In a world which preaches HTFU around every corner I am a guy who likes to preach STFD (come on you`re smart, work it out) for most athletes. Just this week I have started working with a new athlete who dismally wrote me an email to say he had to walk some of the flat pieces of his run to keep his heart rate in the right zone. This happens a lot when I start working with new athletes, especially on the run.

They are also very irritated with me for the first few weeks of working together. Why do I have to walk the uphills? Why do I have to go so slow on the uphills on the bike? Why so many short runs?

Management of intensity and workload is something that you accumulate over time. The volume of work I can deal with now compared to even a year ago is different. You have to start small to create consistency. 2 years ago I could manage a few weeks of 12-14 hours a week of training. Now I am able to easily cope with 20+ hours a week if I had the time. Its taken me ages (lots of walking to start, lots of slow hill riding) to get this going but really the effects now are plain to see and for all the funny looks I got in the middle, it was totally worth it.

Athletes have large variability in their tolerance for both workload and relative intensity. Over the years I have had this explained to me as:

Constitution – some athletes have superior constitutions… they can just handle it.

Experience – athletes have been racing fast, or training strong, since they were young kids… they can just handle it.

Mental Strength – the athletes that can’t handle it are mentally weak. They could do it if they would harden up. You need to buckle down, toughen up and just handle it.

Part of the reason why I dislike HTFU is the philosophy points many athletes in COMPLETELY the wrong direction. STFD is more appropriate for the majority of people that I coach, perhaps Steady … … Up (STFU).

All of the above make intuitive sense but may fall apart when we take into account Survivor Bias.

Survivor Bias is when the result is skewed by the fact that many participants died, or quit, or went bankrupt… along the way. The results are skewed because you are only left with survivors to analyze. The victors get to write history.

As a new athlete, you aren’t (yet) a survivor. So basing your approach to what works for the survivors could end up being anywhere from great to disastrous. If it is a disaster then you’ll probably fade out of the sport and we’ll never hear from you again. If it is great then you’ll reaffirm the bias that is already built into the data.

How many of you have used these excuses?

…I’ve always had a high heart rate
…I can handle a high heart rate
…it’s just the way I am
…I barely move when I train at a low heart rate

Something Mark Allen taught us all is that heart rate could be a more accurate measure of stress, than work. Mark’s program is as much about capping stress as it is about building bottom-end endurance. Many athletes are stress-limited in their athletic lives (under recovery being a lot more common than over training).

Something I learned from swimming is that smaller (especially female) athletes can handle a lot more stress than larger (especially male) athletes. We saw it this year in the Cape Epic where the smaller guys do far better on consecutive days, whereas the “bigger” pro’s can smash out the watts for one or two days but tend to fade towards the end of the race faster than the 60kg whippets.

When I cap my athletes (and my own) heart rates around AeT they cannot understand it. They feel cheated, like they are not working hard enough. Which is great in the first hour. When they are HUUUUUUURTING to hold that same heart rate 4 hours into their 5 hour ride, they get a better grasp of where we are headed with the mileage and the intensities.

Many of them get it wrong in that they believe they are paying me make them swim, bike and run. I believe they pay me to optimise recovery and correct intensities. That is why I don’t ask for training logs and I dont babysit my guys and girls. They are responsible for themselves and what I do for them is teach their bodies to recover, session to session, more progressively over time, so that they too can deal better with cumulative body and mind stress over extended periods of time.

So that when everybody else is fading, 8 hours into the day at Ironman, they are just rock solid and just keep ticking along like the little train that could…

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I wonder how many serves Fed has made in his life?

How many times he has practiced perfecting the placement of the ball?

The results are plain to see here. Go out and practice…

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Rushing down the singletrack at Contermanskloof a few weekends ago I felt it for the first time since Ironman South Africa.

The flow was there.

It takes months to cultivate, hours of technique perfection and a whole heap of aerobic economy but it was there. I felt it, unmistakably. It’s effortless, gliding through the trails, up the hills and over the rocky sections. The flow is an essential part of endurance sport, of any sport. Call it the purple patch, call it “form” or call it whatever you want, you will know it when its there and be searching for it everywhere when its gone.

