The Psychology of Cycling

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=JKbiBNztErQ

Early in my athletic career I had the good fortune to be invited to Dr. Cooper's Aerobic Center in Dallas, Texas to participate in a test on Olympic runners to determine what made them elite. There were many Olympians invited - Frank Shorter, Steve Prefontaine, Kenny Moore, Paul Geis, Philip Nadoo, Gary Tuttle, Ted Castinada, Jeff Galloway, Mike Manley - yeah, some big talent. I was there as a member of the control group known as "good college runners". One of the tests conducted involved psycholoical testing and a very revealing result was determined which has stayed with me ever since. The test showed that the "elites" were constantly focused during the event and were constantly evaluating feedback from their body so they could best determine how to meter out their energy. The control group was more apt to let their minds wander and, essentially, lose contact with their surroundings. The other day I stumbled across this video from the University of California"s "success in sports" series, which succinctly explains the points learned at the Cooper Clinic so many years ago. The video is 45 minutes long - perfect for a trainer session.  

If you are doing any sporting event, I think you will find this video of value.

Simple bike cleaning idea

Did everyone enjoy their weekend of riding? I bet yes. Did everyone enjoy cleaning their bike each day? I bet not. In a combination of the "best ideas are the simplist" and "you can learn something every day", I had an enlightning conversation with Dr. Tom Murray after the ride on Sunday. I bumped into Dr. Tom in the Walgreen parking lot in Scarborough. I was hesitating over my bike, reluctant to touch it and put it into my car as it was covered in salt, sand and road grime (I don't like touching ikky things).
  
Tom: "Looks like you need to clean the bike."

Me: "Yeah - need to do it after every ride this time of year."

Tom: "Do you use a power washer?"

Me: "Huh??? Ahhh ... no, I squirt 3 or 4 bottles of hot water on everything."

Tom: "They make these power washers that hold 3 gallons. Cost like $75. I use hot water and it works great."

He told me the name of the item but I forgot it. A quick check on the internet reveals both power and manual spraying mechanisms. The manual sprayers are those like the ones used to spray chemicals on plants. You may have one in you garage. Here is a quick look at what's available on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Portable-Manual-Pressure-Sprayer-Washing/dp/B00D8QL0O8/ref=pd_sim_sbs_hg_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=11QH7WMZTBNH4SC56TWX

I must admit that I've never been so excited about cleaning my bike then I was yesterday. I DID have a manual sprayer in the basement. And I can report that, yep, the power sprayer is way better and more convenient than the water bottles. Give it a try.

Sponsor Highlight - Cape Chiropractic and Accupuncture

Recently, I had the opportunity to see Dr. Zev from Cape Chiropractic and Accupuncture in action.  He is an athlete himself and is a master at repair and recovery.  He hasn't worked on me yet, but he provided a huge lift for my son, Jake.  Jake is more of a track athlete than a cyclist at this point, but he had gone through many weeks of high intensity training leading up to the conference and state indoor championship meets - this easily relates to cyclists starting to hit the overtraining wall in mid to late summer.

Jake winning the 200m state championship

Dr. Zev offered the services of his practice to assist in preparation for Jake's big meets, and part of the treatment was spending some serious time in his NormaTec Recovery System.  Jake could feel the difference with each treatment - his legs felt fresher, and he had more spring in his sprint.  The first test was the conference championship, where Jake easily won his focus event (200m) at 23.10 and placed a close second in the 400m at 51.09.  A week and a few treatments later, Jake also won the state championship in the 200m at 23.08 and was again runner up in the 400m at 50.45!  Obviously the system worked - his times for both events were better at the state championship than the previous week.

Based on seeing this real world outcome, I would highly recommend seeing Dr. Zev when to training workload starts to get the best of you!

More about Cape Chiropractic and Accupuncture:

Cape Chiropractic and Accupuncture is located in Cape Elizabeth, owned by Dr. Zev and Amber Myerowitz.  A large portion of their practice is dedicated to working with athletes.  Dr. Zev’s sports oriented care includes chiropractic, acupuncture, therapeutic exercise, rehabilitation, as well as Active Release Technique (ART).  Back pain, shin splints, shoulder pain, sciatica, plantar fasciitis and knee problems are just a few of the issues that can be resolved quickly and permanently.

Both are avid athletes with Dr. Myerowitz competing as a professional triathlete in 2014.

