Another personal post with an interesting note on Beachbody. 2007 is when P90X finally hit and our coaching network took hold. As a company we still felt like a little guy with big ideas; like a kid with open eyes about the possibilities in a big world. While we’re much, much bigger now, I must say that the wonder hasn’t faded. The obesity epidemic may have turned but it’s far from over. There is still heaps of good, important work still to be done. Here’s a trip back in time...
In reading these old traveling posts one thing is clear; I used to have more time to write. This stuff makes me feel a little guilty about my articles over the last few years but, hopefully, in their simplicity they’re more concise. Anyways, a lot of people told me this was their favorite article I’d written, at least about traveling. Upon review I’m not sure it’s all that, but it is a good yarn. I hope you enjoy it.
En route to Nepal a family visit to India was in order. Calcutta, or Kolkata as it’s called here, the erstwhile intellectual capital of India favored for its arts, literature, anti-Bollywood drab communistic history and the poverty and squalor targeted by Mother Theresa, this time around feels a bit more like home. While as mad and dirty as ever—though the air’s cleaned up quite a lot due to some stringer auto rules set forth by the new magistrate—I’ve had five years since last visit for it to sit in and, thus, we’ve rolled into things somewhat seamlessly.
Over the next month, especially during our time in Nepal; first trekking, followed by Yak Attack, I’ll often not be connected so I’ll be digging up some older stories on India, Nepal, and Beachbody from 5 years ago. Hopefully these will prove as entertaining to you as they do for me to read them again.
We’ll start with The Fitness Yogi. It’s a pretty fun look at life in Calcutta through the eyes of a western tourist. Click on the excerpt.
It’s time to head to Nepal for The Yak Attack, one of the “5 toughest races on earth.” I don’t feel in top form, though not too bad for a guy who hasn’t taken a day off of work in 16 months, and hope I' ready for
Experience Nepal up close and dirty, no luxuries!
Just you, your bike and 400km of some of the most brutal terrain on earth.
From the hot and dusty lowland foothills,
To the snow covered, oxygen thin, Thorong La pass (5416m)
The race, however, hasn’t been on my mind at all. I figure it’ll reset my de facto adventure mode, making it the easy part. The crux of this endeavor has been how to get away from the grind for two consecutive 2-week periods without being connected to the world. We’re about to find out.
The Yak Attack looks like an amazing adventure and I’m getting more and more psyched as I read quotes like these:
"Its not a race of man versus man, its man versus nature and nature has the upper hand" - Phil Stasiw (UK) 2007.
"This is totally raw mountain bike racing" - Steve Rysedale (UK) 2010.
"This is the toughest race I have done, its the sh**s, I love it !!!" - Henri Lesewitz (Germany) 2012.
Updated race reports will be spotty because most of the race lacks connection.
Along with the race I’m going to chronicle the entire trip, beginning with a short visit with my brother in India and followed by a trek up the Khumbu Valley. These, along with some race training, a bike review, and perhaps some “normal” blogs will fill the time between now and the race reports. They’ll often by launched while I’m incommunicado so if your comments don’t post it’s because they’re waiting for me to sift through the spam.
By popular demand I'm posting again here on Blogger. The transfer to the new site's turning out to be more complex than expected so posts will henceforth resume here until the new site is deemed acceptable. If you comment and it doesn't come through please try again as I'm having a lot of trouble with spammers lately.
Business has been charging along as usual, with the somewhat major addition of a trip to India and Nepal that's effectively tossed a crazy wrench into what's already a filled-to-the-gills schedule. I've been keeping news items worthy of critical review, which I'll get to (most probably after my trip) once I've caught up on the backlogging what I've been up to.
The Yak Attack, catalyst for upcoming voyage, will also merit some attention and I'll try to do it justice. For now, let's re-conveine with Denis and I bantering for an hour. The chat opens with immune talk, given our entire office is currently sick, and then moves into standard q and a.
PS - you can access this blog via steveedwardsfitness now and, since the site will be moving there, you might as well get used to that being the home page.
The Year of the Van turned into the year of work. Whattayergonna do? Life happens. Instead of numerous van weekends and holidays exploring unknown lands of the USA I took a total of zero days off and flew 40-something times for my job. What this means, fair readers, is that the year's recap will be short and, in fact, so will the coming year's plans.
An entertaining upside is the I finally stopped yappin' about proper health and fitness topics and instead turned to the stylings of Stevie Haston. His site just kills me, for both it's training psyche and its audacity. And it's madness--ah, so much for "both". Anyway, I think even non-climbers would enjoy his work. It's crazy inspiring. Not one to mince words Stevie's year-end summary went like this:
Short and to the point. And before you blame such focus and carefree mindedness on youth, consider Stevie's in his mid-50s. So I will paraphrase inserting my own measely existence.
Though they didn't go as expected that last 12 months have been a full year of adventures of different sorts. I can't complain about work when I'm able to affect so many people. It's any educator's dream. At home we rescued another maniac. Cattle dogs are not for the faint of heart or those not committed to exercise, especially those who've already been rejected. Our dogs are a challenge but one I wouldn't trade, even when they're doing their best impression of Mitt Romney and absconding us for their own adventures.
