Sleep Is Your Superpower

 

Photo by Alexander Possingham on Unsplash

The clocks they are a-changing.

Sorry Bob Dylan. That’s not quite what you sang.

With the clocks changing this weekend, it's a prime time to look at your sleep. Is it working for you and supporting your Epic Cycling Lifestyle?

If you've worked with me one-one-one you know I always say get your sleep habits dialed-in. Better sleep equals better performance. In fact, you could see a 2% to 5% boost in performance when you improve your sleep.

So, what does dialed-in sleep look like?

1. You can build your own four point sleep performance program by
2. Knowing about circadian rhythms
3. Anchoring your wake-up time
4. Understanding your sleep cycles
5. Being aware of your sleep chronotype.

Let’s talk first about circadian rhythms.

We are biological creatures of our environments. And evolution is s-l-o-w.

If left without any form of modern energy, we would only have fire to light our morning and evening hours. In the grand scheme of human evolution, we’ve had electric light for but a few thimbles of time in an ocean of evolution. We are biologically wired to wake and sleep by sunrise and sunset.

Modern life will never let us do that again.

But we can accept some evolution back into our lives. This means respecting the circadian rhythms our bodies still crave. You see, daylight … specifically blue spectrum light … inhibits melatonin production. Melatonin is your natural sleep-inducing hormone.

Respecting evolution means getting light into your retinas. A good dose of blue spectrum light, early in your day after waking, primes you for action. That will set your body off on its proper circadian wakefulness cycle. Think about eating your breakfast in front of a 10,000 lux full spectrum light box for about 30 minutes.

At the other end of your day, avoid such blue light. According to the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, blue light exposure can suppress melatonin by more than 50%. Most all our artificial light sources contain blue light, especially phone and computer screens. In our pre-electric lives, we would have had fireside chats to illuminate the final hours of our day. Find your own end-of-day wind down routine without so much artificial light pouring into your eyes. Sleep will come easier.

The second sleep performance factor is the 90 minute sleep cycle we go through. Healthy restorative sleep links five to six of these cycles together.

Even though sleep studies haven’t discovered all the physiological benefits of sleep, we do know it’s necessary. Every mammal still sleeps. It must provide deep advantages from such a vulnerable state.

As your day wears on, you feel the urge to sleep grow and grow. Your melatonin production helps with that. The longer you put it off, the stronger that urge builds. It can become so strong that you fall asleep during critical activities like watching Netflix um, driving.

Then once asleep, you’ll sleep in 90 minute cycles. From light sleep to deep sleep to Rapid Eye Movement (REM) dreaming sleep then back up to light sleep. The ideal time to wake up is in the REM to light sleep transition. You’ll feel far less groggy then.

We each have slightly different cycle lengths. Most of us fall in the 90 minute window. So, unless you have a lot of personal data to back it up, accept and start working with a 90 minute cycle.

Then build your sleep duration around multiples of this 90 minute cycle. The seven to nine hour sleep recommendation drives from accepting five to six sleep cycles for healthy restorative sleep.

What about average people doing average things? Think about five cycles. Athletes doing heavy training should think about six sleep cycles. This equates to 7-1/2 or 9 hours each night with 90 minute sleep cycles.

The third sleep performance factor is your sleep rhythm or chronotype. You may know this as lark-type morning people, or night owls. Which are you?

Most of us are morning, or moderate morning people. We enjoy getting things done earlier in our days. That’s not to say everyone functions like this.

Night owls do better staying awake a little later and getting up later. But their numbers are very few in our population.

On the other hand, there’s nothing magical about trying to live like a super-lark waking at 4am. All the “early bird gets the worm” sayings in society are folklore. Most Canadians get up between 6:30 and 7:00. I'm sure you can do the same.

There’s a well-tested lab survey to help pinpoint your own chronotype. It's called the Morningess-Eveningness Questionnaire and was developed in 1976. Here’s an open-source version that gives you some excellent feedback about the start and end-of-day times based on your chronotype: https://chronotype-self-test.info/index.php

Finally, the strongest habit everyone, racers and riders alike, should do is anchor their wake-up time every day of the week. Hold fast to the same wake-up time including weekends.

Choose the start time for your day. Give respect to your chronotype and how much flexibility your job gives you. Like I said earlier, for most of us that’ll be between 6:30 and 7:00.

Then count back your desired five or six sleep cycles in 90 minute increments. That’s your standard bedtime, every day of the week.

Those occasional days when you stay up late? Don’t go to bed when you can. Wait for the next start to a sleep cycle and hit the hay then. That might drop you down to 4 sleep cycles, which is ok for a day, maybe two. But make a point to return to your regular sleep time to support your anchored wake time as soon as possible.

That’s your four-point sleep performance program. Respect your chronotype as much as possible when organizing your day and its wake-up time. Anchor your wake-up time for every day of the week, including weekends. Use blue light strategically with your circadian rhythm. Do some self-experimentation. Discover whether five or six 90-minute sleep cycles support you with day-long energy. You could find yourself working smarter and have more energy for your workouts.

The “fall back” on our clocks is here. You’ll have the perfect opportunity to play around with a schedule that works best for you.

The Pause That Refreshes

Coke had an ad campaign that first appeared nearly 100 years ago. It was the late 1920s and the American economy was cratering … Hmm, does history repeat? The Spanish Flu epidemic was also coincidentally 100 years ago.

