a lot of us though, while we may not have grown up in the “lap of luxury,” the mere fact that we can afford bikes (however high or low end they may be) and the time to train on them speaks volumes about our situations. A lot of cyclists have fallen into the habit of using the Internet meme “first world problems” when complaining about bike racing, and rightly so. We are a lucky group.

So, this year, I have a few resolutions. And since most of them are fairly generic to cyclists on the whole, I’m going to share them. Admittedly, maybe the act of putting them out here for everyone to read will also help me to keep them, or will at least serve as a reminder that I have amazing opportunities laid out in front of me, and to ignore them is practically sacrilege.

Bike Maintenance
I admit it: I am the worst person in the world when it comes to this. When the season is over, my bikes usually get tucked into the garage, not to be pulled out again for another six months, still covered in the grime from the last race. Things like regular chain cleaning (or, truth be told, bike cleaning in general) are not part of my weekly routine. If I check the tire pressure before heading out on a ride, I consider that a “win.” So this year, my resolution is to keep all of my bikes in good working order. I figure with true wheels, a clean chain, and a derailleur that actually shifts properly, my watts will go up in no time. And since I live with people who ride bikes for a living (bike messengers), I’m hoping they can be persuaded to give me a crash course in the care and keeping of bikes.

Gear Maintenance
Much like Resolution Number 1, I admit to some serious failings in this arena. Sure, the gear doesn’t make the cyclist, but beat up sunglasses with scratched lenses, a PowerTap computer that’s never charged, a watch I can never find and kit that takes 15 minutes to get together certainly are not helping my case. Maybe if I could get out of the house 15 minutes faster, with a saddlebag, frame pump and water bottle all on my person, I could actually spend more time on the bike, rather than prepping to ride it. Time for some serious shelf reorganization!

Listening to my coach. Always.
I’m generally pretty good at listening to what my coach has to say about my training, and following training plans … that is, assuming I have the time for it. This season, I have no such excuse, since I’ve purposely carved enough time out of my workday and came up with a schedule that allows for no whining, only riding. This also goes for when my coach yells at me for my nutrition (or lack thereof). He’s trying to help make me faster, so who am I to ignore or suppress his advice? So when my coach says “jump,” I will say “how high?” though not without some confusion, because why is my coach asking me to jump as training for road season?

Give back
The cycling community has given so much to me, and I want to take the time this year to give back to it. In particular, the women in cycling have really been amazing, and the more I learn about the ladies in the sport, from the beginners to the pros, the more I want to help promote women’s cycling in any way that I can. To that end, I’m working with some rad ladies on a few new projects. This is one resolution that I have to encourage anyone reading this to think about: help to promote cycling and give back to this community this year, whether through working with a group like Bikes Not Bombs, giving a kid in your neighborhood his or her first bike, showing some juniors how to take barriers better, or even just taking some time to help with course setup for a local race. The community has definitely embraced me this past year, and I’d love to be able to do something in return.

Race hard
This one sounds really obvious, but admit it: there have been races that you’ve done at some point where you finished and realized that you could have gone much harder. This year, every race, I want to leave it all on the line, give every race everything that I have. If I’m not tasting blood from burst capillaries in my lungs at the end of every time trial, crit, road race or ‘cross race I do, I didn’t do it right. Because what’s the point of racing if you’re not going to push as hard as you can, and then just a teensy bit harder?

Stay positive
All the 80s hardcore kids will laugh at this last one (“Stay posi” being the motto of the times), but it’s one of my hardest and most important resolutions for the year. It’s easy to get defeated (see one of my first columns on The Art of Losing ), and some days it’s hard to want to get out and ride. Maybe I had a bad race, or just a crappy start to a training ride. Whatever the obstacle that I have in front of me, I want to always remember that I’m doing something that I love doing, and I’m the luckiest girl in the world because I’m able to do it.

© Copyright 2013 - Embrocation Cycling, INC

How to Get the Most Out of Your Training

By Jeb Stewart MS, PES

Too often these days people can get overwhelmed, frustrated and feel like they aren't doing a “good job” if they aren't getting all of their workouts in to the letter. I can assure you that this is not the case, but if we don’t know how to adapt our training during these times, then it is likely to occur. Your coach should be relatively available often for any questions you have regarding your training or to help you adapt the training when life interferes. Heck, we encourage it vehemently! However, if you do not have a coach, or even if you do, here are some simple tips and strategies to help you adapt on the fly and make the most out of the training time you do have.

