Here is my final blog post for the Dirty Dozen.  CAUTION, data abounds!  Data geeks should not operate heavy machinery after reading

Part of why I didn’t update my blog for 4 weeks since the event had past was the frenzy of activity in launching Cycling Fusion™. The other part of the problem was due to wanting to do a more thorough analysis of the final day’s data as well as reviewing the process as a whole (this blog alone required over 6 hours of data analysis & review). So, for all you statistic freaks and data geeks out there, you’ve come to the right blog spot today. However, if you wanted to read more about the drama at race day, my last post focused on that.

Why spend so much time on looking at the data? It’s simple. First of all, I have a lot of clients that are neither experienced or inclined to look at the data, they just want to train and ride. However, that doesn’t mean they don’t want to make the most of their time and energy. They know the value of training smarter, not harder. Nothing is worse than spending 6, 7, 10, or more hours training in a week only to find out the type of training you were doing would not produce the results you want. It’s one of the reasons personal trainers are hired; to provide the right exercise for the desired result.

So, that means I spend the time, so you don’t have to. Not only that, but it provides the basis for a lot of the classes and training methods we use at Cycling Fusion™.

Focus on Muscle Relaxation & Time Above Threshold
If you read my last post, you will know that my strategy for training was focused on two things: First, I needed to keep my legs very relaxed while climbing due to the enormous muscular requirements of climbing the grades above 15%. These grades would put my muscles in cramping land very quickly if I did not learn to keep them as loose as possible regardless of the pitch of the hill or my cadence. Secondly and directly related, I needed to get dialed in to my fueling and electrolyte replenishment for the same cramping prevention purposes. These were objectives more specific to my personal situation than would be applicable to the average rider.

The second focus and more universally applicable tactic however, was to focus on efficiency and not pure power. Since I knew I did not have the power to actually be a contender in this race (those guys were pushing more than 3 watts a pound on some of the hills), my focus was on minimizing the cumulative fatigue on my muscles so that I could last to the end of what would be a very long day going uphill. Another way to put it, my focus was on efficiency, and not on speed or power. I needed to generate the maximum Watts/Lb with the least amount of stress and damage to the body.

Each training session added more Dirty Dozen Hills

Efficiency work always comes back to Heart Zones®. Heart rate training allows me to reduce the impact of my limiters (VO2 and Anaerobic Threshold), thereby reducing the stress on my body while producing the same amount of energy. In this case, that same amount of energy would be equivalent to the power required to get to the top of each hill without stopping or touching down in any way.

More specifically, I needed to zero in on my Threshold work, and my body’s ability to tolerate greater amounts of lactate that would result from grinding out very low cadences during very steep climbs. This was almost opposite training I did for the Giretto. That preparation focused more on being able to handle 400 miles in 4 days for someone who had never done their first century. That was more about endurance and enlarging my VO2 so I could keep a steady pace for long eriods of time. The efforts of the Dirty Dozen though are short when we are climbing, and all the between hills riding amounted to simple recovery.

Heart rate analysis - shows the price you pay for the power you produce

The DD training rides were done about every 2 weeks, and they would serve to both validate the training I was doing in between sessions as well help me ramp up to the number that would be required to complete on race day.

Notice the average and max heart rate increased for the first 2 months of training. I was effectively increasing my ceiling. Even though I made it up each of the 4 and 5 hills in the early training rides, I knew how I felt in my body, and the stress my legs were under to complete those. I knew that if I didn’t reduce the price (whatever it takes for one to generate power, is what I call the “price” of that power – it costs you something to generate it), I would run out of currency before the final hills on race day. So all training rides between Dirty Dozen days I spent climbing as fast as I could, to stay as long as I could over threshold. Then, all rides done on the Dirty Dozen hills (every 2 weeks) were done at the least energy expenditure possible, to continue to develop efficiency and body awareness and relaxation of the leg muscles.

Notice how things changed dramatically half way through the training rides. This is about as good a visual explanation of the body’s response to training as I could ask for. I hit a new fitness level, which resulted in me being able to complete more hills, at lower average and maximum heart rates This is exactly the type of result I needed. My highest efficiency came at the final training ride, with efficiency gains as much as 30%, and the resulting power gains approaching 40%.