Downeast Racing T's

Yo - Downeast Racing aficionados,  a new feature on our website is BUY GEAR! where you can direct buy t-shirts of your favorite racing team (as long as it's Downeast Racing). The t-shirts come in white or gray, men or women, short sleeve or long. They are made by Atayne, a Maine based company that uses recycled material. You can read about Atayne on our SPONSORS page or go to www.atayne.com It is our opinion that these T's are good for any occasion. Thank you for your support and we hope to see these shirts in all parts of the world. Send us your pictures!

Google and Old El Honda

Knowing that this will be a demanding season, I have been trying to front load my year with travel so I will be able to have focused training on the roads around home when I get closer to race season.  We are in the second week of February, and I already hopped on my seventh flight of the year this week!

My previous trip was to Eau Claire, Wisconsin where temperatures dipped to -30F - needless to say, I didn't get any real training in.  I rode the exercise bike and ran on the treadmill at the Hampton Inn attempting to keep up with training - plus I actually had an opportunity to go to a curling center and try curling, which wasn't training, but it was fun, and now I understand the sport a bit.

This week's trip was to visit Google for a few meetings in Mountain View, CA.  Knowing that I would have warmer weather, I scheduled all of my meetings for Monday and Tuesday morning, leaving Tuesday afternoon free to actually get a ride in outside.

Monday consisted of an attempt at two minute intervals on the exercise bike at the Marriott - this was only bearable because I knew that Tuesday would see me enjoying the roads outside of Silicon Valley in 65 degree weather.

I wrapped up as quickly as possible on tuesday, and I headed to Mike's Bikes in Palo Alto.  I remembered that they had sweet high-end rentals from a previous stint in the area a few years back, and I wasn't disappointed with their selection this time.  The staff there was super friendly, and they hooked me up with a Specialized Tarmac with SRAM Red. They also pointed me to the quickest route to traffic free roads in the hills outside of Mountain View.  For anyone traveling to San Francisco, San Jose, or anyplace nearby, I would highly recommend looking into renting from this shop rather than dragging your bike through the airport or shipping it.

I wrote down some quick notes to guide me on the selected route, adjusted the saddle height, and set off for my first ride outside since a January trip to Orlando.  I was pumped to be off the Computrainer!  The ride started with some gentle rollers through fields smaller communities, and it provided a perfect warmup prior to the "awesome" climb on Old El Honda.  Keeping in mind that I am a criterium specialist, I found it hard to believe that the words "awesome" and "climb" could be used in the same sentence.

After about forty minutes of riding, I saw the left hand turn to Old El Honda.  I had no idea how long or steep the climb would be.  All I knew was that the guys at the shop said that it wasn't to be missed.  In my mind I was picturing something like Hurricane Mountain Road in North Conway, NH with pitches exceeding 20%, so I have to say, I was a bit nervous.

Old El Honda and the Redwoods

Once I started up the climb, the road quickly narrowed to a lane and a half wide without any lines - much like Hurricane, but happily the average gradient was only 8%, and the switchbacks weren't very steep, so I set a tempo pace and progressed uphill from rather open fields to large redwoods and damp forest climbing for about 40 minutes until I reached Skyline Drive at the top.  Amazingly, not a single car passed by the entire time I was on the climb!  Once I hit Skyline, I turned right until I reached 84, which was promised to be an awesome descent.  This did not disappoint either - the road consisted of many switchbacks and smooth pavement taking me back to the valley.  The bike I was on sliced through the turns nicely, and the run was over much too quickly.  Looking at the time, I figured I could make one more go at it and still make it to the shop before dark - so I hit it again, and hustled
back to the shop just before darkness, sporting a huge grin all the way back.

I have a few more trips over the next few weeks, one to Arizona, where I will definitely get some ride time in, one to NYC where riding won't happen, and finally to our training camp in Ashville, NC.  Between now and Arizona though, it is back on the Computrainer.

Thanks for reading...

Jeff

The Value of 2-a-Days

 

 

It's snowing (again) and many are probably lamenting the prospect of another couple of hours on the trainer. Well here is an option that has the multiple benefits of making good use of precious time and increasing power & endurance - - the implementaion of two-a-day workouts into your training regimen. I learned the value of two-a-days early in my career. Here are 3 examples in how the program paid dividends.

