Performance breakthrough

Triathlon Forum
1

On Saturday my wife and I were planning on seeing a movie with friends. It was the new Bond movie (entertaining and better than most) and we were supposed to be there by 4pm with dinner after. I headed out on a ride around 1:15 pm. I figured I’d be gone an hour and a half. My bike computer decided to quit around 5 min into the ride but I thought my internal clock would keep me from going too long. Well… internal clock and tendency to be lazy and quit early that is.

For Wisconsin peeps: I typically head two directions from my house, either north into the Holy Hill/Northern Kettle area or Southwest to the Southern Kettle/Dousman area. West is flatter and more typical farm country which is pleasant, but for me not as cool. Well, I decided to head North as is typical, but then head directly West and loop back around just to mix it up. Riding out in farm country is relatively easy since the roads generally go north/south and east/west.

Problems arose when I headed back East. I’ve only lived in ‘Lake Country’ for eight months or so now, so I can get turned around easily. Obviously ‘Lake Country’ has a number of lakes that require the roads to jog around them. (check out my hood: http://www.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&q=&z=11&ll=43.102988,-88.389816&spn=0.17246,0.364609&om=1 ). Time got away from me and I got a call on my cell phone. My wife is telling me we have to leave in half an hour to make the show and meet up with friends. Now between being late for the movie, and being disrespectful to friends by being late (a pet peeve), I started to get nervous about how far out I was. In my head I counted backwards from showtime, to drivetime, to shower/change, to ride time. I thought I was late because of the twists and turns I took wrong around the damn lakes.

I rode like a maniac. I was thinking of alternatives like, calling back and having her pick me up. I was thinking maybe she can set out some clothes for me, or she could put the bike and stuff away for me, etc. I wasn’t thinking about the gear I was pushing. After 10 or 15 min I was forced to start thinking about how my legs felt because of the ache. I realized that I had only gone up or down on 1 or 2 cogs in that time and when I glanced down I was shocked to see what I was pushing. It gave me a sense of satisfaction and I knew I wanted to hold it.

Fear of being late, and ticking off the spouse (those can be mutually exclusive, but not on this particular day), drove me to ride faster than maybe I ever had. I’m actually happy the computer wasn’t working, because in that initial 10-15min push I would have thought about my effort and might have eased off.

I really don’t know how fast I rode, but I know it was rung higher on the performance ladder. What factors have led you to see performance breakthroughs in your training?

Burns

2

My eureka moment this season was seeing an alligator pop his head up and grin at me at the second bridge on the Van Fleet trail going north from Green Pond Road toward the Bay Lake Road trailhead out in the swampland in central Florida. Knew then that my acceleration on the bike would henceforth never be an issue. :slight_smile:

3

I get like that when I am running and have that impending feeling in the lower bowels of my stomach. :wink: I either have to run faster to get to a toilet/outhouse or squat in the woods. Unfortunately it is usually the latter. :wink:

4

the thought of pissing off a woman is always a good motivator!

5

Burns:

www.triwisconsin.org). We do a fun bike loop from Lannon to Holy Hill and back on Tuesday nights in the racing season.]

Anyway, getting back to your observation I’ve recently noticed the same thing. This year I made a serious commitment to training consistently and pushed hard to race competitively at the Spirit of Racine 1/2 IM doing fairly well. About six weeks after the race I decided to do a 5k and surprised myself with a fast 17:57 and thought to myself, boy I could be becoming really fast. And vroom, this past week I did the Mayor’s Turkey Trot 10K in Kenosha and once again surprised myself coming in at 37:29.

It seems likes we are reaching the next level. Kudos.

Gotta run.

6

I’ve always had nice bike breakthroughs by stringing together a few consecutive weeks on a hard-driving group roadie ride. It’s something I can’t do very often because it eats up a whole Saturday morning, but it never fails to lift me one or two rungs on the fitness ladder.

With running, my breakthrough sequence is nailing the long run for 4-5 straight weeks.

7

On Saturday my wife and I were planning on seeing a movie with friends. It was the new Bond movie (entertaining and better than most) and we were supposed to be there by 4pm with dinner after. I headed out on a ride around 1:15 pm. I figured I’d be gone an hour and a half. My bike computer decided to quit around 5 min into the ride but I thought my internal clock would keep me from going too long. Well… internal clock and tendency to be lazy and quit early that is.

For Wisconsin peeps: I typically head two directions from my house, either north into the Holy Hill/Northern Kettle area or Southwest to the Southern Kettle/Dousman area. West is flatter and more typical farm country which is pleasant, but for me not as cool. Well, I decided to head North as is typical, but then head directly West and loop back around just to mix it up. Riding out in farm country is relatively easy since the roads generally go north/south and east/west.

Problems arose when I headed back East. I’ve only lived in ‘Lake Country’ for eight months or so now, so I can get turned around easily. Obviously ‘Lake Country’ has a number of lakes that require the roads to jog around them. (check out my hood: http://www.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&q=&z=11&ll=43.102988,-88.389816&spn=0.17246,0.364609&om=1 ). Time got away from me and I got a call on my cell phone. My wife is telling me we have to leave in half an hour to make the show and meet up with friends. Now between being late for the movie, and being disrespectful to friends by being late (a pet peeve), I started to get nervous about how far out I was. In my head I counted backwards from showtime, to drivetime, to shower/change, to ride time. I thought I was late because of the twists and turns I took wrong around the damn lakes.

I rode like a maniac. I was thinking of alternatives like, calling back and having her pick me up. I was thinking maybe she can set out some clothes for me, or she could put the bike and stuff away for me, etc. I wasn’t thinking about the gear I was pushing. After 10 or 15 min I was forced to start thinking about how my legs felt because of the ache. I realized that I had only gone up or down on 1 or 2 cogs in that time and when I glanced down I was shocked to see what I was pushing. It gave me a sense of satisfaction and I knew I wanted to hold it.

Fear of being late, and ticking off the spouse (those can be mutually exclusive, but not on this particular day), drove me to ride faster than maybe I ever had. I’m actually happy the computer wasn’t working, because in that initial 10-15min push I would have thought about my effort and might have eased off.

I really don’t know how fast I rode, but I know it was rung higher on the performance ladder. What factors have led you to see performance breakthroughs in your training?

Burns

I have always been big on pacing myself carefully. Beginning of this year a friend of mine told me not to forget to race. Bike split dropped from 2.25xx to 2.13.xx while the run speed increased to 6.40 pace.

Now I push every 1/2IM I race. Fun.

8

I had one this summer due to fear of death (that is always a great motivator!). I went out the door for my regular 6 mile tempo run. I normally run in the morning but had gotten sidetracked so had to postpone to about 5pm. As I walked outside I could barely see some clouds forming in the distance but didn’t think much about it.

Well, I live in Central Florida where summer afternoon thunderstorms are a way of live. They usually come hard and fast, which means luckily they don’t last long, but you don’t want to get caught in the middle of one.

At about the halfway point I realized I was in trouble. It was barreling down on me and the drizzle had started. I had the choice of waiting it out or going for it. But there is really no where to hide on my route anyways so I was stuck. I picked up the pace big time and tried to beat it. With 1 mile to go I was totally anaerobic and running flat out with thunder and lightning popping all around me and square in the middle of a torrential downpour. I ran that last mile in sub-6 which is what I normally run on the first mile of a 5K. I really thought I was going to get smacked by a lightning bolt at any minute.

I get to my driveway and go flying into my garage happy to be alive. Then I look at my Garmin and what do you know. I took over 3 minutes off my best time for that course.