However, the most telling statistic of all when looking at the final training ride is the percent time spent over threshold. On 11-15-10, I spent only 37% of each climb above threshold, while I spent an average of 72% of my climbs over threshold in the early rides. What makes this even more impressive is that this reduction was also done in the face of double the amount of hills as well – 9 compared to 4. I say impressive not to pat myself on the back (well, maybe a little), but as an impressive training method for improving climbing, or anything that would otherwise peg your heart rate. The method was simple but intense: focus on % of time over threshold, or the time spent in Zone 5 more than just training load.

This is what Nina and I focused on almost exclusively. Yes, we also tracked training points, but it was more important that our percentages for the weeks showed us increasing our portion of all training in that zone, than it was a function of the higher points in and of itself. It was nevertheless easy to increase training load since Zone 5 garners the most points anyway.

Six hrs and 14 hills of cumulative fatigue eats into power and efficiency gains

At Canton avenue (the dream killer for Kristen, and dream maker for Nina), something really interesting happens. While power was about equal (notice 0% improvement line) cardiac efficiency is still being enjoyed and even more than in previous hills. Ultimately it was this efficiency that bought me enough time to hold on till the end.

Given the fact that I did ultimately cramp on the last hill, well into hour 6, and had to repeat that hill in its entirety, made me realize I left nothing on the table that day. Will I do it again… probably not, but that would be due to one and only one reason – the torque put on my two artificial hips is certainly not what the doctor ordered

If you aren’t woozy from all that data, click on the thumbnail below and you can see the summary spreadsheet that these few graphs were produced from (I had more, but in the interest of public safety I did not include them).

Click to download a pdf of all the gory details...data geeks in glory!

One of the unexpected treasures I discovered about Road Riding is that I can do it alone (something I don’t do on single track for lots of good reasons). Don’t get me wrong, I love riding in big and small groups, but riding alone on my Road bike offers something MTB can’t – the ability to think without being distracted. When I MTB, I am constantly engaged every second; the terrain, the obstacles, the trail itself demands full attention. On the road however, provided you are not in an urban area or where there is a lot of traffic, you can get a rhythm going and you can sort of put your body on automatic pilot.

My ride today should have been awful. I woke up after a restless night, in a bit of a panic. Having concluded two company acquisitions in a span of just 2 weeks, with November right around the corner, my sense of “put up or shut up” was quite palpable. I had a flood of negative emotions, something quite rare for me. I felt fear, disbelief, frustration, confusion, even a sense of hopelessness. I also had fallen behind in training due to the nature of these deals, and expected one horrendous training ride. This was especially anticipated because I configured a route with the most number of hills with the steepest grades in my area.

What happened though was completely unexpected, yet not surprising. Even though I set the music on “shuffle”, it was within my “inspirational” playlist. The music mood of the first song quickly set a FAST pace, with the heart rate hitting threshold right from the start. I matched that feel, and went out pretty hard, looking for a supernatural break through, to get me out of this “stinkin thinkin” that was plaguing my mind.

After about 20 minutes of high Zone 4 and over threshold work, I figured I was going to blow up and be forced to cut the ride well short of the 30 miles I had planned. I wasn’t warming up properly, and I had planned a route that would find the worst, steepest hills within reach of those 30 miles. Instead I got stronger and stronger. My spirit was finding peace, while my legs were at war, and my heart was running its race.

At about 45 minutes in, I figured that my little “run” at this was going to be over, and the inevitable need to recover was going to overwhelm me like an Outer Banks head wind that wouldn’t quit. It didn’t happen, and the frequency of climbing did not let up. I decided that my normal refuel and electrolyte replenishment schedule had to be adjusted if I was going to keep up this pace, so I did some Hammer gel and 3 more Endurolytes 15 minutes earlier than my norm, and I pressed on.

I continued to stay in Zone 4 and felt the legs in a constant state of burn. I found myself continually working on keeping them relaxed and loose while engaging more hamstrings whenever possible to keep from overtaxing my quads. I focused on some technique thrown my way earlier in the week by my new partner Tom Scotto, and allowed the body to find it’s limits while I continued to maintain the gap I had put on my doubts and insecurities that I left the starting line with just 90 minutes ago. I was in the home stretch and I was not about to let them make “the catch”.