Coke wanted an ad campaign to make itself appealing when people were struggling. Their "modern” life was getting busier. Getting ahead was becoming tough. Coke was branding itself as the way to reset and re-energize.

It’s this pause to refresh (not drinking a Coke) that's a great annual principle. Apply it to your season in the late October to early November period.

Pause. Stop. Reflect.

Go slower to go faster.

The idea is to start your mind and body onto a new training trajectory. Take some time away from structure. There's no need to be on-form for much of anything right now.

Figure out a revised or completely new way of training for you. Look at a different goal for next year. Add new training modalities to get you there.

Yes, this step back will drop your TrainingPeaks “Fitness” (Chronic Training Level – CTL). It might even crater. Don’t freak out about it.

In fact, Fitness is just a number to guide you. It can keep you from doing too much too soon (your Ramp Rate). It can be a visual reminder when you're slacking off. It’s not a particular number to chase.

But hey, keeping an open mind here, it could be a number to chase in next year’s goal. What was your peak Fitness number this year? Try your own N=1 experiment next year and beat it. See if it works for you. I won’t say it won’t.

But right now, this time of year, pause and refresh and reflect.

Grab a Coke – like the ad tells you. Or grab a coffee. Maybe a few days worth of coffee breaks here. Because I want you to have at least a week or two of little-to-no bike training. Other training is fine. But de-emphasize your bike. Be curious. Make note of at least one thing you hadn’t noticed before. This could be in your training. It could be in another area of your life.

Remember: Pause, stop, reflect.

If you join my ES Academy before the end of the year, you can book a Season Review with me. I will help you dig into your training data for the past year looking for insights. These could let you know what to do more of (or less of) next year to hit your goals.

We’ve had more than a “Great Pandemic Year” at this point. It has given us way too many moments to pause. These have all been thrust upon us by our current world-wide circumstances.

Here, now, you take charge and set your own pause parameters.

Slow down. Listen to yourself.

Get clarity and make deep self-connections. Frame out what you want 2022 to give to your amazing cycling lifestyle.

Take leadership … self-leadership. Pause and Refresh. Pause on purpose. Pause to perform.

Create Your Own COVID-Crusher Cycling Event

Photo by Holly Chisholm on Unsplash

Hopefully the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic will soon be behind us. But for now, we're in the miserable middle of it all. We're experiencing everything so close up in such detail that it's easy to lose sight of the big picture.

Let’s find ways to get through this crisis. Be a helper for those that need it. Hold the long term purpose in mind: keeping as many people healthy until we've deployed a vaccine.

This doesn’t need to cancel your season

Kick COVID-19 to the curb and rescue your cycling season. No, my idea isn’t about chasing Strava segments. And sorry, it won’t be about the social interaction of a typical fundraiser ride.

But it will be YOUR ride. One person – you. And one moment in time – a day this year, about 8 to 12 weeks away. Transform the messed-up scheduling from pandemic restrictions into a focused goal. It will be a goal to get you through this year.

Prepare yourself to ride something, somewhere – probably nearby but something afar will work too. Turn this year into a legacy of what you can achieve when you alone set your mind and energy to it.

Enjoy the self-satisfaction of ticking off your training rides as your season progresses. Each completed ride is a small win. Be proud you’re staying active!

Add your own social commitment dimension. Post your Big Grand Ride plan to Instagram or Facebook. Then share updates (and setbacks) along your journey.

You can accomplish your fitness development with a schedule of almost daily riding.

If you want to nail it though, look at the course you choose. Analyze what its primary need is. For example, something hilly will need a better power-to-weight ratio to “enjoy” it. So, you’ve got two gaps there to work on – lift your sustainable power and drop some weight.

Or consider mastering some monster miles – a cycling monument of your own making. Make it more than say 230kms of riding in one day! For that you’ll need ultra-endurance and a well-trained on-bike gut to digest all the fuel you'll need. Build long riding volume during the weeks leading up to your ride. Experiment with on-bike eating and drinking strategies. You'll need to energize without gut distress.

Consider recruiting anyone you live with – so you can respect physical distancing with little hassle – as your sag wagon support for the day. Let them snap pictures to document the ups and downs you go through. That flat tire you need to change – maybe with much grumbling? The sweat dripping from the tip of your nose. Capture those moments.

With their in-ride support, you won’t need to rely on sketchy gas stations for ride food and drinks. They may not even be open when you need them.

Use your imagination! Take inspiration from any gran fondo you’ve done or would like to do. What about a one-way, point-to-point ride? Because your support vehicle can drive you home.

Or take inspiration from a charity ride, like the MS-100. In fact, you could even add the charity angle to your one-day event. Name it in honour of a charity you hold dear or someone special in your life. Talk about it on social media. Encourage your connections to make donations too.

Really, you can do this! Your own event on this small scale. It’s large-scale events that need organizing committees and teams of volunteers and sponsors.

Give yourself permission to do new things even though they’re uncomfortable. Even though you might fail. Go ahead and do it anyway.

Do it this season! Just as one voice, singing from the balcony of life, can inspire hope in lives of others … use your bike to make a difference this year!

What are Soigneurs?

Soigneur is a strange-looking French word. It’s roughly pronounced “swan-YER.” And sometimes, just “swannie.”

A near English translation is “caretaker.”

