How to get faster on a bike: Suffer (Part II)

My neurological condition does not enable me to train very long for endurance, about 2.5 hours maximum before pain and cramping become unbearable. Hence, I tend to train in shorter time intervals, but more intensely than others. Most days when I ride, I ride hard and try to put some stress or suffering on the body for at least some portion of the ride. My weekly rides consist of a 38 mile ride up and back from Cottonwood Pass (12,126 feet from 8,000) feet in 2:05:00 to 2:25:00; or I do two or three hill repeats up a 2.4 mile 850 foot climb as hard as I can do them; or I will do a time trial over a variety of terrain (flat 5K sprints, 10.7 mile 700 feet, or 22 mile 1,200 feet); or I do some sort of interval training on a low incline (30 second to 10 minute intervals). I also try to schedule a Time Trial race (or some other race: road race, criterium, or hill climb) each week. I try to do a personal best most days training and all days racing. I generally have 1 to 2 easy rides and at least 1 day off each week. When I race, I make sure that I am so tired I cannot sprint for the finish. People that have enough energy to do an all-out sprint the final 250 meters or so had enough energy that could have been used to sustain higher speeds during the race. They did not suffer enough. I do not plan out a strategy for a race, I go as fast as I can which varies depending on the distance of the race. I have an average speed I try to attain for each race. I usually try to keep a steady pace but will attack going up hills a bit harder and pull back a bit on the downhill. My neurological condition makes it difficult for me to change speeds (my quick or fast muscle twitch in my quads is non-existent) and hence, I excel at getting up to speed and trying to maintain that pace. There have been many workouts and races where I have been in so much pain that I never thought I would finish, but that is part of the fun: to work through that adversity and suffering. To endure pain psychologically and or mentally I remind myself that there are so many people around the globe that are suffering much more than myself and I push on.

In many regards I believe my neurological condition helps me endure more pain while I cycle. It is odd, but sometimes the pain I feel from my disorder masks the pain I should be feeling while I ride. On most rides my hands and feet are in lots of pain. I suffer from paresthesia in my hands and feet 24/7. And of course that condition worsens when I am on the bike. Usually my hands and feet will stay cold, but from time to time they will get hot and I suffer some neuropathy symptoms where my brain is actually telling my body that my feet are burning. It is so real that when I am done riding my feet are covered in blisters. The pain is so intense I cannot even remember struggling to get oxygen in my lungs during these rides, but I was going very fast.

Pain is relative and we can never understand how much pain others are going through. I was abused as child and suffered many broken bones that were never treated; I wrestled in high school; and suffer from a painful neurological disorder whose primary symptom is exercise intolerance. Yet, some of the suffering I go through on a bike is worse than I have ever experienced. For this reason, I know my training is putting me through some extreme suffering. Some say you cannot put yourself through so much pain and not rest. However, my neurological condition never rests, I am going to be in pain one way or the other. I may as well feel “good” pain from exercising than the “bad” pain from my disorder. Sure, my cycling career may be short lived from the intensity of my workouts, but I am probably already on borrowed time with the neurological disorder.

I was never a great athlete. In high school I was an average runner, below average wrestler, and average baseball and football player. I probably overachieved because I did not have any gifted athletic talent. Now, I am a well above average masters cyclists (time trial). How can that happen? I cannot explain it but I have some theories. It is not technology or equipment because everyone else has the best that money can buy. It is not my natural doping living at 8000 feet because everyone in Colorado has natural doping. Masters competition is a war of attrition and chance. First, you must survive that long. Second, you must remain relatively healthy and free from serious injury. Third, you must still have the desire to compete – most top competitors give up and retire from sports altogether when they are young. There is no question I meet all three of these requirements with the exception of the neurological disorder. The disorder has made it practically impossible to do any sports, including hiking (too much pain and cramping making recovery times several days to weeks), except to ride a bike or to walk at a moderate pace. The only explanation for my success is my ability to train my body to deal with pain and suffering for races. A few labs at UC Irvine conducted tests on me to better understand my physical makeup that makes me an anomaly. They discovered nothing to shed any light on the situation: why an average high school athlete can become a better masters’ athlete despite a debilitating neurological disorder? My only explanation is my desire to suffer when I train and race.