Athletically, I never got injured and learned a lot. Not many notches on the old scorecard. Made my one race count, as it appears on many "hardest of" lists, ticked off a handful of epic rides and 11 new routes to boot. Became less ripped but hopefully more functional. Also have been dealing with an illness that's hung around since doing a long ride in smokey air. Don't try that at home--heed air pollution warnings. The upside, always, is that the trickier the illness the more there is to learn. I'm lucky enough to be in the position to pass on newfound knowledge.
For the coming year it's work and all things Yak Attack. After which, we'll see where my psyche takes me. There are new cliffs to be developed, and odd interest in off-widths, and many strange adventures to be concocted that push us into the realm of the unknown.
As for the blog, I'm going to attempt to bring it back towards cutting through the BS that is our health and fitness media. I have a stack of stories to deconstruct, which I'll pick on as time permits. And, of course, there are plenty of training and nutritional theories that bare testing. It shouldn't be boring.
Happy 2013! Exciting new year ahead. Let's make it a good one. We can start by hoping AG2R wins all their races. For me, altitude training starts today. Now time for some exercise...
Yesterday marked the end of era, as me and some of my friends (mainly Hans) have used these yearly aligned numbers as an excuse to tackle a hard physical challenge. It’s ranged short, savagely-intense workouts, to day long escapades, to odd historical tours. The only thing that mattered was that it was hard, which all, very much, were. Except yesterday.
Since it’ll be 89 years until another such alignment I wanted to finish in style. However, being bed ridden for two straight weeks with a puzzling respiratory ailment picked up by riding through our summer of smoke, I found myself in no condition to push any sort of physical, or mental for that matter, limit.
I do, however, have a bike race coming up that I have to find a way to train for. With a new prognosis I feel I’m on the right track. Anyway, I can’t afford to waste much more time and harbor any realistic ideas about finishing what’s promoted as “one of the world’s toughest adventures.” It’s time to move forward, so here’s what I came up with.
12 X 12 X 12 equals 1728
So I plan on doing 1728 reps of 12 different things in the next 12 weeks (takes me through the race), beginning by doing 12 of all that apply. Here’s the list:
1. Training* minutes on the bike
2. Pull-ups
3. Push-ups
4. Lunges
5. Yoga moves
6. Ab Rollers
7. Stairs climbed IAD (in a day)
8. Steps carrying my bike IAD
9. Rocks thrown for Finnegan and Iris
10. Hours of actual bike racing (28.8)
11. Hours of trekking in Nepal (28.8)
12. Ounces of beer
Yesterday I did 12 of 1-9, which was sadly hard. If all goes well I’ll knock this list off well before I leave in Feb, which will easily if I hope to have any sort of chance of riding my bike over 18,000’.
I’ve set up a golf scorecard. After one day I’m 21 over par on every hole. The goal is to change that as quickly as possible.
Sorry about the lack of posts. Work and illness have taken all my time. But, as it’s December anyway, all we really need to some psyche to keep us rolling into the New Year. So, starting tomorrow, I’ll finish out the year with 12 days of Christmas Psyche.
"There's some strong climbers here," was the first thing Wolfgang said after scouting a new cliff. "I mean, like, REALLY strong!"
We were checking out a "secret" crag in Slovenia, back in 1993 or 4, the rumored training ground that had pushed the Slovenians to the label of world's strongest climbers. This was before internet, accessible video, and a world where new hard routes were presented to the public as soon as they were done. Sport climbing was still new and we were all looking for secrets. The Slovenians, who had a long track record in elite alpinism, had found a cliff that was supposed to be the best in the world, allowing them to churn out an entire generation that was supposedly wreaking havoc on the standards.
While all that turned out to be more-or-less true--we ran into a group of virtual unknowns who were all climbing at a higher standard than any American--it's not what this story is about. Wolfie had bumped into "The Banana Man", as we came to call him, who was, and still is, the most ripped person I've ever seen in my life.
The Banana Man wasn't Slovenian, or even that great a climber, but man did he look like it. Running into me, a person who searched out strange diets, seemed like fate. I spent the rest of the trip attempting to tap into his logic.
You see, this guy ate bananas. A lot of them. Like a gorilla, which he looked like. He had a massive bushel of bananas in his van that took up more space than a person. It was the craziest thing I'd ever seen. On my return to the US we began to eat far more bananas.
pic: leather is always in. wolfie and gernot with the grand dame of osp, slovenia. she would sell you climbing gear but only if you had a glass of wine with her first.
I never, however, got really into the full-on banana diet. The banana man didn't climb any harder than me. It's simple to deduct if you eat nothing but bananas you'll be ripped, since your diet lacks almost any fat or protein. But, still, he was performing at a high level on a diet that didn't seem possible to survive on, which was a great example that what we learned in school about nutrition wasn't set in stone.
I'm bringing this up because I stumbled on the above video and the site 30 Bananas a Day, which seems like it's run by the same friggn' guy (who also makes a great case for cycling your coffee for performance). Also, one of my older posts has an anecdote from a couple of utlra runners who live on mainly "expired" fruit they can buy from the grocery store for almost nothing. Their health is still fine, and they win a lot of races. Hard races.
