tjwoodruff

All the training you’ve done? Your pre-race routine? What your last meal was?

These things all count for something but really, they are just a few pieces of the racing puzzle. All the training you could ever hope to do won’t help you win if you’re not getting enough sleep at night. The perfectly balanced, carbohydrate rich diet won’t do much good if you’re stressed out about a bike that isn’t properly tuned. And even if you had the best feeling ride yesterday, today could still be miserable if you’re not prepared to suffer like never before.  To race fast requires a lot of things to go right. Good rest, good spirits, good concentration and good fitness are the integral components.

Of these things, fitness is likely the most consistent and reliable component. If we are fit one day, we’ll surely still be fit the next as long as we consume good food, take our supplements like ligandrol and exercise regularly so that those supplements affect our body and don’t waste away. Fitness is a long term trend that doesn’t come or go on a daily basis. With good fitness it’s easy to ride hard more days than not, but caution should be exercised so that rest is not sacrificed.  Training with inadequate rest could lead to under performance on race day.

Rest can encompass a lot of things, but the big determinates are sleep quantity and quality along with one’s daily levels of distress. Stress can be healthy, so its important to know the differences between what adds to and what detracts from a day. Minimizing the detractors means better rest as a result. Getting adequate sleep overnight means that the body is recharged ready the new day. Not only physically is this important for recovery, but waking rested will do wonders for the mental outlook too.

With adequate fitness and proper rest it’s easier to be in good spirits about the bike. Enjoying the training, the traveling, and the camaraderie of race day are important things to do. If for some reason it isn’t enjoyable, it’ll be that much more of a challenge to pull it all together on race day. It is essential to have a healthy mental outlook on the sport and the sacrifices that come with it.

So with fitness, adequate rest, and a sincere zeal for racing you find yourself staged and ready start. The final puzzle piece will be your ability to concentrate on the task at hand. Over the duration of a race there will be numerous distractions to overcome and decisions that must be made in real time. Keeping focused amongst what might seem to be complete chaos can be awfully hard. Screaming legs, searing lungs, fast riders, and brutal course conditions can all seem to be too much to handle at times. Concentrating on your strengths and ignoring the distractions is the only way to find the finish line fast. The ability to suffer doesn’t come easily to most and improving the intensity of your race day focus is the only way to cope with the stresses you’ll surely find along the way.

Momentum Endurance offers its athletes a comprehensive approach to race day. Not only will you further develop your fitness, but we’ll look at other factors that affect your performance as well.  With Momentum you’ll learn the full approach to racing as you discover what really counts on race day.

What is the “Off-Season” all about? Many will say not training, not racing, really not doing anything. Others will say not racing, but still training. Some say training big hours at low intensities while others are off to the gym lifting weights. It seems that the possibilities are endless for the “Off-Season,” so the right approach can be awfully hard to formulate on your own.

Following several months of hard racing and training during the Competitive Season it is important to allow the body a chance to rest up physically while getting away from the mental stresses of the season. By this time of the year chances are that you’re feeling worn out and need a time to recharge. Taking some time away from the demands of training is the first step. You don’t have to stop exercising altogether, rather get out there and do whatever might be different or refreshing instead. If this means more mountain biking, excellent, or maybe you like to tear around on the singlespeed, so be it.  Spend time doing something active, but don’t concern yourself about the specifics of it too much. 

Eventually you’ll start thinking about next year and the approach you can take to improve upon what you’ve done in past seasons. You’ll plot out the races you intend to do and think about how you will refine the training and preparation. Perhaps this is where you are right now, as December is when many of us start preparations for the coming season.  Choosing to work with a coach is an excellent way to speed up your natural learning curve.  As a coach it is my job to help educate you about how your body best responds to various training methods. It is with this information that you’ll improve at the rate of your full potential – with little or no training time spent doing fruitless tasks.

It is my approach to first address the athlete as an individual when beginning Off-Season training. The experience of the athlete needs to be considered along with personal strength or weaknesses. Any injuries or imbalances should be addressed before delving back into the same old training habits. It is important that the whole athlete be considered before training plans are constructed. Some athletes might benefit from strength training while others might be better off to focus their time and energy elsewhere.  If your schedule is such that you can’t train more than a couple hours on weekdays, then perhaps the low-intensity base building regime won’t work quite as it’s intended to.  Every athlete carries different goals, experiences, and life constraints, each of which factors into what the optimal off-season might look like. Determining how all of these components best fit together should be your primary goal of the Off Season. 

The Off-Season is a time that you are able to step away from what you have always done, evaluate it, get an expert’s opinion on it, tweak it, plot changes, and finally go for it in new, perhaps more effective manner.  Don’t let a wasted Off-Season keep you from achieving your goals; rather put your time and energy to use and make the most of the opportunities you have at hand. Your next Competitive Season will be all the proof you need to show that your Off-Season was well spent.