By the time I finished, my legs, heart, lungs and spirit were all put to the test in multiple ways. They all performed above and beyond what I could ask or think, and I dismounted my bike with an incredible sense of confidence in the future. After downloading my numbers, it was confirmed. I had the highest average heart rate for that amount of climbing for the entire year. The only set of data that was close was the last road race I wrote about where I spent almost an hour in Zone 5, but even that day I climbed 1500 feet less than I did today.

Riding has always represented much more to me than just staying fit and having fun. It has acted like a symbolic window into my soul. I’ve found the intangible but powerful components of honesty, integrity, discipline, peace, joy, and even ones perspective on life itself to be represented there. Like strands of a rope intertwined, the physical and spiritual each support and strengthen the other.

I’m clearly out of my funk now and ready to take on the world. Will it be any easier? Not a chance. Will I respond and experience it differently… with that there is no doubt.

This table shows that I can. I’ve been able to reproduce the same Watts when I set the gear at the right level, and turn the pedals at the same RPM as I am averaging outside. In fact, I did 1 minute intervals at the same average cadence and power required for the average grade for each of the minutes in two of the Dirty Dozen hills I trained on. I wanted to feel it in my legs to see how similar it felt, and I wanted to see what my Heart Rate would do under those conditions. I needed to know if the Keiser m3 bike was indeed putting the same stress on my body as my outdoor ride. I knew I could verify this with my heart rate monitor (provided I was not going through some big emotional crisis, and that the temperature was under control). The resulting experience indoors should have been reasonably close. What can I say? I’m a serious data geek, and always loved research studies in college, so I couldn’t resist.

The good news… no, the GREAT news is that it appears the Keiser m3 is able to simulate the conditions almost exactly – as it relates to power required for climbing. At the wattage levels appropriate for the steepness of the hill, at the same average cadence that my Garmin recorded, I hit very similar heart rates and my legs screamed in similar pain. The “anomalies” were at the beginning and the end of the test. My gut feeling is that if I was able to do an interval with the Keiser computer without having to stop it and reset it (a current limitation of the Keiser computer), I would have matched up almost exactly with my Garmin numbers recorded during my training ride.

SO… the conclusion here is that I can do very specific and reliable training with the Keiser m3! I knew this when I first studied them while writing the eBook on Power Training, but at that time the guinea pigs – er voluntary human subjects – were mostly “deconditioned individuals” just learning how to climb. This data represents testing Watts at double or triple the grades with myself as the rider, and the results continue to reflect that the feeling and work indoors can well approximate what is required outdoors. This is huge for those who are looking to pull a high quality and specific training plan together for the Indoor Cycling season.

One more preface before I begin… maybe more of a confession. My greatest personal fear in life (aside from anything happening bad to my children or family) is the fear of being average. I don’t want to end up like Salieri in the movie Amadeus; the patron saint of mediocrity. While I’m no Mozart, I want my life to make beautiful music, at least to my own ears. So, it’s why I race. Actually it’s why I enter races.

This leads me finally to our post of the week – this notion that when we enter races, it’s for as many different reasons as there are riders. There are those who are what I call “contenders”. These guys and gals have the genetics and the will to push ahead of everyone else. They are willing to train, sacrifice and in their case, they have the God given talent and “equipment” to actually win or place in races. These are the rarest of all because they have that something special that the average person could train with absolute perfection, to the maximum balance of quantity and quality and they will never catch them. This group typically races to win.

Next we move on to the group that typically have been athletes all their life. They have something in their blood that just loves to compete. In their mind, they don’t really need a race per se, since all of life is a competition. You know them, they’re the ones that make every club ride something more than just a club ride. They’re the adrenaline junkies who do shots of endorphins as they chase their cocktail of sports. They compete at all costs, train till they drop, and find recovery days the hardest ones in the week. Without the God given talent of the first group, they convince themselves they have to train this hard to be a bona fide competitor. The satisfaction of finishing in the middle of the pack keeps them coming back for more. If they can place in their age group, all the better… it serves to fuel the fire.