The moral of today's story is the nutrition science still has a lot of unknowns. Take advice with skepticism and don't be afraid to experiment. As for me, I think I'll get back on the bananas and see how it plays out this time around.
Yesterday Bob Banks posted an article titled Revisiting Psyche. The gist of it is that he ran across an old bouldering guide (written by me) that he had all marked up in his quest to do every problem in it and couldn't believe how psyched he'd once been.
We all move on in life. Bob went on with those notes to write the definitive book on Santa Barbara bouldering. But this is a cool post for another reason. Reminiscing of bygone days also plants seeds. Those days are gone, sure, but reflecting on them helps create new ideas, dreams, and motivation.
It's inevitable that priorities shift and single-minded focus becomes fractured. But with life comes experience. An invaluable tool for sorting things out efficiently. "Youth is wasted on the young," said everyone's favorite wit spewer, Oscar Wilde. It's a sentiment hard to argue with,especially doing a workout at P3 or seeing teenage girls do this. But I do fight it or, more accurately, roll with it pretending it's not happening. My life is better than it was, I can continually improve it, and there are still lifetime goals out there, even purely physical ones, to be obtained before I ride off into the sunset.
Finally, it's important to note that I am not alone in this belief. I can be a tad optimistic, as Bob likes to point out, but I'm still getting stuff done and there's no good reason that you can't, too. Thanks to my job I get to witness people who change their lives on a daily basis, at almost any age. And while we never get our youth back we simply don't need to. We can do anything we want. And we can do it now.
pic: cover lore - yes, that's tuco the rat, standing on top of one of the better boulder problems i've established. more shockingly, it's phil 1) bouldering 2) outside 3)not at the tor. finally, it's a jason houston shot, bringing back even more memories of psyche and singlemindedness.
I love December. Not for the holidays and indulgence, but because it’s the month I reflect on past year of training and get to re-shuffle the deck and create a new template for what’s next.
The year’s wane is always a ghost town here at ‘the Dope. I’ve had over 2 million readers, and less than 1% of them have engaged in December. So I’m dedicating this month to my friends and the die hards interested enough in training to still be reading about it when the rest of the great unwashed is reveling to the point of disgust, hoping it will motivate them to make a proper New Year’s resolution.
This month I won’t distill for the masses. It’ll just be straight talk on training, motivation, and other assorted oddities that will hopefully be amusing and, if you don’t get it, it’s on you to catch up. God’s will I pray thee wish not one man more.
We few, we happy few. We band of brothers. For he who sheds his blood with me will be my brother. Be here ne’re so vile, this (month) shall gentle his condition. And gentlemen in (America), now a-bed, shall think themselves accursed that they’re not here, and hold their manhood’s cheap, while any speaks who fought with us...
I'd never ask for money for something like Movember. Although it's a great cause we all should make our own decisions about what we do with our money. However, if you find yourself with some cash you'd rather not donate to the IRS, I will throw my name in a hat and with the below offering. Find yourself entertained and need a tax write off go to my Movember page.
Without further ado, here's how my Movember progressed.
The official photo of Movember
"How about a little teamsmanship?"
The most interesting man in Movember
"I do not always raise money. But when I do, I prefer if it's for something useful."
Sometimes dopers don't suck
"ils sont tous dopers!"
Birthday Challenge Failure
Peace, man
"I want to take you highhh-er"
Birthday Challenge Reboot
"I'm going to hunt down the disease that killed my friend and destroy it. Probably with dynamite."
American Flyer
"Hittin' the Jackie Robinson Sports Institute for the Torture Test. Better pump."
And, finally, the look on top that would make Nick and Nora proud. "Frankly, my dear, I do give a damn!"
Last weekend I humped a load of bolting and climbing gear up to one of the cliffs I’m prepping for my birthday challenge. It was hell, reminding me of how soft I’ve become as a working stiff. I need to get my toughness back and, since it’s mainly mental, I’m searching for Pscyhe.
Mind you, I’m reasonably fit. I just managed to finish “the hardest” 100-mile mountain biking races (2nd in class, apparently--shocked by a medal that showed up this week) and am less than a year out from competing at a world championships. But fit and tough aren’t the same thing and climbing, particularly first ascenting, requires a lot of toughness.
Traipsing around in the mountains with a massive pack and spending hours mimicking a construction worker hanging upside down was once a daily activity for me. I’d taken for it granted because I was used to it. But it is hard; both physically and mentally. You’ve got to want to do it. Otherwise it’s too easy to leave it to others.
And nothing—nothing!—I’ve ever done encapsulates the last two lines like offwidth climbing. It’s such an amazingly-miserable endeavor that one pitch of it on a 3,000’ wall will often have climbers searching for a different line. The number of climbers who seek out offwidths is so small that they’re pretty much all close-knit friends. It defines the word tough. For this week’s Psyche I present offwidth climber Pamela Shanti Pack. You’re about to see what I mean. Get inspired. You too can do hard things.