When we were children our parents were our swannies. They cooked for us, washed us, drove us where we needed to be.

Pro cycling teams have a staff of swannies that take care of the riders in similar ways. They often sign-on as massage therapists. But then their job descriptions take on many smaller yet important tasks.

They drive riders to and from airports, shop for food, make breakfast, wash kit, repair kit, pin on race numbers, fill water bottles and musettes for races, handing them out in the feed zone. While mechanics wash the bikes, swannies clean the team cars inside and out.

At the ends of races, you’ll see swannies running after their riders with backpacks full of post-race clean up supplies, ready-to-go recovery drinks and snacks, and fresh kit for podium presentations.

Swannies take care of all the little details. So, a pro rider only needs to concentrate on racing, sleeping, and eating. No need to worry about forgetting things – like a pair of shoes at home on race day morning! (Full admission: I’ve done that at least once.)
 

What if you could have your own Soigneur?

Swannies remind me of the Scouting motto: Be Prepared.

Us amateurs don’t have the luxury of employing a swannie prepared to manage all the little details of our racing and training.

How can we Be Prepared ourselves then? I’ve got a strategy that works well.

Swannie checklists.

Checklists are simple but powerful. They help you plan. Reviewed properly, they reinforce reliability.

Checklists keep air travel as safe as possible. Pilots have pre- and post-flight checklists to ensure everything that must be done gets done.

Create daily, weekly, and monthly bike task checklists to keep your bike running smooth and ready every time you swing your leg over the top tube.

Capture all the packing details – like kit, bottles and gels – you’ll need on race day into a checklist format.

The more you can get these tasks out of your head and onto checklists, the more freedom you’ll have riding and racing. You’ll dial down your pre-race anxiety, knowing everything has been taken care of … by you.

You’ll still need to do the work – make the bottles, pin on race numbers, pack your kit. But you won’t need to worry about forgetting anything. It’s all remembered right there for you on your checklist.

Take a few moments the next time you get ready to ride or race, and start your own.
Even a simple photo can work. Lay out all your race kit from shoes up to helmet, in a little faux version of a rider deflated on the ground. Take a picture and store it on your phone. When you pack on race day, open that photo, and look. Have you packed everything from head to toe?
 

Free Your Mind

Your mind doesn't need to be bothered remembering everything on race day. Use swannie checklists and free your mind to think about the racecourse, your teammates and whatever racing strategies and tactics you’ll be using that day.

Your only excuse for not performing on race day should be your simple lack of form.

Trust that your swannie checklist review has packed all your race kit, nutrition and bottles. Trust that your mechanical checklist review has ensured your bike won’t break down come crunch time.

Then feel the freedom to think only about hitting it full gas for your winning breakaway!

So, what do you fumble remembering the most? Start making your own swannie checklists today.

7 Ways to Become the MacGyver of Off-Season Weight Control

Weight loss is a perennial New Year's Resolution. As cyclists, we need to be mindful of our weight year-round, not just around January 1. After all, the fastest way to improve your power-to-weight ratio (a really raw yardstick to how fast you can go on your bike) is to chop off the weight while maintaining your power.

At this point in your off-season, if you haven't been minding your weight, it's time to start. Here are 7 ways to get control as shared by Tyrone Holmes on Active.com.

1. Keep Riding - The no-brainer reason: manage the calories-in/calories-out equation. The hidden reason from my perspective? You've created a habit of daily (or almost daily) workouts, so don't break that habit. New habits are hard to establish. Working out is a healthy habit to have. Cherish it.
2. Ride Long and Hilly - You need some longer moderate intensity riding each week. Plan for one long ride and one hilly ride. If weather prevents these from being rides outside, see the next idea...
3. Cross Train - This is the winter saviour of icy-weather cyclists like me. Any aerobic activity will do: cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, skating, running, swimming. Even a bout of snow shoveling counts! I've filled many of my winter Sundays with a long cardio-combo session of snowshoeing, followed by classic cross-country skiing, finishing with an hour of clearing my driveway.
4. Strength Train - Cycling is not a weight-bearing sport. Our bone density will benefit from strength training year-round. Your peak power generation will also benefit. And a strong core provides a stable platform for your legs to push against while riding. Off-season is the best time to begin strength training if you haven't already done so. And when you return to in-season? Keep it up once a week. See the power of habit in idea #1 above...
5. Stop Eating So Many Carbs - Riding less than 2 hours at a time? You do not need sports drinks or energy bars. Water is good enough. Perhaps in the hour before or after you ride you can have a few higher glycemic index (GI) carbs. Outside those time-windows, keep them low GI, like you get from most vegetables.
6. Have a Holiday Eating Plan - Set eating rules in your mind before you go to holiday party meals. For example, follow the Michael Pollan Plan: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Another way to look at it: If vegetarians can define themselves by a rule of never eating flesh - and live every day by that rule - can't you create an equally self-empowering rule (or set of rules) for yourself when you go a-partying?
7. Do You Know About the 5-Pound Rule? - Don't expect to maintain your race-weight all season long. 5 pounds of weight gain is okay - but no more! When real in-season riding returns, 5 pounds can come off quite easily. But if you've got more than that to lose, an in-season weight loss plan can muddle up your efforts in real power gaining workouts. You won't have the energy in your tank for high-quality workouts. You might also want to read my article about the issues of asymmetric weight loss.