Today I went for a lunch run to get some heat adaptation going. The first 25min were uphill on tired legs from gym last night. Transbaviaans still fresh in my legs. But once again I felt it on the way back. The flow was there on the drag through Vredehoek on the way home, 35min into the run. I felt, to be honest, like a beautiful runner. Like my back was upright, my stride slightly forward and my legs moving powerfully in a poetic motion. It felt amazing. I was smiling ear to ear. I didn’t want it to stop.

The flow conquers all things in my life. Work stress – out the window. Financial stress (add a 4 week trip to Hawaii on top of paying for Sani2c which is in May 2011 and 2 half IM races in August 2011 now and yes, there is plenty financial strain going on) – crushed under my fleet footed stride back towards the gym. The flow had me going perfectly poised in the moment where nothing else mattered. I could not have cared about anything else in that moment. There was perfect control, perfect form and the soup was really good. The soup being the perfect mix of training, obviously.

It takes weeks, months of consistent training for the flow to appear, so don’t stop just short of where it will come. It means going out there and training when everyone may be asleep, when it’s too cold, when others are too tired.

Of course, its completely worth it. There is no recipe for achieving the flow. Learn to listen to your body and always push a little beyond where it says “whoooooooaaaaaa!!”

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The last few seconds ticked down to the start and my mind was suddenly back at that place. Only moments before there was some joking, some laughter and some smiles going around, but now, my body has turned and my mind has clicked over to the inevitability to becoming one with the pain. It’s instantly readied itself to take the plunge into the pit where it takes focus and total clearance of the world and all its day to day stuff and all it’s going to do is deal with the pain that is 99% sure to arrive in just a few hours.

When I look back at the crazy week that was Cape Epic this year, this was almost daily the routine that happened. There have been so many comments that we made it look easy throughout the week. Today this photo crept into my inbox via the awesome photographer Greg Beadle. Before we go on, I want you to open this in another window and zoom in to our faces, for just a second.

FULL SIZE

Now this is the fourth day where those faces were there, most of the way through every single stage. Why the continued willingness to suffer to that level every single day for a week?

Is it the bonding experience with others that are also willing to suffer, that herd mentality?

Is it something far more primal that we, as men, find lacking in our daily lives (and women to a far lesser extent)?

Is it self-exploration in the sense of determining where your limits are, where the risks turned to a threatening reality?

Is it excitement we are after, with bouts of suffering taking us from exciting downhill to excruciating uphill again that make the excitement worth the suffering that belies it?

Is it personal at all or really about who you`re ahead of and who you are trying to catch, when its all about beating the boys?
…

Or do we just like the pain?

“Boredom is not just a state of mind, it’s a state of being [in the body]. I think the comfort we all seek makes us physically bored and lazy … physically turned off to all the feelings that make you human.
When I realized that, I’d never felt so alone and unfulfilled in my life.” – I am not going to divulge who said this, because I value their friendship.

How much of a role does boredom play in sport? What is the trigger that gets the couch referee off the couch and onto the trails in search of a better life?

Where does the simple search for health become a competitive streak?

Where does that streak end up being as partially obsessed as I am with pushing the limits?

I believe it starts as the simple want to be better. That is the simplest human trait ever. It’s natural to want to feel healthy. Being fat and/or unhealthy (2 different things entirely) cannot feel normal, no matter how long you have been there. The total disconnect never happens. What starts as a ride around the block may lead to two blocks, then 10, then a 20km ride, etc. Essential to the growth is connection with a group of similar minded people who keep the dreams alive and ignite the passion to do more. Because – yes we can – and – yes we will – and – damn, that was fun!

It improves the ability to see things through in a society where we can have a new spouse every few weeks, change our friends daily and have 7 careers by the age of 30. Sports, especially endurance sports, show us how to see a thing through, no matter how much it hurts. If we are willing to learn, we will also learn smarter ways to see things through, learn to spot the ways to improve most with smartest effort, not least.

Willingness to suffer and see things through is such a vital lesson to learn. Thank you, sports, for teaching me this.

Love your work.