I really wanted to quit the Butte 100. I wanted to quit a mile 10. I wanted to quit at mile 50. And I really wanted to quit at mile 80. I wanted to quit so bad I even tried to before I left home. But I didn’t. And I’m glad.
“Why are you so worried about this race?” asked Romney. “You never worry about this kind of stuff.”
I was worried because it was going to hurt. Bad. I wasn’t sure how bad it would be, exactly, because I’d never been to the area. But as they were throwing around tag lines like “hardest 100 mile race in the US” I figured it wasn’t going to be a cakewalk no matter how fit I was. But I wasn’t fit. Not for endurance racing at least, since I’d only had time to eek out a couple of long rides this year.
“Die or do something. You’re not dead yet, so you might as well do something.”
This campy line, uttered by Dr. Conrad of the Jackie Robinson Sports Institute in the film American Flyers, became my mantra for the day. Each time I wanted to quit I’d do a body assessment. I wasn’t injured. The stuff that hurt was all GOOD pain. And as long as that was the case I would have no choice. I wasn’t dead, yet, so I’d might as well do something.
life at the jackie robinson sports institute
My friend Mike says he likes to start his seasons with “an eye opener. Something so ridiculously hard that you know you’re going to suffer like mad that will set the tone for anything else you do.” Butte was my eye opener. I had to get through it to transform into the proper mindset for Nepal. Here’s a little recap.
Blast It!!!
It began the night before at a suspiciously bad Mexican restaurant. Montana is, as Josh says, “not exactly known for its Mexican food” and this experience would echo that in spades. Josh sent a pic to the gang that came back with replies like “Blast It!!!”, a line from a friend’s surf film.
mining the waves for stoke
This was prophetic enough as I spent a good deal of the race alone in the forest. Curious aside, we saw Tinker Juarez (probably the most decorated distance mtn biker in history) at the restaurant and wondered if he chose it on purpose to make him uncomfortable so he’d go faster. Could be, since he obliterated his own course record.
Part I – A sadistic sightseeing tour of Montana
As it wasn’t a race for me I began comfortably in the back of the pack, only going fast enough so that I was in last so there would be people behind me in case I got lost. This turned out not to be a problem as the course was very well marked. Josh said the first section—a series of steep sandy fire roads to spread the field—was awful and, well, I guess it was. But it sure was pretty.
I’m very geographically oriented, especially when I’m outside, and almost always know where I am. In this race I hadn’t a clue and was enjoying the weird sensation of having never been in the area or even looked at a map. Since I wasn’t really racing, the experience was like a sadistic sightseeing tour of Montana.
I rode a lot with Josh, who was having a worse day than me. Not sure if it was the Blast It! effect or something else but he wasn’t regulating very well as the temps got high, which had me a worried about him when I rode away on the final long climb of the first 50.
Part II – No threat to the growler.
I got the halfway point at 5:30. I’d heard the second half had “more single track” and was slower and harder but this seemed way ahead of my planned survival pace. I considered re-stocking at my van but didn’t because I was worried that the lure of beer and a bed might be too much. I also heard the Tinker was already hours ahead and rolled through this point without stopping, asking only for a banana, which seemed so crazily IN-sane and had to see the entire course. So I headed onto the second half chatting with a guy about how slow we could ride and still make the cutoff times.
tinker after losing his first butt 100. he has lowered his time nearly 3 hours in two years since. wild.
The next few aid stations went great. I didn’t even want to quit. I was tired but the only thing that really hurt was my butt, not surprising given I’d already eclipsed my longest ride of the year. As I was chilling in the shade at talking about cutoff times a guy told me I was in 55th, elaborating on that as “no threat to the growler.” Apparently a growler of beer was awarded to the last place finisher of the race, which sounded so good I started to ride even slower.
Part III - Sandbagged!
Anything advertising itself as “the toughest…” has to include something understated that is truly hard. In the Butte 100 it’s the section between check points 7 and 8 (or was it 8 and 9?) Anyway, it looks the same as any other section in the race bible. In reality it’s really friggin’ hard.
The bible warns you of the 4-mile (sometimes un-rideable—though we think Tinker rode it) climb but the rest of the section looks pretty benign, so I did a double take when the course official at the top of the climb told me “two more major climbs” before the aid station.” I was not alone. I ran out of water at least an hour before I got there. It was grim but I was passing people looking a lot worse than me. I think it was the longest 10 miles of my life.
The Highlands aid station resembled a triage unit. Riders were strewn about, all complaining about the same thing as me, some dropping out. Here, I did want to quit—especially when a squall rolled through transforming my state from overheated and dehydrated to hypothermic in an instant. Thankfully I was far enough ahead of the cutoff time I was able to spend about an hour drinking and warming up.
Part IV – Finally, a good excuse to quit
The rigors behind us forced some comradeship for those who ventured into the next section of the course, ominously dubbed “8 miles of Hell”. I was the last to leave of my group and, by now, the cutoff time was looming. When in less than a mile in I was forced off of my bike to walk almost an entire climb I started doing math calculating my chances. At this time another American Flyers line came into my head. I’d better pump.
more fun from american flyers. “better pump.”