There you have it. 7 solid ways to control your off-season weight. MacGyver would be proud that you've got so many resourceful ideas in your mental toolkit!

How To Commit To Being A Bike Racer

When I first had dreams of becoming a bike racer, I had no idea how hard it would be to get started.

The first steps were simply to become fit. The next steps would make me work on my weaknesses, and build on my strengths - whatever those were, I really didn't know. I hadn't done any of this before!

After finding my way through a couple of months of what I thought was "training", I tried my first bike race at a club level.

It was very low-key, low-stakes. I was racing in a "C" group against riders who were just starting out like me. And my results were dismal!

We were maybe 10 minutes into the race, a basic criterium, and the corners were crushing me. I was dropping places going in, and coming out of each one... until I was off the back in a reverse breakaway of one! It didn't take too many more minutes for the field to approach lapping me. My race was over.

A Big Goal Will Put Discouragement In Its Place

Some riders might have thrown the towel in right there. Not me. I had already taken the first big step to becoming a bike racer. I had a Big Goal - a goal outside the realm of anything I had done before.

I had decided I would succeed at becoming a real bike racer. It wasn't a professional aspiration. It was amateur. And in my mind that was fine, because I had lots of opportunities to race at an amateur level. And besides, I already had a profession - engineering - and it was fun and paid me well too.

And still, I decided to become a bike racer. You can make the same firm decision yourself.

The next steps I took kept me on the path to my Big Goal. And it's what you can do too, to make your own commitment to becoming a bike racer...

One Workout At A Time

The key is consistency. You've got to keep coming back to your bike and do your workouts - whatever you've scheduled. If you miss one planned workout, that's okay. Get back on the bike the next day. But be careful, because a missed workout might make it easier for you to miss the next, and then the next... and before you know it you'll be completely off the plan that you carefully put together - just like I was off the back of my first race.

So here are 3 ways to approach your workouts that will help you stick to your training plan...

1 - Show-Up Workout

Consistent riding is the first key to becoming a bike racer. In the beginning, you serve yourself best by developing the habit of getting on your bike every day - even if that happens to be only for 5 to 10 minutes. If you consistently Show-Up, soon you'll find yourself moving to the next level.

And after you have progressed for a few weeks, you'll still have days when you feel like dumping a  workout. Don't. Tell yourself all you need to do today is Show-Up for 5 minutes. You may find that 5 minutes was all you needed to get going, and the workout actually turns into a big breakthrough, like when a technique finally clicks...

You'll need some simple Recovery rides too. Nothing very long, like maybe 20 or 30 minutes. Those are Show-Up days too.

2 - Regular Workout

Endurance and technique are the fundamental building blocks for cyclists. Your Regular Workouts will cover development of these blocks. On these rides you'll develop your consistency and discover confidence in the basic power and efficiency of your endurance engine.

3- Big Rock Workout

These are the high intensity interval workouts. For these workouts, you set your mind to performing at your absolute best. You are trying to breakthrough to your next level of power. But these are the workouts that burn your matches - even seasoned veterans can usually only handle 2 days of Big Rock Workouts in a row. You will need to drop back to Show-Up and Regular Workouts to prevent flame-out.

The Simple Strength of Habit

The worst thing you can do is blow-off your workouts. If you've seriously decided to become a bike racer, getting on your bike before work - after work - after supper - whatever time works best, your mind will serve you best when it has fallen into the habit of getting on the bike at that time of day. Committing to at least a Show-Up Workout will move you a long ways to reaching the needed level of persistent riding. It only takes about 3 consistent weeks to develop a new habit.

Focus Like a True Pro Today

You've declared your intention to become a bike racer, and you've developed the consistency to work at it. Together these form your ongoing Focus. And you'll find yourself entering races, finishing races, placing in races... and yes, even winning races much sooner than you ever thought!

Bring your Focus to shine the light on this season by answering these simple questions:

1. What big, scary race event do you want to enter?
2. When does it happen?
3. How many weeks do you have for your workouts before the event?
4. How many weeks have you been consistent with your riding up to today?
5. Decide what it means for you in each workout: Show-Up; Regular; Big Rock.

Pick a workout, and get on your bike. You'll feel so much better for taking one small step today.

By the start of my second season of racing, I won my first race. It was almost a second place finish, until I heard a small voice in my head say, "You've trained all this time and have come this far. Don't let those 2 little meters ahead defeat you!" And with that I stomped just a little harder on the pedals and hit the finish line first.

Keep consistent. Keep training.  Keep entering races. You will finish. You will podium. You will win. And before you know it, you'll be progressing up through the ability ranks of categorized racing - 5, 4, 3, 2... and who knows, maybe 1/Pro?

In need of a Training Program? Why not try MyCycling - it comes with a generous 60-day Money Back Guarantee. Just click the banner ad below for more details:

Feeling the Fitness Monday Blues?

It is around this point in January that many people fall off their fitness plans. Their New Year's Resolutions to really kick it up a notch this year, and make an effort to "Cat-Up" in cycling (move up an ability category for racing), suddenly begin to wane...

A couple of weeks ago it was easy to get up a bit earlier and get that workout done first thing in the morning... But that bed feels so warm and soft in the early morning... After work, whew! It was a really long day and that couch, that TV show just seems so much easier to fall back to...