In the course of working with my clients, I want them to learn how to adapt their training when things come up so that they feel empowered and accomplished rather than feeling like they failed and getting stressed out about it. I try to create the weekly workouts to give my athletes bang for their buck training to help make the most out of the days of the week when time is at a premium. Most coaches are well aware of how hard it is to even get that time in as most of us have families and full-time jobs just like those who they coach. So, when time is scarce, I show my athletes a few ways that they can adapt their workouts in a time crunch to still get them in and make them count.

Key Workouts
In an ideal world we would all sleep 7-8 hours, train for 3-4 hours a day, eat perfectly, take naps and go to bed by 10pm. Unfortunately that doesn't happen very often, if ever. So, when all else fails, if you get your KEY WORKOUTS in for the week, you will at least know that you are doing enough to maintain or even improve your fitness.

For most of us, our key workouts fall on Tue, Wed or Thu and on your long day/days on the weekend. These workouts usually consist of intervals or specific drills during the week and your long days if you are outside on the weekends. If you are stuck inside, your workouts should be kept brief, i.e. 1.5-2 hours or less, and very specific. Your key workout in the gym is your leg and core day. If you are only going to get one gym workout in for the week, make sure it’s that one. And lastly, always make time to stretch. It only takes 5-10 minutes and is critical to performance, recovery and injury prevention regardless of what some of the “experts” tell you these days.

Scheduling
If you miss a workout on the day it falls in your training plan, either skip it and don’t give it another thought or get it in when you can that week if it is a time of the year when workout sequencing is not critical. If you have a coach, I would encourage you to contact them to find out how to adjust your schedule to accommodate your situation. If you miss a KEY WORKOUT, it is better you get that in, than skip it and do the easier stuff unless you are just happen to be worn out from stress and fatigue. Then it would be best to take the day off or just ride easy to rejuvenate your body, mind and spirit. When you are really tired, either riding easy or taking the day off and pushing that key workout until the next day can be a good call. In the early part of the season, specific scheduling is not as critical and we need to keep our training fun for it to be effective long term.

Adjusting on the fly
For most of us, we are keeping the workouts during the week to the meat and potatoes to help us get in effective training while keeping our lives balanced, but sometimes the workout may be longer than the amount of time we have available to train that day. In that case, here’s what you will need to do to adjust it on the fly so that you get in a good workout, even with a minimum of time.

Cardio and bike workouts
Start by cutting your warm-up and cool-down in half but still get it in. Then if you still need more time, cut your workload in half by doing less than the recommended number of sets for the day. Then, if you still need time, you can cut the rest periods in half. If this still isn't enough, you can cut the interval times in half. Please go about it in this order as it is designed to eliminate things in their order of importance. Of course, this is only to be done in case of emergency, in which case it will allow you to still get in a quality workout in. Contrary to popular opinion, something is still better than nothing, for our heads as well as our fitness!

Strength & conditioning
To save time here, similarly, start by cutting the warm up and cool down time in half. Make sure you are super-setting exercises and performing circuits whenever possible to eliminate wasted time between exercises. (Super-sets involve doing one set using the opposing muscles used in the first exercise right after another without resting between the two. Circuits involve doing a number of exercises one right after another without resting between each exercise. Both concepts will reduce the amount of time you spend in the gym and the intensity of your workout). Do 2 sets minimum so that you are at least maintaining and then do more next time when your schedule allows. If you need more time, just do the key exercises for your core and the biggest muscle groups such as squats, lunges, dead lifts, etc. And lastly, if you need more time leave the stretching for another time later in the day or in the week and get on about your day. Once again, this is to be done only when you are in a time crunch.

As you can see, there are many ways to adjust our training to help us get it in and avoid the negative energy that we create for ourselves when life throws us a curve ball. The goal is to make the training we do be effective and fun and avoid it becoming a pair of handcuffs or a source of stress. Give some of these suggestions a try and let your coach or a friend know if you have any specific issues you may be having with our training program and work on it together to come up with a solution that leads to success. 

For more information, visit www.endurofit.com or contact Jeb Stewart with any questions you may have, at jstewart@endurofit.com. We look forward to hearing from you soon.