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I found this very, very groovy picture on Kim Gray’s page and instantly found association to it. Added to this was a brief conversation (from my side, I got a pretty decent amount back) about being an “island” with someone this week. I am sports obsessive, yes. I am quite happy to say that what I do sports wise is not normal and without a doubt, not what I expect anybody else to understand or duplicate. There are days when it must be super tough being my housemate, when I get back from a crazy 7 hour bike ride and have an hour to run in the afternoon.

Living with someone who spends that much time in lycra cannot be easy to explain to others, especially when I have a tendency to sleep in my compression gear in all seasons. My poor neighbours. The stories they must tell of their neigbour who walks around in long white tights on summer mornings before going riding his bike for an entire day.

But I LOVE it.

7 Hours go by in a flash when the reasons are right and the joy is there. 7 Hours in the car is death for me. Feels like an entire week. A month if I am mildly tired. I will also lose 7 hours in the office in a flash if I am busy doing fun, inspiring stuff. 1 hour of admin, however, may destroy the entire week.

Most people know what they like. If we take the current bastardization of the word on Facebook even that will lose its value over time. What you love, really love, however, is another matter entirely. Most people will tell you they love this and love that, but the usage is incorrect. To really love something and to make that a part of your daily life is one of the simplest secrets to happiness.

Have a great weekend. I am going to pedal my bicycle for roughly 11 hours tomorrow through the Baviaanskloof. It should be a fun day. Certain hours will take days but in the end, the day will merely be a few hours with mates out in the middle of nowhere, talking, laughing, suffering in unison. Fun boys stuff, you know.

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DIRT! Woolworths-supported documentary on the effects of global soil disruption on food security and human well-being.

According to the UN, the global population is expected to increase to 9 billion over the next 40 years and that population is at the centre of the debate about issues around climate change, water resources and the destruction of biodiversity.   Food security is intrinsically linked to farming practice and the preservation of soil, and it is an issue that affects every human being.

It is with this in mind that we invite you to a private media screening of a global documentary called Dirt!.  The movie, narrated by Jamie Lee Curtis, brings to life the environmental, economic, social and political impact that the soil has on our future.  It shares the stories of experts from around the world who study the impact of soil degradation on our very existence.

Don’t be confused. English also has a word for the “living, breathing skin”, unique to this planet, that has a negative connotation. Soil. But this is a positive film that traces the formation of ‘dirt’ over the millennia, how it has shaped us (at every burial we are reminded that we are dust) and how it features in many cultures’ folktales. Of course it is the very substance that sustains us – providing food, shelter, implements, warmth, even giving our wines their distinctive tastes if experts are to be believed. Its humorous and engaging tone makes more palatable the caveat that, even in our deceptively environmentally-conscious world, this common or garden stuff matters as much as the air that we breathe, and gives examples of diverse, exciting and innovative projects where people are getting their hands dirty… and enjoying it.

Woolworths have donated two sets of double tickets to the screening of DIRT! At Nu Metro in the V&A Waterfront on Sunday 15 August 2010, at 16h00 hours, to give away to the first two people who email me and tell me that they want them.

Simple. Just email raoul [at] urban-ninja.co.za as quickly as you can…

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So these little guys are camping over at my moms house at the moment, expending every little bit of energy they can into growing up as quickly as possible. They are indeed doing a sterling job of it and although they are just a few weeks old they are already as big as decent sized Staffie’s. Soon, they will be around 50kg and expending every little bit of energy they can into being…. dogs.

Dogs are good at being dogs. They don’t pretend to be anything else. I love that about them. Be good at what you are. Just like this little guy. Right now he is in Pretoria being the best dog he can be.

Short post today. I am going to throw in some quotes, etc.

You can’t have everything. Where would you put it?

— Steven Wright

Link:

10 ways to upgrade your morning routine

Image:

I am personally finding myself more obsessed with music lately. It’s been a while.

- May not have been take at this years Tour de France.

Have a great day out there.

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Its SA Blog Awards time again and if you enjoy reading this blog, please click the button below or in the sidebar and nominate me for the Sports, Personal Blog and one other category too please.

Pretty please. Don’t make me have to create a competition for this based on winning some awards…

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The long weekend has left me with a mountain of work and limited hours to get through it, so today is going to short, crisp and to the point.

Watch and emulate. That is the most talented cyclist in the world, in my opinion. It, however, was nothing before Bjarne Riis instilled belief and a work ethic in him. Develop the work ethic, do the work, refine the skill and destroy the ceiling that you have put on your performance levels.