Well, I recently read a tidy little article over on Millet Sports, that inspired me to write something a little more specific to cycling. Annabel Clark gives five points to motivate you in Beating The January Fitness Blues. Here's my take for cyclists:

1. Never Give Up!

Small set-backs will always happen to any fitness plan. Just because you've missed a workout - maybe it was two - is no reason to despair and ditch your whole plan for the year. You've got ambitions! You can easily get back on track! Grab a sheet of paper and in really big letters write, "Never Give Up!" Tape it near where you keep your bike. Hell, tape it to your bathroom mirror if you think you need to...

2. Keep Your Targets Small

You may have a big riding goal later in the season. It may not be to Cat-Up. It may be a charity ride like one of the MS Tours. Maybe you've caught the granfondo bug. But you haven't registered for anything yet this summer. Do it this week.

And then remember, those kinds of goals are so far off at this point, they're easy to put out of your mind. But you'll be so much better prepared if you keep training from today straight through to those summer goals.

To keep going now, though, you must look backwards from the big goals and see the little things you'll need to do along the way that will add up to success down the road. Right now, it's enough to get on your bike maybe four times each week. Make that your goal. Tell a few friends that's what you plan to do this week. When you hit Friday, meet up at your local pub or bar and buy them all a round of drinks to celebrate - but remind yourself not to over-indulge. You're in training after all!

3. Training Partners Help You Share the Responsibility

With a training partner, you know if you ditch your workout you'll be letting them down too. Together you've signed up for those spin classes. Together you've committed to hitting the gym for a little resistance training. You'll be expecting each other to show up. Your partner needs someone to spot for them, and keep an eye on the form they use for lifting weights. Partnerships like these really help you keep committed to your training programs.

And when the winter finally turns to spring, and the roads clear up, make sure you've joined a bike club. Their weekly rides will really keep you on track for those summer goals.

4. Try Something New

I mentioned spin classes. But you haven't tried those yet? Well, there are at least two ways to go about it. Your local fitness centre likely has scheduled and drop-in spin classes. Try a drop-in and then commit to signing up for a scheduled class.

Many local bike shops also run spin classes through the winter. You bring your own bike and trainer to the shop, set it up, and everyone all rides together. For many people that's a better way to hit the trainer a few times each week instead of staring at your basement wall plugged into your i-device...

Cross training works well too. As cyclists we train within a pretty limited range of motion. Once a week I take a tennis lesson. Not because I'm trying to become a really good tennis player, but because I like the dynamic workout it gives me, and it makes me think differently than a cyclist. Maybe you could try badminton?

Still looking for a way to build your endurance, but don't want to spend all your time on an indoor trainer? Try trail running. Try snowshoeing. Try cross country skiing. I've done them all to supplement my long rides. Start a longer session with an hour or two of snowshoeing, and finish with a half-hour of spinning on your trainer.

A strong core gives you a really stable platform for your legs to press against. Sign up for a yoga class, which will help strengthen your abs and back, and keep you feeling flexible. And feeling flexible means feeling good - isn't that what all of these fitness plans are about anyway?

5. Grab Some New Gear

So this is shopping therapy. But it works too. And I'll give you a really good reason to go shopping now - besides the sales you may find during the off-season...

It is best to start using new equipment in the off season so you can get fully used to it before your big ride events are just days away. This is especially important for any of your "contact points" - pedals, shoes, shorts, saddles, handlebars, complete bikes!

You want to try electronic shifting this year? Get it now. You'll find a new reason to hop on that trainer because it feels so cool to switch gears with the simple press of a button!


But ultimately, I'm going to take you right back to the first point in this series. It doesn't matter where you are right now in your career, in your relationships, in your life. If you are truly going after anything that is really important to you - you... just... have to... never give up!

A Simple Plan For Your Cycling Goals

Patience. Balanced nutrition and rest. A simple plan. Put these all together, and you can prepare yourself for that first big cycling experience. No need to get bogged down in details. Commit to simplicity, and you'll simply have a great time!

The Law Of The Farm

Consider the farmer, who helps feed your life.

Harvest happens in the fall. Planting must happen in the spring. For your farmer to have anything to harvest, he must plant in the spring and tend to his crop all through the summer. He can't suddenly realize towards the end of summer, "Ooops, I didn't plant anything yet. Better get to it!" He'll have nothing to harvest if he operates that way. He needs to budget the appropriate amount of time to work on his crop for the whole thing to work out.

The same approach applies to much that you'll want to accomplish in life. And it certainly applies to any of your athletic endeavors.

To enjoy your charity ride, your first 50km ride, your first metric or traditional century ride, you must be riding on a regular basis for at least 3 months prior to your goal date. Be patient with yourself. A missed ride here or there won't make a huge difference. But if you stop riding for most of a week, and start doing that on a regular basis, you won't be ready for that big day. Sure, you can probably finish the ride, but it's not likely you'll enjoy yourself along the way - especially in the last third of the ride.

Food Is Fuel - Sleep Is A Legal Performance Enhancer

There is much you can control off the bike that will contribute to your long-term success on the bike. Nutrition and rest are the key areas to keep your eye on.

Just because you are now riding on a regular basis doesn't give you a free reign to start eating whatever and as much of anything you want. Most people grossly over-estimate how many calories they've been burning. I'd say the calorie-burned estimates provided to you by any electronic device, or even table of activities, will likely over-estimate your burned calories in the range of 10-20%.