Finally we get to the “Finisher”. Remember, this is in the context of a race, not a charity ride. We can find all three types of riders in charity events too, but that’s another matter all together. The Finisher who enters a race is not speeding to the finish line, they’re running away from the last rider. If at all possible, they want to “not be that guy”… the last guy. Having been that guy on more occasions than I’d like to admit, I completely understand. Yet, having been that guy also allowed me to see the enormous value in just finishing. There are at least two things worse than being last; being a DNF (Did Not Finish), or not entering. This is where I find myself protecting myself from that big fear of being average.

I look at this in the context of both the general population, and the cycling community. Naturally, as cyclists we are a small sub-population group within the U.S. However, if we then take that entire cycling population and count the percentage who race, the numbers in the U.S. get down right tiny. The act alone of entering and finishing just put me in an “elite” category. Most of life is relative that way. It helps a lot.

After all, how else could I share the numbers in the above table. Actually, I never thought it possible to go below 4 mph on a bike, and yet I averaged 3.7 on Berry Hill road. However, I also saw 26% come up on my Garmin for the grade of what I was climbing. Top percent I saw prior to that… 18%. So, yes, it was like doing a moving track stand. You can walk your dog faster than that – uphill!

Nevertheless, I’m undaunted and even feeling very good about it. My total objective on this first Dirty Dozen training ride was to stay out of Zone 5 as long as I could. I was managing my effort in a way that would allow me to survive for 13 of those bad boys when race day comes.

Adding my race schedule to the extensive winter training and teaching schedule kept me enjoying life on two wheels like never before. For almost three years I was in the best shape of my life, and both race results and training rides were at their peak. Then it happened… the combination of getting sick in the middle of winter training this year and deciding to spend 100% of my time building a new Indoor Cycling franchise took my training to an all time low. Basically, I returned to what I did before I met Sally Edwards and the Keiser m3… I just rode. As I saw my abilities decline, I fell into an old way of thinking; to wit… I better ride more, I’m starting to get worse out here.

This is what I and most of my riding buddies did to “get better” before Cycling Fusion. We just rode more, or did more climbing. Unfortunately, it never really translated into very big improvements, yet it was all we could think of. So guess what happened. Past patterns translated into past results – no significant improvements and a return to pre-Heart Zones®, pre-Power training levels. I have a saying I stress to my students and team members. If you train right, the results will be easily seen and felt – you will either go faster, or suffer less. My riding in France… let me start that again. My attempting to ride in France for Global Ride (see pained rider in photo) was the event that forced me to admit the truth: I’m neither going faster, nor suffering less, even when I go slow… basically, I just suck right now.

For a while, I tried to explain it (translate blame it) away on a variety of situational factors. Truth be told, I just stopped training. Training does indeeed take hard work, and committment. You can’t cheat your training and hope everything will turn out alright, like some kind of workout fairy will sprinkle performance dust on you while you sleep at night. It’s simple… start training again, or stop crying in your beer. The fact is, I’m going to suffer in the hills, and keep getting dropped by my buddies until I decide to start working for it again. Argh… I hate starting over like this, but this stuff works in both directions – conditioning or DEconditioning. The choice lies before me.

Rather than blather on, I’ll simply describe how we arrived at these numbers, and define each of the metrics that we tracked throughout the sessions. Our methods were as scientific as is possible outside of a university setting. We required everyone to do a New Leaf metabolic test (measuring fat/carb burn rates, VO2, Threshold, Heart Zones, etc) one to two weeks before Winter Training began on January 2nd. We also used the first 2 weeks to measure everyone’s baseline power numbers.  Having the Keiser M3 to work with was the absolute key component of tracking and improving our progress for improving Power.  From there, we kept track of these various metrics over the next 16 weeks of training, culminating with a post New Leaf test.

The percentages in the table images represent the amount of improvements each rider has achieved from the beginning of the year to about the middle of April – setting each one up for the cycling season of their lives. I graded anyone with cumulative improvements over 100% with an A, over 200% an A+, and one individual (our most improved rider) had a total of over 300% gain across multiple metrics. The highest degree of improvement in each category are highlighted by a pink cell, showing while they’ve all had huge gains, each person responds differently to training, and thus they vary by which aspect of their riding and fitness improved the most.