That. Is. All.

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Many years ago, this British girl arrived at one of our group rides in Pretoria. She had just gotten a road bike. She was not that great to start, but here she is now, 2 Cape Epic wins later and a rider on the no 1 women’s team in the world. She is such an amazing woman, and proof that hard work pays off. This interview is from Bike Radar, but its to highlight that doing the work will always get you there, and Sharon, man, this girl, she knows how to do the hard work. Congrats on Womens Day Sharon!

The last time we spoke to Sharon Laws she was looking forward to her first full year as a professional road cyclist with the Cervélo TestTeam. After two campaigns blighted by accidents and injuries, she was hoping for an incident-free season during which she could perform to her full potential.

Unfortunately for Sharon, the bad luck that has dogged her short but stellar career struck again in the women’s Giro d’Italia. The crash which broke her collar bone came shortly after she was placed fourth at the controversial British National Road Race Championships. There, Nicole Cooke accused Sharon and her team-mates Emma Pooley and Lizzie Armitstead of riding as a team against her, contrary to competition rules.

We spoke to Sharon about that controversy as well as her season so far, including the crash in Italy, and her hopes of salvaging some individual success from the remainder of the year.

How has your first year with the Cervélo TestTeam gone so far?

The season has gone okay, but I’ve been disappointed with the two races I was focussing on: the Tour de l’Aude and the Giro. In Tour de l’Aude, I worked really hard for the team and we got a great result with Emma winning.  Much of the time gap was gained on a windy day when, as a team, we managed to drop the other climbers. But then on the second-to-last day I punctured on a descent and couldn’t get back to the group. I went from 8th to 15th  position, which was really disappointing. I’d done my team role well, but my personal goal was top 10 and that would have happened without the puncture.

What about the women’s Giro d’Italia?

I’ve wanted to do the race since 2008 and this year it had a stage top finish on the Stelvio, even higher than the men went in their Giro earlier this year. I had been to look at some of the stages with Emma Pooley and the mountains were massive. It all ended in a huge pile-up coming towards the sprint finish on Day 2. There were bodies all over the place and all I remember is hitting someone, flying off the bike and hitting my head hard, taking skin off my left arm and feeling very frustrated. I asked for a new wheel and then rolled in for the last 1km to finish the stage.

Only when I was back on the bike did I realise that something wasn’t feeling quite right and I thought my left collar bone was probably broken. A nasty Italian doctor raised my hopes by prodding me and announcing it wasn’t broken. But by this point – about three hours later – it was really sore. I was horrified as I thought that if I was in that much pain and it wasn’t broken I must be a real wuss! However, the X-ray proved the doctor wrong and a few days later on my birthday back in Switzerland I had an operation. They inserted a titanium plate and seven screws, which wasn’t my best ever birthday present, but I was out three days later and back on the turbo trainer the day after that.

How much of a disappointment was it to miss the bulk of the Giro?

I was gutted. I wanted to help both Emma and Claudia [Hausler] in the mountains and was hoping for a top 10 finish too. I haven’t done the Giro before and it’s really the only race on the calendar that is comparable to some of the races that the men do in terms of terrain. I just hope they still do a really hard one next year as the time gaps were pretty big this year – even among the top 10.

The crash meant that I missed out on the main race I wanted to do this season as well as on a holiday in the Pyrenees and a chance to see some of the Tour de France. Instead I had to get back on the turbo trainer and into rehab. It was a lesson that in my new career I should just give up trying to plan anything! I’m really hoping that this is the third piece of bad luck over with and that now the good luck will come. I suppose the only consolation is that it at least happened in a proper bike race this time!

How is the rehabilitation going, and what is your goal for returning to racing?

My goal is to be fit for the World Cup in Plouay. I’ve been working really hard and, as I said, I was on the turbo trainer four days after the operation and was able to manage an easy road ride a few days after that. But the first week was mainly spent on the turbo, doing double sessions most days with harder sessions in the morning and then high speed/low load workouts in the afternoon.