And humans are notorious for under-estimating the number of calories they actually consume. 

Much can be accomplished following Michael Pollan's simple advice: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." (See: In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto) Avoid eating anything that arrives home packaged in plastic. Real food shouldn't require much processing to make it digestible. For instance, breakfast cereal isn't really real food.

At every meal, at least half of your plate should be covered in fruits and vegetables. Try to source your animal proteins from free-range and/or grass-fed sources. Pause to consider that much of what passes for chicken and beef in our supermarkets is really corn in another bag...

Eat your calories, don't drink them. Save the drinking for water. Drinking your calories in the forms of juice and soda and fancy milk-based coffees will again stuff you with more calories than you actually need.

For the majority of beginning cyclists, the quickest way to getting faster is simply to lose some weight. Cycling speed largely comes down to your power-to-weight ratio. Trimming your weight will happen faster than pumping up you power, if you pay attention to your eating.

Rest is the other key off-bike component.

You become a more fit cyclist during your recovery time in between every riding session. The most direct route to your recovery is sleep. Every time you sleep, your body will produce its own natural shot of human growth hormone, which your body loves to use to speed your recovery.

Whenever time allows, grab a short post-workout nap. 30 minutes if sufficient, but don't go over 1.5hrs. At night, get a full uninterrupted sleep of 7 to 9 hours. Log your nighttime sleeps over the course of at least a week to find what seems to work best for you.

A Simple Plan

Finally, you can slice and dice your workout schedule into macro-, meso-, and micro-cycles. But when you are just beginning, you can really keep it much simpler than that.

You won't go wrong following a basic hard workout day followed by an easier day. Here's a simple plan to get you going:

Monday - Rest
Tuesday - 30 minutes at a high cadence (aim for 100rpm and higher) and low tension (i.e., a very easy gear), continually pushing yourself to the edge of your highest comfortable cadence. It's okay to back off and rest if you struggle to maintain the higher cadences.
Wednesday - 1 hour at a solid riding pace, just something that feels about a 3- or 4-out-of-10 effort scale.
Thursday - Same as Tuesday.
Friday - Same as Wednesday.
Saturday - 30 minutes with a few 3 minute efforts at a low cadence (aim for 50 to 60rpm) high tension (i.e., it should require some solid effort to push those pedals around). Try to get 3 of these low cadence efforts included in your ride. Recovery in between is in a low tension, easy gear, until you feel ready to work hard again for the next 3 minute effort.
Sunday - Same as Wednesday, but this time try to ride a little longer than 1 hour.

If you are feeling a little sore, don't skip a workout, but do your best to get in a ride like Wednesday's - 1 hour at a 3/10 effort.

As you get closer to your big ride day, increase the length of time you commit to the ride on Sunday. 2 weeks out from you big ride day, you should try to have a Sunday ride that is approximately as long as your goal ride. Think about the time first, then consider the distance for this ride. In the last week before your big ride, just keep all your riding days at about 1 hour at the 6/10 effort level.

That's it.

You'll likely lose some weight with this approach. Your endurance will improve. Your pedalling efficiency will improve. And your leg strength will improve. Add these all together, and you'll really enjoy your big ride day. In the very least, you shouldn't suffer!

5 Questions To Evaluate Your Season

By now you should have started your off-season training. If you haven't begun, at least get into the habit of riding regularly, but don't worry if your rides have structure, or not. Just get back into the swing of things.

But before you get too much further down the road, make sure you evaluate this last season. Here are 5 simple questions to ask yourself. The questions are simple. Your analysis and answers might not be.

It is said, that which is measured is improved. By the same token, you can also say, that which is examined can be improved.

The 5 Evaluation Questions

1. Which of your Goals from this past season did you actually achieve?
2. Which of those Goals did you not achieve?
3. What were your Greatest Strengths in the spectrum of the standard 6 key physiological abilities: aerobic endurance - how long can you ride; muscular endurance - how much average power you can maintain for 20+mins; lactate threshold - managing and holding that critical power output above which you quickly blow up; aerobic capacity - how much power you can produce during a 3-5min effort; anaerobic capacity - the longest time you can maintain a flat-out effort; and neuromuscular power - how much power you can produce at cadences above 130rpm?
4. What were your Greatest Weaknesses in the spectrum of the above 6 physiological abilities?
5. Overall, would you call it a great season, mediocre, or lousy? How does this past season really make you feel?

Your answers to these 5 questions will really help to clarify how you will be training this winter. Please go HERE on Active.com to read the full article by Tyrone Holmes who discusses these questions in more detail. Then, poke around back here on BicyclingBlogger.com to help you find some of the answers, and what you might want  to do differently this off-season. 

Rewind, Review, Reveal: A Simple Guide To Analyze Your Season

As we move through to the end of October, now is the time to look back at your cycling season that has been, look forward to next year, and begin to make a plan to get there.

Rewind, review, reveal. Here's a guide to work through this.

1. Don't Take Yourself So Seriously

Did you ride with a smile on your face? Why not? Okay, I know punching out that 4 minute interval was hard. But at least don't scowl. Let me share with you some advice from an Olympic Gold Medalist:

This past year Lori-Ann Muenzer was watching me sprinting at the Edmonton velodrome. Afterwards, with her usual warm, friendly smile, she came over to speak to me.