 

1. It was my 2nd year after college and I was living/working in Dallas and making initial steps into big time running. I was fortunate in that I became friends with veteran track star Jim Crawford (3:56 miler and contemporary of Jim Ryan). At the time I was a 30:30 10k guy - ok for local stuff but dog meat on any major circuit. Jim introduced me to two-a-days (junk miles in the morning and then the workout in the afternoon be it easy, fast, long) and I started out with doing them twice a week and progressed to 4x a week. In 6 months my 10k time went down to 28:50 (6th - USTAFF championships in Wichita, Kansas - winner Craig Virgin in 28:12). Increased strength translated into increased speed.

 

2. In the early Fall of 1982 I was having a fantastic stretch of running capped with a 64:36 good for 10th at the Philadelphia half-marathon. But that was the last running step of running I took until mid-May 1983 due to a sciatic nerve problem. Did that stop my progress? No. I rode the trainer (early Schwinn spiining bike) in the morning and swam in the afternoon. Every day. I trained with fury so upset at being deprived of being able to run. After getting fixed by an ostropath (love those guys), I was running again and setting the course record at the Stowe 8 miler in July (see picture of crazy man above).

 

3. Being in footwear product development at Nike and Cole Haan entailed the need for me to travel often and long to Asia. There was one time when I had to travel the two weeks before the Auburn, Maine weekend of bike races. To maintain my fitness I rode the LifeCycle 45 minutes in the morning and another 45+ minutes when I returned to the hotel. The morning rides were just piling on the time in saddle. The 2nd ride of the day constituted the "purpose" workout. I did that every day and it was ok head-wise because the 45 minutes each time was digestible. I flew back to Maine on a Friday, spun easy on the bike outside on Saturday and then lapped the field in the Great Falls Crit on Sunday.  

 

So, if the prospect of two or three hours on the trainer makes you gag. Or if you do not have time to put entended hours on the bike (even in good weather) consider doing two-a-days as a way to build strength, maintain training enthusiasm and optimize the use of precious time. I think you will appreciate the results (but your competition may not!). 

 

Hope this helps.

Downeast Racing out West

Back in September, on the way to a 'cross race, my wife and I developed the idea of getting out of Maine in the depths of winter and enjoying the California sunshine for a week.  As we flushed out the details of the trip I started to work through the logistical challenge of getting a bike out west.  An equally daunting task was convincing my wife to let me off the leash each day of the "family vacation" so I could go push on the pedals.  There was a fair bit of back and forth, but in the end my bike was packed and shipped out west (using the service BikeFlight) and arrived a few day ahead of us.  The media has recently been covering the California drought, so it came as a huge surprise that inches of rain were falling on the greater San Fransisco area when our plane touched down.   I didn't waste anytime getting out on the bike as 9 hours after landing I was out on the roads.  Surprisingly, 50s and raining felt incredibly good compared to 20s and snowing.

The first morning in Sacramento I went out and explored some of the 1,000s of miles of bike paths.  The American River Bicycle Trail parallels the Sacramento River and will take you all the way out to Folsom Lake, if you have the time for an 80+ mile round trip ride.  In stark contrast to Maine, a 45 mile ride had less than 300' of elevation gained!

My second ride took me west through Davis, which is ranked as one of the most bike friendly towns in the country.  On my early morning ride west I saw dozens of people commuting from Davis towards Sacramento along the bike path that parallels the local highway. It is great to see Davis and Sacramento connected by not only the freeway, but bike specific lanes.  More encouraging was the number of people taking advantage of the infrastructure!

Just west of Davis is the Coastsl range, and you can find some serious climbing through this area.  I didn't have the time that day, as My final destination was the Jelly Belly Factory in Fairfield.  I met the family in the parking lot, did a wardrobe change and learned all about how mad scientists convert sugar into every flavor under the sun.  Sampling jelly beans and fudge was well deserved after the 75 mile ride from Sacramento to Fairfield.

Another trip west from Sacramento on day three to find some elevation change, and I found it on Mix Canyon Road.  An in depth description of the road can be found here (http://www.toughascent.com/blog/2010/08/23/vacaville-the-diabolical-duo-mix-canyon-gates-canyon-super-steep-hill-climbing/) but in summary, the last mile was an average gradient of 15% with numerous pitches over 20%.  

Downright brutal!  On the bright side, I found myself pealing off the layers and soaking up the sun in short sleeves in February!

I finished up the week with another ride along the American River Trail and enjoyed the sunrise over Sacramento, before packing up the bike and heading into the big city of San Francisco for a few days of family time and a little bit of rest. What a great way to explore a small piece of California and to get in a nice block of training.  Let's hope the blood did not get too thin in my week out west.

