No, I am not talking about money. I am talking about fitness richness. But it is true, in the business world you find that it takes money to make money, unless of course you listen to all the infomercials where people buy houses with no money down. Anyone know any of these folks?
In any case, back to fitness. The old axiom is train with the best to become the best. I think that works to develop power and speed. But to develop endurance and particularly aerobic endurance it is the worst thing you can do. You want to train with someone about as strong as you or perhaps a bit slower. Just yesterday I helped two athletes coordinate their online training schedule so that they can train together. One has lots of experience and the other does not. I had to give them the little talk about staying in their zones on their long days. They are not going to be well matched for training. If the more experienced and fitter athlete picks up the pace it will take the other out of the training zone, I suggested to the less experienced athlete to let him go if this happens. “You have to leave the ego at home.” If this happens on a speed day then that is when you dig deep to stay in there.
This lesson was one that took me years to learn. When I started in the sport I train with a group of guys and although we for the most part stayed together in training. When it came to race day we all stayed in the same pecking order. The faster guy got faster and the slower guy was still the slowest. It was not until I left the group and trained with a slower and more compatible group that I made my big jumps in fitness. In a group training session out for an endurance day it is the strongest that usually ends up riding aerobically and can take advantage of all those gains. The weakest usually ends up turning their long sessions into a very hard and anaerobic session in order to keep up. As a result he/she does not develop their aerobic fitness. Just as in business the rich just get richer.
Today I do most of my training on my own. However, yesterday I called my friend Johnny Davis who is a stud. He took the Bronze medal at the world championships at the Olympic distance last October. He is real light and fast. We rode two and a half hours on a rolling course and I stayed in the zone the whole way. The last part of the ride has a good climb and I had a good feeling Johnny was going to go hard so I warned him. “Stay steady because I have to stay below 140”. Well he was steady alright; steadily hard. So as one that is trying to practice what I preach I had to let him go. Sure I could have popped a few veins and stayed with him but for what? I am saving that for another day. Johnny is a great guy. He can not only win his age group at local races he can sometimes beat all the guys in my younger age group too. We have had some great battles out there in a couple of races in the early 90’s. They are great memories and we talk about them with lots of smiles on our faces. He wants me to call him to train so that I can make a good comeback.
In my next post I will tell you about the bike fitting clinic I am attending. This time it is a class and I will get a certification. Stay tuned.