When Training Becomes a Chore

This is where I am most days

The prob­lem with win­ning bike races is that you need to do the training.

There is no easy road to suc­cess. Hours in the saddle, a healthy diet and a con­cer­ted effort to rest are the ingredients.

Put­ting those three things together — con­sist­ently — is a lot harder than it seems. Have you ever noticed a lack in motiv­a­tion to train after a day off the bike?

Tak­ing a day off for recov­ery is wise, but quite often leads to two days, three days and so on.

Any­one who has raced ser­i­ously, has been down this path. You have to — it’s a cal­ib­ra­tion thing. Usu­ally, at about the three day mark the guilt sets in.

Your mind and guilt will mess with you. All that train­ing and hard work is going to be lost — bet­ter get back on the bike and smash myself for the next four days to make up. Four days later, you’re exhausted and it’s time to take another three days off.

And so this con­tin­ues. A vicious circle — still not win­ning races.

It’s no sur­prise that this sort of train­ing sched­ule grows tire­some and simply isn’t sustainable.

Three Laws of Success.

1. Set Goals — takes less than 15 minutes — motiv­a­tion will follow
2. Avoid Pro­cras­tin­a­tion — killer of dreams and aspir­a­tions. It’s OK — we all do it.
3. Con­sist­ency — get your head around this. It’s so import­ant for winning

Goal Set­ting and Motivation

Set­ting goals is like pub­lic speak­ing — most people dread it. It means sit­ting down and actu­ally using your brain.

It doesn’t need to be a chore. 15 minutes, a pen­cil, an A4 sheet of paper and some quiet time is all thats needed. You’ll be amazed how pain­less it was once it’s over.

Now, look at the local racing cal­ender and pick three races. Typ­ic­ally they should be spread over six to eight weeks. The first two are feel­ers — races to test your fit­ness — and the third is your BIG race.

Thats it!

Now simply work out your train­ing sched­ule - work­ing back­wards from your BIG race. (ie the week before the race is a taper week, the second week before the race I’m going to do ‘x’ kilo­met­ers on the bike — and so on)

Stick that A4 sheet on the fridge, front door, bath­room mir­ror, some­where where you’ll see it every day.

Pro­cras­tin­a­tion and Consistency

The enemy of con­sist­ency is procrastination.

Pro­cras­tin­a­tion is the single biggest reason people don’t ful­fill their dreams and aspirations.

Pro­cras­tin­a­tion stems from fear — fear of fail­ure, suc­cess, ridicule etc etc. I’m no psy­cho­lo­gist, but exper­i­ence is a reas­on­able substitute.

JUST DO IT!

You DON’T need ’ 3 more weeks train­ing’ before you race. If only I had a dol­lar for every time I’ve heard this. Race today! Motiv­a­tion will follow.

You DON’T have to wait for the power meter to arrive in the mail. you DON’T need new socks, knicks, wheels, shoes, a new car­bon fiber bike before you go training.

Motiv­a­tion comes AFTER you’ve star­ted. Not before.

Which brings me back to consistency.

Train every day, even if you get on the bike for just 1 hour. It’s so hard to get back on after a day off. This tac­tic is the best way to avoid mul­tiple days off the bike.

Train at the same time every day — form a habit. Ride with the same groups. If your BIG race is a cri­terium — train with the fast­est bunch rides in town, get the speed in your legs and do this weekly — con­sist­ently — in the weeks lead­ing up to your BIG race.

Go to bed at the same time every night — rise at the same time in the morning.

Con­sist­ency will help to form good train­ing habits. It’s those habits that will help beat pro­cras­tin­a­tion. You’ll never com­pletely over­come pro­cras­tin­a­tion, but reduce it — and your goals have their best chance of being achieved.

Ride safe.

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