Programable Stopwatch on Computer Screen

Hi All,

Yes it's snowing again, so you are all probably headed down to the basement for another trainer session. When doing a structured workout on the trainer it is nice to have a big stopwatch counting down how much longer you have to go on each segment of the workout. If you go to this site

 http://www.online-stopwatch.com/countdown-timer/ 

you can download a programable stopwatch which can accept an infinite amount of entries, ex: 15min warm-up + 5min at 80% + 15sec sprint + 5min at 80% + 15sec sprint - repeat, repeat, repeat. The stopwatch fills the whole of your computer screen. You'll find it to be very helpful.

A break from the Polar Vortex

I have been in the Maine for the last 10 years and this is as cold a winter as I can remember.  With all the media hype of a polar vortex dominating the winter, it was great to flip the calendar to February and be greeted by a mild weekend.  Downeast Racing was not the only group with cycling on the brain, as an impromptu SMR was organized and 20+ rides pushed the pedals through South Portland and Cape Elizabeth on Saturday morning.  Downeast Racing was well represented (at the pointy end of the peloton) with 5 members of the team participating in the ride, but more importantly most of us took advantage of the weather to put in a sizable day of training before and/or after the SMR.  It was a welcomed break from the trainer and with the thermometer touching 40 degrees on Sunday  I couldn't pass up the opportunity of logging a few more miles on the road.  I reached out to team sponsor, Zev Myerowitz (an Ironman Triathlete) of Cape Chiropractic for some company and we put in an easy afternoon dodging rain showers and puddles in Cape Elizabeth.  The conditions were not perfect, the gloves and booties were soaked with water and road grime after 2.5 hours of riding, but I have to remind myself that it beats the trainer any day! Zev and I changed quickly, made a trip to local car wash to clean off our road bikes then we settled down to a bacon, mash potato and scallion pizza at Otto as a reward for our efforts.  If only every winter weekend could be so accommodating.  We can hope.

HOW THE TRAINER SAVED ME !!

Hi All,

I have been racing, first running then riding, uninterupted since 1969. During that time I've always been an outdoor guy running/riding in the sun, rain, fog, snow, wind ... you get the picture. There was no excuse for not going because, when you get to the starting line, people really could give two figs about your sob stories of bad weather or the sniffles. Then on June 24, 2012 I broke my elbow and finally had an excuse for not riding outside on the bike. But ... but, but, but .... was that a viable excuse for not training?? For putting my ambitions on hold??? You see, about 10 days before, the course for the 2012 Nationals road race had been released and it feature a long climb to the finish - very much tailor made for me. Everyone joneses for a national title, right? So of course, for this narative to properly continue, the answer to putting training and ambition on pause was "no". Even though I had to undergo 3 surgeries in 4 days (Rocky rising out of Philadelphia hardscrabble has nothing on me!) I was able to, with one hand and lying flat on my back, order a Cycle Ops Jet Fluid Pro power trainer via my iPhone.

Six days after the break I was on the trainer (borrowed from Ta Herrera because my Jet Fluid Pro hadn't arrived yet). See...

What did I learn? The secret for me with the trainer was to stay mentally fresh and to build through the period. I figured I'd be on the trainer for 7 weeks. To stay fresh I ....

 

- Scheduled hard days and easy days. Stayed disciplined on the easy

  days and just enjoyed the spin (1 hour)

- Varied what I did on the hard days

    - Did Spinning classes by watching them on YouTube (45 minutes

      each + 15 min. warm-up and down)

    - Followed training videos (ex: Robbie Ventura's "Crit Racing"

      video - a very worthwhile purchase)

    - Did workouts sent to me by my professional trainer friends -

      usually 1.5 hrs of time on the trainer

- 3x per week I did 2-a-days on the trainer w/ each session being 45

   minutes. That built strength

 

So, schedule your workout week so that each workout has purpose - strength, speed, rest. By throwing in the variety, you will be able to bridge the winter or injury in fine shape. The help of my professional trainer buddies proved invaluable. Their training programs settled me down, eliminated the learning curve and allowed me to approach the period with confidence. Their programs progressively built my endurance, speed and overall fitness. Ten weeks after the break, I was fortunate enough to have a dominant performance at Nationals and bag a nice, new jersey.

 

I hope you find this post helpfull.

 

Hank