In the second week I progressed to some long, slow road rides and some turbo stuff before stepping up to doing some longer rides by the third week. I’m back in the UK now, and the plan is to do some chain gang rides in Cheltenham, some local TTs and maybe a few sportives to prepare me for Plouay and the rest of the season. I don’t want to race in Europe too early because last year after I dislocated my shoulder I raced too soon and it was detrimental mentally. I didn’t do very well and lost a lot of confidence. I think it’s important to use lessons like that and learn from them.

How do you react to Nicole Cooke’s claim that you and your team worked together to deprive her of a win at the National Road Race Championships?

I think it’s important to recognise that we ride for a professional team which has high expectations. All three of us wanted the national jersey to be in Cervélo’s hands and, while obviously we all wanted personally to win it, to Cervelo it didn’t matter who won. Our directeur sportif has taught us all season that we are stronger if we stay together as it gives each of us more options to win. For Emma and I, it’s easier to potentially get away and win as Nicole will be worried about Lizzie in the sprint, and for Lizzie it’s better for us to be together because Nicole will follow the moves Emma and I make.

Eventual national champ Emma Pooley attacks but Sharon, left, and Nicole Cooke respond

Emma proved that staying as a group was the best way for her to win when she couldn’t drop Nicole on the climb. Emma didn’t want a silver medal so she wasn’t going to ride away with Nicole when they had a gap after the climb of the fourth lap as she knew Nicole could beat her in the sprint and the same would apply for me. For Emma and I, if we couldn’t drop Nicole on the climb, it was in our personal interest to stay together as a group and then try to attack in the hope we could get away and win. For Lizzie the best option was to track Nicole as she was confident she could beat her in the sprint – if we’d come together as a group of four at the finish then Lizzie would probably have won.

So the way we rode was actually in our personal interests in terms of winning the jersey anyway. Yes, Emma and I could have potentially ridden with Nicole on the third lap after the climb and Lizzie might not have come back, though given how well she descends and how strong she is on the flat it’s very likely she would have. In that scenario it’s possible that Emma and I would have got silver and bronze, which wasn’t what we wanted.

Nicole was incredibly strong and everyone commented on how well she rode. Emma and I couldn’t get away from her on the climb and she followed all the attacks that were made. I’ve watched the footage from the last lap and I think she showed what an amazing rider she is – anyone else would have been dropped and we would have got a 1-2-3 result.

I think Nicole should take it as a compliment that we felt we had to stay together because none of us was confident that alone we could beat her. In 2009 when I did the Australian Nationals, Carla Ryan rode away from a group of four, two of whom were also from Queensland. They wouldn’t work with me to chase and then they beat me in the sprint.  That’s how cycling works. If you read the reports from other national championships around the world there are similar stories. There were no complaints in the men’s race when Sky dominated and got a 1-2-3 and I don’t see the difference between their race and ours.

I hope that everyone will see the race in a more positive light and consider what a strong team we have for the World Championships.  It would have been interesting to have seen the reports if Nicole had won. We would have come under severe criticism and the comments would have been about Nicole beating three riders ‘from the same team’. As professional athletes, in that scenario, I don’t think our directeur sportif would have been too impressed with us either!

For me personally it wasn’t a great race as I wasn’t feeling that good physically. After the Tour de l’Aude I was quite sick and had been on antibiotics. I’d just about recovered for Trentino but then got sick again, and the day after the Nationals I was back on antibiotics. I didn’t feel strong and struggled a lot more on the hills than I was expecting to. The shortening of the race didn’t suit me at all – I don’t think 48km is constitutes a proper road race, it was more like a crit. I think it’s really disappointing that, yet again, women’s racing is compromised purely so the men’s race can start on time and have sufficient TV coverage.  That’s not a great way to promote women’s sport!

Do you still feel you can have individual success this season?

I haven’t felt like I’ve reached really good form but have been working really hard for the team, so I’ve normally ended up just feeling shattered before the end of the race. But the team results – or rather Emma’s in the races I’ve done! – have been really good, so it is worthwhile. After Plouay at the end of August it’s the National TT champspionships and Tour of Ardeche at the beginning of September. By then I’ll hopefully know about selection for the Worlds and Commonwealth Games.

Sharon, right, with Cervélo team-mates Lizzie Armitstead, left, and Emma Pooley

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