This kicked in some adrenaline, as there was absolutely no way I was going to do all of this riding and not be allowed to finish. I picked up my pace and passed our entire group. Then, as I was about to crest to final climb “of Hell” I ran into a situation.
A woman in the 50-mile race had stopped sweating, for some time, and then become hypothermic when the storm hit. Someone had stopped to help but they didn’t have a phone. I did, but calls for a rescue weren’t answered. So I called Josh, now hoping he’d dropped out. He had, answered, and we got things in motion. Unfortunately, most of the course does not have cell reception and it was hard to organize so we had to come up with a plan.
Obviously I didn’t care about finishing any longer. However, the best tactic was for me to ride for help and the shortest place that might be was ahead on the course. Sarah, another rider from our group, had also arrived on the scene to help so I left them with my phone and took off, riding harder and much faster than I had all day. I soon found a course official but he had no service, so I filled him in and rode on.
Josh had set things up and there were paramedics at the aid station and we strategized about what to do. Soon Sarah arrived with a report and, eventually, a plan was hatched that didn’t include us, meaning we had nothing left to do but finish the race. We hung out for a while, then “cruised” (relative at this point) that last 9 miles to the finish together. The end of an epic day and a perfect eye opener for what lies ahead.
Notes on the Butte 100: Tinker raves about this race on his blog, not just as a race but as a challenge for any recreational rider to finish. I have to agree. While the course isn’t as pure as the 99.9% single track of the Park City Point 2 Point, the fire roads are always engaging, technical, and stunningly-beautiful and there is plenty of excellent single track. I told a few course officials that it would be an amazing 100-mile ultra run course and think the combo would kick the crap out of Leadville, at least from an aesthetic and difficulty perspective. The Butte scene itself is positive and very supportive, which seems to be spearheaded by the Leipheimers, all of whom gregariously introduced themselves and shared about anything I felt like listening to. The event feels like a family affair (I didn't ask but race director Gina Evans is probably a Leipheimer somehow), which is getting more rare these days, so get after it before it turns into Leadville!
Congratulations to Alexadre Vinokourov for winning the Olympic gold. Vino’s always been one of my favorite riders. His crazy attacking style is exactly what makes bike racing great. I can’t think of anyone in the peloton who I’d rather have seen win, yet it’s almost 100% unexpected. Borat jokes aside, glorious nation of Kazakhstan has every reason to be very very proud.
What’s most amazing about this victory is that one year ago he “retired” from cycling after a horrific crash. Not only didn’t he retire, he somehow managed to race again by the end of last season. Always one of the toughest guys in cycling, that comeback pretty much sealed the deal.
He raced this year under the guise of helping develop younger riders, which didn’t seem like propaganda. By all accounts it was his most quiet year to date. Finally he emerged in the Tour, one of the only races he never won but was always a major player in---as one of the few who’d flip Lance and the Disco boys the bird and attack whenever and wherever he damn-well felt like it. He didn’t win a stage but became more ever-present as it progressed.
So the Olympics shouldn’t have been a surprise. But they were. A bit like a movie where an old guy comes out of retirement to show the young bucks a thing or two—stuff that doesn’t happen in real life. It was an amazing moment in sporting history and a great excuse to dust off this old article with a bit of Vino’s backstory. Click on the excerpts for some good reading from The Daily Peloton—-a Monday Psyche if you will.
For the first time in 100 years we have an English champion of France's finest sporting event. The Brits took second, won six stages, and with the likes of Team Sky--what amounts to a national team of sorts and perhaps, with a fine assortment of the Queen's subjects, even an Empire team--fair Albion has stormed the Tour like Henry at Agincourt. However, as is usual when the UK dominates the world, something is rotten in the state of... in this case cycling.
As I mentioned in my Tour intro, Bradley Wiggins and team have set a new template for how to win one of sport's greatest spectacles. But this new idiom has not exactly set the world on fire. Like the dominance forged by the Welsh longbow, calculated technology isn't always what the world wants to see. And, gentle reader, this brings me to today's most important topic. How are we going to save the world of cycling? For Queen. For country. And for all the rest of us.
The problem, it seems, is that many have found the calculated cool of Team Sky to be boring. Our hero, one Wiggo of down-the-pub, does this no favor in the above interview when he starts throwing around numbers that make racing seem like little more than a computer program (click here if the embed doesn't work--seems geo restricted). Without the chemical enhancement that we've seen in years prior, particularly the 90s when most of cycling's records were set, human limits are established and with a peloton full of data all one needs to do in order to cover a move is to assess the numbers. Can you sustain a 500 watt output for 20 minutes without a haematecrit north of 50? No? Therefore, no reason to chase. And so on.
As a physical trainer I find this fascinating. As a sports fan not-so-much. Give me Tommy Voeckeler any day. Sure, his cavalier riding will never with a Tour in this day and age but, man, it's fun to watch. And with this in mind just what is our beloved sport supposed to do? For the answers we turn to the same panel as my mid-race recap: Bob, Sam, Josh, Reed, Aaron, Dustin and moi. Take it to heart.
"Bring back dope. Seriously. Have a divisions for doping and no doping and let people watch whichever they want."