"Kevin, when you started your sprint you were holding a grimace on your face. Keep your face as relaxed as possible. When you're punching out a hard effort, you want to put all that energy into your legs."

Staying supple means looking supple too. Soon you'll be spinning speedy circles.

And while recovering from intervals, smile a big, wide, goofy smile. Rejoice that you're one interval closer to finishing your workout, and one interval closer to getting the improvements you've been looking for.

If your training isn't a happy place to be, then why are you there?

2. No, Really, Why Are You Training?

Take a look again at your motivation for training. What goals did you set this past year? You wrote them down, didn't you? If you're a cyclist looking for improvements, you've gotta write down your goals.

I had performance goals that I wrote down. Did I hit them? Yes, some. But I'll let you in on a little secret. I was guilty of not writing down one very important goal: have fun.

I think all of our training, no matter what we're aiming for performance-wise, should ultimately come down to fun. When you are training 10 to 20 hours a week, you've got to have fun inside that process. Winning a race? Sure, that's fun, but it comes at the end of the process. Completing your century ride within your time goal? A complete sense of accomplishment, and you can bask in the glow it gives you. But again, that's at the end of the process.

You must find fun inside the process of training, because you won't always exactly hit the goals you've set for yourself. If you've put all your expectations into reaching those goals, and you don't hit them, you've set yourself up for huge disappointments. And life is just too short for that. Find the fun in just riding your bike.

For next season, start with the goal: to have fun. I'm serious. Write it down. Make a plan to achieve it next year - go back and review step 1.

3. Study At The University of Experience

When something (a race, your training, a goal) doesn't go as planned, examine what you think went wrong. Talk to your team mates. Talk to your spouse. Talk to your best friend. Post questions in the comments section of Bicycling Blogger, or any online cycling forum. Be open to suggestions. Get as much help to analyze the outcome, and learn from the experience. It's only a failure if you haven't learned anything. Be a student of your own University of Experience. Earn a Ph.D. along the way and you'll build self-confidence with the energy of experience.

By the way, apply the same analysis to your successes. What went right? Make a plan to do it again.

4. Remember The Formula

Training + Recovery = Fitness

Go back and read my earlier post about this formula. As you put together your plan for next season, put as much energy into your Recovery as you do your Training. Your Fitness will follow how well you stay on track with both your Training and your Recovery.

Keep smiling. Keep riding. In that order!

If you've got lessons learned from your season, please post them in the comments section so we can all learn from the University of Experience...

Knock Over Some Spinning Plates With Your Big Rocks

Huh? What's that title mean? It really does have something to do with bicycling. Let me explain.

It's almost autumn. The road season is winding down. If you've been serious about your training and racing, you've got a log book to look back at. Now is the time to do some post-season analysis. Check to see if you've met your expectations for the season. Did you place as well as you wanted? Did you peak for your A-priority races? What went wrong? Failures are only truly failures if you don't learn anything from them. If you can find a lesson in a failure, then chalk that up to a successful learning experience. You are not a failure.

Are You Spinning Too Many Plates?

Maybe you didn't get the consistent training done that you planned. Why not? Here's where the plate spinning metaphor starts. We've all got complicated lives. They are complicated because we've got a variety of priorities pulling at us from the variety of roles we play. Yes, we're athletes. But we are also: husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, employees, managers, volunteers, etc., etc. I think you get the picture. Just look at that photo up there...

We are complicated people with many roles to play in our lives. And like a Chinese acrobat, we can have many plates we're trying to spin - all at the same time. And you know what? Sometimes, you'll drop a few plates. What can you do about that?

Change Your Metaphor For Life

At the risk of confusing you by mixing my metaphors, let's throw a few rocks at those plate spinners. Wow, wouldn't that cause some chaos! But maybe not if we do it right...

If you didn't execute your training plan as consistently as you wanted, you must reorganize your priorities so you can. And you can do it.

A number of years ago I read Stephen Covey's book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change. It's a general personal productivity book that had some life-changing lessons for me. It finally spurred me on from thinking I'd like to be a competitive cyclist to actually being a competitive cyclist. Here's one of the key metaphors Covey presented.

A Jar, Some Rocks and Some Water

Think of an empty jar. Fill it to the top with water. Then, put some rocks in it. What happens to the water? It overflows, and you've got a mess.

Now, rethink that process. Put the rocks in the jar first. Then start filling it with water. Go ahead. You'll be able to get some water in the jar. See? It simply flows around the rocks and fills the empty spaces. You can also stop filling the jar before the damn thing overflows.

What's this mean to you? Those rocks are the big priorities in your life. They come from all the key roles you play. The water is every thing else that's not a priority, that comes along to take up your time. Put the rocks in the jar first. Schedule the really important activities in your week first. Then let the other less important activities fill in any remaining gaps. The rocks come first, no matter what. Everything else must fit around those rocks. Follow that rule, and you'll really start to go places in life.

Identify Your Big Rocks

Don't be a Chinese acrobat spinning all kinds of plates. Switch to the rock, water and jar metaphor, and you will execute your training plan next year without fail.