Training Load: These are measured in Heart Zones® training load points. Each week riders were required to increase their load by 5%

Threshold: This is their measured heart rate where the body shifts its use of fat in the aerobic energy production system to carbs (actually, glycogen) in their “anaerobic” system. This is also their Lactate threshold, and team members were given lactate tests to double confirm these threshold values.

VO2 Max: The maximum amount of oxygen your body can take in to produce energy

Sustainable Power: The MSP (Maximum Sustainable Power) measured in Watts, for 20 minutes (all tests were done twice and averaged, with 5 min of rest between efforts)

Climbing Power (5 min): The MSP for the Climbing Power Zone. It represents power output for 5 minutes. Three efforts were averaged for each of these.

Climbing Power (3 min): Same as 5 min, only at higher power levels, for 3 minutes of power generation instead of 5.

Explosive Power: This is the MSP for the Explosive Power Zone – which is 1 minute power. Three efforts were averaged.

Pocket Power: During the New Leaf tests, we manually record their power numbers each minute of the test. The power each rider generates while they are within 15 beats of their threshold is their “Power Pocket”. This is similar to Sustainable Power in that it represents a hard effort that should be able to continue for very long rides.

Watts per BPM: This is an efficiency rating. Every Watt of power you produce is at some physiological cost. The heart rate is the easiest way to measure that price you are paying. Hence, the fewer heart beats that you require to produce the same Watts, or the more Watts you can produce with the same BPM (Beats Per Minute), the more efficient you are.

Burn Rate Change %: New Leaf measures how many calories you are burning in each heart zone. As you train your metabolism, the intention is to have your body learn to burn more fat, more often, and for longer periods of time. This preserves your glycogen for harder efforts, and makes you much more efficient at producing energy, especially over longer rides.

Weight: Not everyone attempted to lose weight, but even if that was not the goal, a lighter rider should be able to produce more Watts/Lb, thus becoming stronger and faster.

I’ve used that saying (“If you can measure it, you can improve it”) as long as I’ve been in business for myself.  It’s not just a saying, it’s virtually an axiom of life.  Just google the phrase, and you’ll see what I mean.  The results are incredibly varied, from the expected business references, to literary writing, and everything in between.  Heck, there are even YouTube videos in this category. Here are some of the more interesting links from just the first page.

Business (From site called “Goliath” Business knowledge on demand)

Life (from a blog called “Life Optimizer”) I love that name.

Neobluepanther (Writing, among other things)

What got me thinking about this truth of truths today was my Physical Therapy visit.  It was my last visit for my wrist, broken a couple of months ago from my first road crash.

What’s the first thing they do in PT?  They measure.  What’s the last thing they do?  They measure.  On my last visit, all my measurements improved except for one.  Truth be told, it was the only thing that I didn’t do my “homework” for.  The poor results then made me ultra aware of its weakness, and so from Thursday till Monday, I worked the wrist in the weak direction.  In just 4 days, upon my return and remeasurement, I increased 14% of mobility.  No matter how many times I see this process work, it still gets me excited.  I think it’s the control freak in me.  If I can improve whatever I measure, I can improve my life.  Cool! Let’s see, what can I measure… (hey, I know what you’re thinking.  Stop that, this is a family show).

The obvious connection here is TRAINING.  This again points to the critical importance of using training tools; heart monitors, cadence counters, power meters.  These are more than just tools, once you get used to using them, and understand how to exploit them, they become the closest thing you have to a personal, full time, always at your beck and  call, coach.  They give you the means to measure your effort, the tools to set your targets, and best of all, it keeps you honest along the way.  Without the constant feedback, what do you have to tell you when you’re slackin’ off or working too hard, or worse than both, training without focus and discipline.

I received an email this summer from one of the members at my club who had just completed one of the best “measurement” experiences – a complete metabolic assessment for Heart Zones, VO2 max, and lactate threshold.  In her own words “ … took 3.5 minutes off my best time….and that is due to nothing more than awareness and data! watched my heart rate the whole time” Danielle

Without these tools, we end up thinking something stupid like “Wow, I sweat buckets today, I must have been working really hard”, or “I want to do better this year.  I’m going to ride more”.  The interesting thing about these common misconceptions is that it shows how inherently people want to measure; the amount of sweat, the miles of riding – the notion is there, but without the tools, it will inevitably leave them frustrated.