"I agree with Bob, it was kind of a boring tour. I think Sagan made it pretty interesting at times, as well as Cav, but there wasn’t a lot of excitement. Cadel and Nibali did attack, but they just didn’t have enough gas to make it stick. I don’t know that Van Garderen did either, but it would have been nice to see him try. I had hoped for more and thought Cadel could bring it, but I was wrong, wrong, wrong.
But the Cav sprinted out of the group yesterday was insane. I was gobsmacked.
Actually the most exciting parts of this tour have been the finishes while I’ve been waiting to see if the break is going to get swept up or make it to the end. Those are always great, but it seems like this year they were the highlight."
"Random doping control where you inject some riders and not others so that everyday is a crap shoot."
"Or maybe we could just have a realistic parcours. 120k stages, 2-3 climbs, let folks recover and be fresh for the next day. Fucking Horner said he had to let go of the leaders on peyresourdes because since gc wasn't an option, he needed to save his gas for today. Boring."
"I have to agree.
It’s a boring tour. Bring back more DOPE!
I re-iterate, not random drug testing ,but random drugging."
"Prefer clean riders, but they need to re-consider the parcours to make things more interesting. Obviously, the profile for this Tour did not result in compelling racing, at least among the GC rivals.
Big mountains are not likely to shake things up either. Without the dope, riders simply ride hard tempo and slowly shed the weaker riders. If a GC guy has a bad day (Evans) he loses time, if not, then the time gaps between riders are manageable.
I think they need more classics style stages that reward risk taking and are far less easy to control by the dominant teams. You can’t do away with the Alps and Pyrenees, but I think the Tour should put in more lumpy stages with cobbles, dirt, and time bonuses to make it interesting.
It might actually bring more riders into contention, which is a good thing."
"Or . . . This just dawned on me: do away with teams altogether. Everyone relies in neutral service.
That would be interesting."
"This is actually productive. We could save cycling.
Do away with measurement shit for sure. No watts et al. And no radios. I like teams but maybe not team cars. Neutral support and lots of it so you can't complain (or pay them off). Team cars can ride behind with spare bikes but that's it. No talking to your riders.
I really like Sam's idea about the parcours. Remember when Lance was complaining about having to ride cobbles, like it's a different sport. Fuck 'em. It's bike riding. Make shit hard but not just with endless miles on good pavement. I want to see some of those wimpy little GC fucks climb the 20% cobbles in Cordes. Guys like Boonen or Cancellara could gain minutes. Dirt. Sand, construction sites, super winding intercity courses. Back roads with wild boar. Courses are now so boring the peloton crashes all the time rolling down a dead straight road. Liven it up and they'll ride better. Bring back pub raids. Everything will be better. You won't even need dope. Just a few brews at the end of each day to take the edge off.
Henri Desgranges"
"Cobbles. Any race that has cobbles, or at least dirt, especially dirt climbing, is instantly better. Maybe Gilbert missed an opportunity to change things when he freaked about the dog instead of applauding its insolence in knocking him sprawling. But we don't want the dogs getting hurt. And what if we fucked with the riders, instead of late or early drug tests, make them go to the club on random nights and dance le velo techno. Be good for morale at least. And no more bank team sponsors, occupy cycling. Now just beer, bikes, or lingerie (why not? imagine the podium. and you know Cipo would love it, probably wear it too.)."
"You better put that on the straight dope. And shit, while you're at it, what's your platform for President. We still have a few months before people vote maybe there can be a write in!"
I did some yoga to start the day and am pretty psyched to have a day off of my bike, except I’m not. I’m starting to finally feel decent after a week of some amount of misery. Let’s do a little recap, on both the race and the challenge, and lay out what’s ahead.
The actual event has been crazy, with crashes galore—ga-LORE! I’ve been following the Tour for nearly 40 years and have never seen anything like it. In lieu of boring reporting—after all this is a blog with no political restraints—let’s recap citing some spirited banter of my friends. Special thanks to Sam, Reed, Josh, Dustin and Bob.
“Wtf!? Has everyone in the peloton completely forgotten how to ride a bike?”
In spite of crashes and some serious fashion misgivings, the sprints have been excellent, spurred by the demise of the HTC train that at one time included most of today’s fastest men.
“Those helmets don’t look very cool.”
“Horrible helmets!”
“Well, I think Cav has put the “he’s got the best train” argument to rest. Like Steve said, he won that won McEwen style.”
“It should make for an interesting week. I've never seen such a deep sprinter field. If Cav wins them all he'll start making a case of best of all time. I don't think he will but he's smart so maybe, especially if he gets Greipel's wheel everyday.”
Unfortunately Cav got caught twice by crashes (such is life without a train) and, so far, Sagan’s been the revelation although Greipel probably won the rubber match if his last lead-out man doesn’t drop his chain. Anyway, the battle for the green jersey is still completely up in the air, as well as Cav’s place in history.
However, the best moment in the race so far was a transition stage where a breakaway held, animated by director sportif Marc Madiot’s enthusiasm. Check out the video above.
“I think it should go to the FDJ DS (most aggressive rider of the day award)—he was going crazy in the car!”