Get a blank sheet of paper. Here's what you should do now:

1. Write down all the roles you play in life. Think about your work. Think about your relationships. Think about your personal dreams. These are the roles that define you as a person in this world.
2. For each role, think about the activities that will really move you forward to improving your abilities to be the world's best at that role. Check my earlier post on how you can define being the world's best. These activities are the foundational rocks for your weeks ahead.
3. Each week, take those rocks, and schedule time for them. Make them priorities. Treat them as immovable rocks that everything else must fit around. Your daily cycling workouts should be some of those rocks. Treat them like that. Schedule your other activities around your workouts, and you'll soon find you're not missing nearly as many workouts as before. You'll be well on your way to becoming the world's best cyclist.

Will it work for you?

Photo "Spinning plates" by: ericaflynn

How Your Recovery Rides Can Lower Your Kid's Blood Pressure

Blood pressure tracks from childhood throughout adulthood. So as a responsible parent, wouldn't you want to give your children the best chance at a healthy adulthood?

A recent British study (Leary SD, Ness AR, Smith GD, et al. Physical activity and blood pressure in childhood. Findings from a population-based study.) published in Hypertension showed that:

• High levels of physical activity in children related to lower blood pressure
• In children, the volume of activity seems to have a greater impact than the intensity of activity

Many of the cyclists I ride with are parents too. So what does this mean for us?

Get Your Children Moving

Just getting your kids more active will provide them health benefits long into their lives. Don't worry about intensity. Just get them moving a whole lot more frequently.

Don't put your kids on a diet of long steady distance workouts like you as an adult may do. Developmentally children don't have the mental stamina for something like that. Only once they hit their teens can they start handling that kind of training. But do get your kids involved in organized sports. Having them enrolled in various seasonal sports will definitely help them. They don't need to be stars. They just have to participate.

Senseless Activity

And get them involved in as much senseless activity as possible. For example, don't park so close to the door when you take them shopping. Encourage them to walk or ride their bike to school. If you must drive them, drop them off a block away so they'll still need to walk a bit. Anything that gets them off the couch, from behind their computers or game systems, and moving around will help lower their blood pressure.

How Does This Fit With Your Training Plan?

I've gone bike riding with my kids, and it never qualifies as a "workout". But such family bike outings can serve as very useful recovery rides. A proper recovery ride should be a little faster than walking pace, and put very little tension in your legs. It's the perfect pace for noodling about with your kids on the local bike path. It will stimulate your blood flow, and help to remove built up metabolic waste from your workouts. It does your body good, and it'll also do your kids' bodies good.

Ideally, get your workouts done earlier in the day, so you can take an easy ride with your kids after supper. Enjoy their smiles, enjoy yourself, and enjoy your bike.

Grab Your Season By The Collar and Shake It Up

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein

Is your training driving your crazy?

Let me tell you a short story about myself.

My First Breakthrough Season

I've been on a journey with my cycling. After many years of struggling along in the back 3rd of the peloton, I finally had a breakthough season.

It happened after I bought a CompuTrainer and used it throughout my winter training. That next season, I finally upgraded from the ranks of a Category 3 racer to Category 2. Also, I had been struggling all my life to crack the hour in the 40km time trial. In that next season after spending the winter on the CompuTrainer, I didn't just break the hour, I smashed it. I set my best ever time of 54:07 mm:ss.

Things were going well. I was achieving goals, placing in races, and continually cracking the hour in the 40km time trial. I started saying to myself, "You know, I can really do this and be competitive."

The Dip

And then it started. My time trials didn't get any faster, and then last season they actually started getting slower, despite the fact I was training more than I ever had. I entered the "Dip", as defined by Seth Godin.

I don't know how it happened, but I stumbled across Godin's prescient book of the same title, The Dip. Just about everything worthwhile doing in life is controlled by the Dip. His description of the it fit me perfectly. "The Dip is the long slog between starting and mastery... The Dip is the long stretch between beginner's luck and real accomplishment."

His solution? Two choices: either quit and move onto something else you can master or push on hard and get through the Dip.

Successful people actually quit often. They are quick to see the things they'll never truly master, so instead of wasting further precious time (a very limited commodity in our lives), they move onto something they can master.

And if you think you can get through the Dip in your current pursuit, you don't simply settle down, bear with it and keep doing the same things until you make it. No, that leads to Einstein's definition of insanity. Successful people "... lean into the Dip. They push harder, changing the rules as they go. Just because you know you're in the Dip doesn't mean you have to live happily with it. Dips don't last quite as long when you whittle at them."

Give Your Season A Really Good Shake!

So here I am today, leaning into my Dip. I've taken a very different approach to training, which I'll be describing more here at the Bicycling Blogger. And it is my hope you'll find some useful nuggets to get you through your own Dip.

Take a look now at where you are as a cyclist. Where do you want to be at the end of the season? What are your goals? What are the objectives that will help you reach those goals? Do you really think the same things you did last year will get you through this year? Successfully?

I want you to really examine everything about your training. Grab it, give it the really good Marine sergeant yelling, and do something totally different this year. Even if it is just one aspect of your training, but maybe it's something larger, like stepping up and registering for that big stage race you always wished you'd do. This is the season you'll do it.

Think differently. Conformity will stifle your growth. Do something different and create your own breakthrough season.

Now get out there and ride!

"I have an almost complete disregard of precedent, and a faith in the possibility of something better. It irritates me to be told how things have always been done. I defy the tyranny of precedent. I go for anything new that might improve the past." - Clara Barton, organizer, Red Cross