So why is it, at least in the field of sports, that the average person seems to use only one thing to measure success; winning and losing.  Even if you don’t race, the only measurement seems to be “I did __________ “(fill in the blanks with your latest accomplishment) or I didn’t.  That sounds a lot like pass/fail.  Don’t get me wrong, I celebrate the mere completion of hard endeavors as much or more than the next guy.  But I am still perplexed by the lack of measurement and hence training along the way.  The reasons why are likely to be wide ranging, but could it be that sports and “exercise” in general don’t often merit this consideration?

Take my original Google search as an example.  I was shocked to not see a single reference to any sport or physical activity on the first three pages of the search results when I put this phrase in the search box.  Every other subject imaginable came up:

Pg 1 results – primarily business and a few other stray subjects as noted in my links above

Pg 2 results – Marketing, Internet Traffic and Conversion, Manufacturing, I.T. Security, BioMed, Carbon Emissions

Page 3 – more of the same Search Engine Optimization, Healthcare, and on it goes with no sports references

So, let’s use this post to change this pitiful state of searchability.  After all, one of the key tenants of the Cycling Fusion manifesto is the need for training tools in cycling indoors, where we have control of the environment, and thus have the ability to be very specific in our training.  If you write a blog, or have a website dedicated to sport – link this blog (this specific post) to your blog or site, and let’s represent sport in this vital life lesson of the need to measure something in order to improve it.  On my next post, I’ll report whether we did enough to fight our way into the first 3 pages of Google or not.  After all, isn’t that the measurement standard of any good blog performance

When you are a mediocre climber (actually I suck), you learn to go fast down hills so you can keep up with the group in front. So it’s a familiar pattern, get spit out the back on the climb, tear down the hill to catch up, repeat… and so it goes. On this one particular hill, I could see the two in front just at the bottom of the hill as I crested. So, I stood up, took a few feet to shift into the highest gear I could, cranked it up while beginning the descent (to around 37 mph or so), settled in the drops, looked up and HEELLLOOO– a big 90 degree bend in the road is 20 feet in front of me. I must have had my head down too long cranking and getting in the drops – completely misjudging how close I was to the bottom of the hill and the bend.

I knew if I tried to skid and lean into the turn I was going to put it down in the lovely moonlike tar and chip road that Pennsylvania is famous for. So instead, I headed for the bank. With a flash of Michael Rasmussen going through my brain, I planted my shoulder in the middle of the bank, and at that speed, instead of just sliding forward and over the handle bars like Rasmussen did in the 2007 TDF, I bounced about 6 feet in the air and landed on the road. The rest was uneventful – I just slid, skid, rolled and otherwise flailed about till my body came to a stop.

I never lost consciousness, but as I sat up, I couldn’t immediately figure out if what just happened was real, or just a bad dream. I had a little pain on my left side, but then it hit me… LOOK AT MY SHORTS! I had just gotten this team kit from Italy, as my only take away from the “Giro d’ Italia. My first thought was – “These better come clean”. I know, the guys are groaning right now, and the women totally understand. I can’t help it if I’m in touch with my “fashion” side.

Seriously though, I was truly blessed to not have been seriously injured. Right after the fashion shock, I checked my hips, and thank God, they suffered no trauma whatsoever – a definite miracle for someone with 2 artificial hips. This is one more reason why the surface replacement ROCKS! If you would see the size of the ball and socket of my prosthesis compared to the “traditional” hip, you would understand how it could take that kind of impact and not be damaged – it’s bigger, sturdier and built for an active guy like me.

After receiving a lot of Twitter and Facebook family love on line, I returned home to lots of phone calls of folks praying for a speedy recovery. These prayers were the real thing because I have a picture of my shoulder blade sticking up by a quarter inch above the top of my arm, and by Sunday night it was smooth as a baby’s bum. God was continuing to bless me. I say if you ask for prayer, you give Him credit when they are answered, right?