“He seems more enthused than I would expect a 2-time winner of Paris-Roubaix, but then I think that makes me appreciate it that much more.”
And on the race for yellow…
“Enjoy these lumpy stages, because the GC is battle is ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.”
“It's a long time since the days of Cippolini and friends. Any chance Sagan will show up in a leopard striped skin-suit? Doubt it.”
sagan, take some fashion tips, please
“I think what all of you Wiggo/Evans detractors are saying is that you miss dope. Well fuck, I miss it too. Shit, wasn't baseball more fun when every game you went to was like a home run derby? Who doesn't like seeing Discovery leading Big Tex onto Alpe d' Huez like the launching Cav at 200m?! It's fucking rad. Shit. I miss Ricardo Ricco. I miss Raimondas Rumas. I miss Simoni's grandmother's cookies and Festina. Willy Voet where have you gone?”
“Evans attacks way more than Armstrong ever did. The only difference is that he can't make it stick. Okay, he has a whinny voice but he rides with a fuckload of panache. And Wiggo trains like a Spartan and drinks a ton of beer. And he swears. In his first interview in yelllow he said it was "fucking great". Tonight he called his detractors "fucking cunts". The Texan would never do that because it would hurt his corporation. How is that boring? Nibali attacks on every single descent. Who the hell has ever done that? These guy aren't boring. They just aren't jacked full of EPO. And they're not Cipo. But, well, nobody is Cipo. Anyway, if he were in the race he would have won four stages and dropped out already so no use talking about him."
Cyrill Guimard “
“I fucking hate Cipo. He races the first week and now he’s already down on the beach in the French Riviera while I’m trying to hold onto the grupetto.”
All of which has provided sufficient motivation to stick with my own challenge. It hasn’t been easy. Psyche has been low, it’s been crazy hot, and I’ve been tempted to pull a Cipo and pack it in almost every day. Yesterday, however, I actually felt a bit better on the bike, which has renewed my enthusiasm for the weeks ahead, which looks like this:
Wed and Thurs are simulated Tour mtn days. On the slate is an 80-mile ride with over 10k of climbing on the road bike, followed by a mtn bike day featuring 4X 20 minute climbing intervals. Then I get two recovery days where I’ll ride trails staying as aerobic as possible, followed by another long mountain day and then a shorter interval day leading into the next day off.
Of course there’s other supplemental training. Primarily yoga and foam rolling, easy climbing (too hot to climb hard so sticking to active rest or ARC training), and one resistance—usually Asylum Strength--workout per week, following the 3 Weeks of Hell plan. During the next rest day the final week will be determined.
In closing, the Tour’s ads have been much better this year, especially on the European networks. This Specialized ad is truly inspired. Now get out there and ride!
My Tour challenge is a bit different than your average office pool. Instead of betting on who might win the actual race, I challenge my own fitness to keep up with them in a virtual stage race. I have a long history of such nonsense. Beginning back in ’98 with "Le Cog Corrode." I’ve often used the Tour, Giro, and Vuelta as a template to concoct very difficult 3-week training blocks. With a race coming up at the end of July this year’s early Tour start (it’s still June fer crissakes) was tailor made for me.
Though my ’98 challenge mirrored the race almost identically it’s not necessary. Your own personal goals should/need to be on the horizon and you can do a Tour challenge even if you never ride on the road. In fact, you could do one without riding at all but non-cyclists would likely find a different form of motivation more effective. Three weeks, however, is the perfect amount of time for a very hard block of training. Not only does it make good physiologic sense when you analyze the “specificity of adaptation” but it’s a mental window that psychologists seem to agree is an ideal amount of time to induce long-lasting habitual changes.
As serendipity would have it two factors led to a “bingo” moment in designing a Tour challenge this year. After last week’s breakdown I’d just happened to take a recovery week leading to today’s “grand depart”. I’ve also been struggling with motivation on the bike this year and very much questioning my ability to be ready for my upcoming race. I needed to ramp things up somehow and the Tour, one of the most exciting athletic events in the world, has come at just the right time.
The Straight Dope is a balance between work and play, indoor training, nutrition advice, and outdoor sports, and it’s got followers on every side that’d prefer it to be more of one and less of the other depending on their personal perspectives. So for all of you, today’s post has a bit of everything: training, diet, work, sports and even birthday challenges.
The Beachbody Coach Summit is always a challenge for me. My de-facto job is one of a walking FAQ and I spend my week basically roaming around answering questions, which usually leaves me drained of energy and an audible voice by its end. This year, with 5,000 attendees and 2 days of P90X Certification tacked on, it promised to be a colossal task. An impending race and training schedule heightened it, which I amped up slightly by decided to attempt a “birthday challenge” on my way home.
Vegas in June is no picnic when you’re trying to train. Rides would have to be early and, en route, I did an interval session on a dirt road outside of Mesquite as a test. Finishing just shy of 8am, with the thermometer already north of 90, I concluded that late nights would not be on the agenda—or planned agenda anyways.
