John had sent me a link of Lance Armstrong’s greatest cycling moments during his seven Tour de France victory’s and I spent the next hour looking at video clips of his amazing riding career. Unlike many, I choose to believe in his innocence as it relates to his alleged performance enhancing drug use and continue to believe a person is innocent until proven guilty. He has been tested for performance enhancing drugs more times than any athlete in the history of drug testing...and has ALWAYS passed. I’ve watched many videos that describe and show his incredibly tough training regimen and think it is this, coupled with amazing physiological gifts and an absolute drive to win that has resulted in his unparalleled success. In any event, he’s always inspired me...and particularly lately when I’ve been relegated to riding only.
I rode a course that I did last week in what I thought was a respectable time of 1:55. It’s a 35 mile hilly trail with a couple of long climbs and many shorter ones. As in most of my rides and runs, I have checkpoints along the way to mark my progress. On this morning, I hit my first one just under my pr for the first 30 minutes of riding. Nothing special of course, but I noticed from that point on, I was getting out of my saddle and attacking all the smaller inclines...powering through them with ease. Normally, I would hold back early in my ride for fear that the hill attacks would lead to cramping thighs, as they often have in the past couple of years. Today though, I felt that nothing would happen and so I continued with this pattern.
I hit my second checkpoint in 47 minutes, which was a minute faster than my best ever. Now I was sure this was going to be a really good ride and continued to push. When I reached the bottom of Wilson Mills hill following a 51 mph descent and had only about 20 minutes of riding to get home, I could see I was a full ten minutes ahead of the previous best I’d ridden on the course. I climbed hard through the park and finished effortlessly in 1:44...and 11-minute improvement.
It’s all about conditioning. I’ve been riding more than I have in the past two years and it’s beginning to pay dividends. To the runners I’ve coached over the years, I always preach base training. “The broader the base, the higher the peak,” I’ve told them, but somehow forgot that it also applies to any endurance sport...including my cycling. I’m approaching 200 miles a week, and if I do that consistently for several weeks, I’ll be able to ride faster – longer. It’s really quite simple and I shouldn’t be surprised. I’m also noticing that I’m having less pain in my neck and shoulders and I would again attribute it to extra time in the saddle. ‘The more you do, the more you can do’ certainly applies here. The downside of course is that my running conditioning has likely gone all to hell. There are tradeoffs, but for now I’m enjoying my new found cycling strength.
Bike Duration: One hour and 44 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 125 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 1600.
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