Don't hate me because I'm stylish

I saw the ortho doc on Monday and he told me despite the shoulder separation, I would not need surgery there – and time itself would heal it. I would however need a cast for the broken wrist for about 6 weeks. Since the 6th week would take me right into the only team road race I had planned for the year, I made sure she used my team colors for my cast (come on, it’s important to honor your sponsors right?). I’ll probably begin teaching indoors next week, but I’ll stay off the outdoor bikes until the race – I still want to catch those guys ☺.

Today was just our 4th ride or so, and she was feeling the “blahs”. I told her the difference between just working out, and “becoming an athlete” is Structure, Purpose and Discipline. With the addition of our Keiser M3 indoor bikes, we had created a good Cycling Fusion structure for her (combining the best of indoor and outdoor training), she had a good purpose – the road race in September – and now she was finally experiencing the real heart of discipline. Anyone can ride or workout when they look forward to it, and it just fits in nicely with their schedule. It’s when you feel like staying in bed for just one more hour, or when it’s damn inconvenient to force your workout into your schedule, or you have to ride in the rain, or when you feel like anything else would be more fun than training right now, but you do it anyway. That is what shows the difference between someone who just “works out”, and a true athlete. It’s the “D Word”. Discipline stands between the average person and their goals. It is what makes us look a lot deeper into who we are and what we are made of.

These were the reasons to be disciplined, just for discipline sake – it will make her stronger, giver her confidence that she can push herself to achieve her goals; when life tries to get in the way – it was reason enough. That being said, I also told her that occasionally you get rewarded for this type of focus and tenacity. Two weekends ago I was so uncommitted and feeling so unmotivated that I didn’t even decide to do an important race until the morning of the race. I even “tweeted” that I had very low expectations and felt quite slow and out of shape. Nevertheless, I arrived early enough to do a 30 min warmup ride before coming to the line, and then after suffering for the first 25 minutes of the race, I hit my stride and had the best result ever at that race. I took 3 minutes off of last year’s performance – a full 15 minutes off of 2 years ago. I came in 3rd in my division and pulled ahead in the series from 7th to 3rd.

So we put a goal of speed on todays dry run on the 21 mile race course. We only managed a 10.5 mph average speed last time (it’s her first experience road riding, and there are a lot of hills… do you know how hard it is to go that slow… anyway, that’s another story). So we set a descent 12 mph goal for the ride. Just as I suffered through the beginning of my race when I felt likewise, she struggled in the first half hour. But as time went on, her “inner athlete” emerged and she picked up the pace. We finished the ride at 13 mph average! My girl had done good!

While I’m happy she had a good result, I hope it was the lesson of discipline that stays with her, not the higher average speed. That she can use on and off the bike ☺.

To that end, we have just left our Spinning® boat, and have embarked on a cruise liner to the next level. The results achieved in the Giretto proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that not only indoor training works, but when coupled with the right set of tools – which in today’s world must also include a power meter – can take you to multiple levels of performance above where you started. The Keiser M3 was purchased to help us train for the hardest, longest and most challenging cycling event we ever attempted, and the results convinced us to replace all our Spinner bikes with these amazing machines.

Now clearly, there are other power bikes on the market, and you can also use your own bike with a power meter and a trainer. I’m not out here selling Keiser bikes – it was simply the model that we settled on after test runs and training success. The REAL point is having proper training tools, matching class design, and a facility that demands instructors to educate as well as entertain. These are not mutually exclusive objectives. Our kick off event held 2 nights ago proved that – and the 5 minute YouTube video will give you a taste of how that went.

This is indeed the mission of Cycling Fusion; to help indoor cycling reach its full potential for both outdoor cyclists as well as dedicated indoor enthusiasts, and yet to challenge the indoor only folks to broaden their horizons by exploring the outside world on 2 wheels. We can not only all “get along” as the cliché goes, but we can actually help or at least enjoy each other’s company along the way. If you haven’t ever read the full Cycling Fusion Manifesto, please take a moment to do that. Impacting an entire industry will be difficult to do, but we can do it with a ground swell of folks who catch the same vision.

You can read the full press release of the kick off night and the departure from Spinning® by clicking on the press release hyperlink.