Summit is actually quite fun. I don’t mind answering questions. In fact I love it. Helping people better understand fitness is something I can go on about endlessly. In the moment it’s not tedious or tiring and I wouldn’t mind spending my entire job doing it. I did my best to clean up my plate of projects so that I could be as available as possible all week long. The key was then staying ultra hydrated and fed, kind of like a race, to sustain my voice and keep my brain turned on (your brain runs on glycogen, making the entire event not so unlike a week-long ultra).
much easier to hear and converse in the latter setting
Thursday I had two presentations, which I actually found easier than my general schedule. It seemed efficient to speak with a group instead of one on one, I had a microphone that saved my voice, and, most importantly, I didn’t have to speak over music or a crowd or anything else. Made me think I should just have an area where I answered questions all day but that would negate some of the coolness of Summit, which is a social environment where anytime you might run into Carl or Tony or someone else you’ve seen on TV.
louder than a bird or a plane, it's super workout!
Things went more or less perfectly until Sat, when a screaming crowd interrupted a perfectly peaceful dream at 5am. At first I thought it was partiers but looking out my window I saw that there were already hundreds of people gathered for the Super Workout that wasn’t starting until 6:30. Did some yoga and made my way down, which was the start of a long, long day punctuated by a “business” dinner with Dr. Marcus Elliott sometime after 2am.
with super coach and X2 cast member monica and super trainer and long-time friend marcus
The Finale
After sleeping far too little I rolled out of Vegas early. I was now hammered. Training is not just about recovering from muscle breakdown but hormonal and nervous system balance and the latter two were clearly in distress. Still, I was keen to keep to my schedule and I had a hard ride planned that day, which you can read about here:
I figured that a good long ride, especially if I could keep it somewhat aerobic, would bring things back towards homeostasis. I’d planned on over 5,000’ of climbing but given it was a 13-mile climb it seemed reasonable. However, Tiger’s challenge was, well, challenging. It ain’t birthday pretty hard.
On Utah Mountain Biking Dark Hollow is listed as a downhill trail. There isn’t a single mention of it being ridden uphill. This would have kept me off it if not for Tiger’s account. In fact, while he said it was hard his report didn’t sound too bad. Since it’s also a “must ride classic” I was expecting gentle meandering single track, perhaps tightly wound around Aspens. Instead, I was greeted with steep, loose rocks and dirt with big wide tire tracks, at least when it wasn’t mud or trees draped over the trail, or both.
Dark Hollow’s a big bike trail. While rideable on anything its forte is clearly for those who like to point it down and let er rip. Tiger’d ridden it on a light Moots hard tail, similar to what I was on, which while way less fun for the descent was crucial on the ascent since it’s easier to carry, and there was no shortage of bike portaging.
I spent most of the last 5 miles carrying my bike. If it weren’t for my Nepal race I would have bagged it. Not knowing how far I had to the summit, or if the trail would ever be more rideable, I wanted to turn around the entire time but was simply too intrigued about Tiger’s adventure not to keep going. “who would do this for fun?” I kept thinking over and over. It was the kind of shit they add to adventure races to make you hate them.
Near the end I finally hit some proper trail. It was beautiful, making me glad I’d persisted. And while the little adventure added to my overall fatigue it did kick me back into my default mode and out of the bizarre reality that comes from any trip to Vegas. And while I survived another Summit in reasonable fashion, one of this years I'm going to nail it and finish stronger than when I started.
I’ll be doing two presentations at the Beachbody Summit next week. If you’re around on Thursday, stop by the Core area at either 12 or 5 to catch the act. These two sessions will preemptively answer a lot of questions about our products and, basically, help you become a more efficient coach.
I’ll also be at the usual venues, parties, etc, as well as Certification the two days prior to Summit’s official start. You can catch me anytime for a chat but, given there
will be more than 5,000 of you this year, that’s going to be more problematic than in years past. So come by Core on Thursday or, better yet, come early and get P90X Certified and I’ll load you up with information that will take your coaching to a higher level.
Here is some information on my two presentations. Click on the highlights for more:
I can state how much easier this will make your job. With the right program you’ll get results as easily as A, B, C. With the wrong one you can struggle and get frustrated and spend a lot of time looking for answers. Choosing the right program is step 1 in getting the best results.
How to recommend the right supplements for the right program.
Supplementation are a key part of your tool kit for results. They aren’t magic but can seem like it when used correctly. Every supplement has a purpose and understanding what it is and how it fits with a customer’s goals is a key part of finding success. I'll also be going over some of our newer supplements, like E & E and the new line designed for Beast, which can be utilized elsewhere to help maximize your training.
Learning where all of Beachbody’s resources to help you educate and motivate your customers are located and how to use them will not only ensure your customers reach their goals but save you valuable time.
Finally, consider getting certified. The more you know about the science behind the creation of an exercise program, the more effective you'll be at teaching it. This is particularly true for P90X , which is both versatile and complex, and can be utilized and structured various ways based on the needs of the individual client. You’re coming to town anyway, so why not add this to your coaching arsenal?
See you next week!
pic: summit's always rife with photo ops but this pic, from a coach trip in france, is posted for another reason. i'll have both road and mtn bikes in tow and need to train so hit me up if dawn patrol intervals sound fun. i'll go climbing at least once during the week, too, if you want to pack yer boots.