How to get faster on a bike: Suffer (Part I)

Most people, nowadays, rely on technology and data to improve their cycling performance. There is an electronic gadget for everything: Speed, RPMs (cadence), heart rate, and power. They even have indoor simulators which make boring rides more exciting. Of all these parameters, most people rely on power training data to improve performance. However, I am getting better and I do not rely on any of these things in my training. The one place I rely on technology is for equipment. Since the key to time trial racing is to be aerodynamic, it is important to have a good time trial bike, aero helmet, and low drag skin suit and shoe covers. Time trial racers look silly in what my wife calls our costumes, but the equipment does matter. Due to cost, I added one item at a time and saw significant time savings. The other place technology is important is to get professionally fitted on your bike every season. In time trials positioning on the bike is the most important aspect. However, some believe that being in the most aerodynamic position will improve race times, but that is not necessarily true. The most aerodynamic position will be very uncomfortable and it can make it harder to breathe and to maximize power and therefore, most riders slowly work their way into more aero positions each season as their body adjusts biomechanically.

I am new to the sport so I have a great opportunity to improve whereas other riders who have been competitive for decades do not have as much room to grow (especially with age). But I have found training using a heart rate monitor, power meter, or cadence monitor does not really work for me, it tends to be analysis paralysis (I am an engineer, and have always found too much data can be detrimental). Knowledgeable people have said a high cadence is needed to go fast (the body saves energy by pushing an easier gear at a higher cadence than a harder gear at a lower cadence). My cadence is 5 RPM’s slower than last year (about 75), and I am going faster. Experts say riders should have a minimum cadence of 90. Experts also say older riders need more rest days to recover. However, I sleep worse on days off and my morning heart rate the day after a day off is much higher than if I exercised hard the day before. I take time off, but not as much as experts suggest. Experts claim a power meter and HR monitor are essential for training. I understand my heart very well and use average speed to understand how hard I am working instead of power meter. When I go to a race I do not have a threshold power to maintain, I have an average speed to maintain. After all, speed and placement are the two most important factors. Yes, I use technology, but only average speed as a training mechanism. Despite what experts say, my methods have worked for me. I find the most important thing to do to get better is to train hard by preparing the body through suffering to endure massive amounts of pain for races. I am in competition with myself each day of training or racing. If I can improve my times, I will get better. Yes, this is an old school training philosophy – it is as simple as that.

Every study on pain indicates that highly competitive runners and cyclists can endure massive amounts of pain when compared to noncompetitive athletes. In fact, studies indicate athletes taking pain medication can improve their performance. Many Tour de France riders take pain medication. I do not recommend this for amateur cyclists riding much shorter distances. I take Ibuprofen most nights, but that is to deal with pain for a neurological disorder. I do not take it during the day because it has bad side effects such as making the user drowsy and tired and it can therefore, have a negative effect on your riding. The bottom line is these studies prove that dealing with pain is the key to performance. People may have a low metabolic age or a very high VO2 max, but that does not mean they will be top performers. If you cannot endure pain and suffering while training, you cannot succeed especially in time trials. In a time trial racers start in 30 second intervals and therefore, riders do not know how fast other riders are going. This means there is no time to relax. A time trial is a maximum effort of speed and or power which riders can endure for the entire distance of the race. Time trials are short (5K to 40K or about 6:30 to 55:00 minutes depending on conditions), but riding for nearly an hour at maximum power and a heart rate at 95+% of its maximum is pure torture. One reason I do not need technology when I race is because I automatically get my heart rate up to 95% of maximum. Several years of data proved this fact, and hence I do not rely on my heart rate monitor anymore.