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HEALTH AND FITNESS: FIVE WAYS TO TAKE YOUR RIDING TO THE NEXT LEVEL
Katharine McCoy
June 19, 2009
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Example Lance: He races, does it for charity and is a known techie.
Remember when you played sports as a kid? Each year brought a new age group and a new level of play. Everyone knew that the farm team didn’t have to play as well as the minor league team or that Varsity was a big step up from the freshman team. Each year as you moved though the ranks you got better and better and knew that you would have to push yourself a little harder to compete. But as adults it is too easy to be happy with the status quo. After all, not every one can keep up with the pack in the Tuesday/Thursday group ride, or race in the Tour de France, but you can improve. If you want to become a better rider you are going to have to take some initiative and step out of your comfort zone. Moving from,” yea, I ride bikes” to” yea, I am a cyclist” takes motivation and some extra effort, but it’s worth it.
GET RACING
There is nothing better to motivate most people then a little competition, and a deadline. Sign-up for a race that it is a least six weeks away. If you sign up for a race that is too close you won’t be able to ramp up your riding enough to get to a new level. If you enter a race too far away you will probably wait until the last six weeks to kick into gear anyway. As long as you have a good base going, six weeks of hard-core training will give you time to get in racing shape.
In fact, if you have never been to a race you may be surprised what racing shape means to different people. Yes, of course there will be people there who never met a crispy crème in their life and don’t have an ounce of fat, but there are also a lot of racers that look like any Joe or Josephina that you may see hanging out at the local coffee hut. Entering as a beginner is a good idea if you have never raced before. Be forewarned that word will mean different things to different people and the class may consist of true rookie racers as well as some sand baggers.
DO IT FOR CHARITY
Another way to go is to enter a charity ride. Most of these rides are of the longer variety. Unless you are used to doing these kinds of rides, you will need to train to get fit enough to enjoy the ride. Of course there are a lot of different types of charity rides and you will want to find one in which you can get excited about the charity and in which you can get excited about the ride. These events range from day long rides to multi-day rides in which you are spending hours each day in the saddle. The point however is that when you have an event to motivate you and donors counting on you, you will be pushing yourself to the next level. Most of these groups have training recommendations for the ride that you will be doing that will give you a pretty good idea of the kind of schedule you need to keep, to get fit enough for the ride.
BECOME A TECHIE
As they say, numbers don’t lie. Studies have shown it over and over again; people, who wear pedometers, walk more, people who track calories, eat less and people who weigh themselves on a daily basis are more likely to keep weight off. When it comes to cycling people who wear their heart rate monitors, and use a computer or a log to keep track of their daily numbers are more likely to improve. There is something about keeping track of your hard work that makes you work even harder. Even if you are the only one whoever looks at the numbers. After all, when we see the numbers, such as our heart rates improving, our cadence getting faster and the fat percentages going down we feel as though we have some control over what we are doing. Numbers let us see our progress in black and white. They let us know that what we are doing is working or not working.
There are many computer-training programs that help you do that. They will graph your average heart rates for you, and tell you if the ride you did this time was the fastest that you have ever rode. These computer programs do more then just keep track of the past they help us by making us want to do better in the future. If you haven’t joined the high-tech revolution, now may be the time.
UPGRADE YOUR BIKE
While we all know that money is tight for a lot of people and the last thing that most of us want to do is spend more money on something, it is true that buying a new bike or even spending some money on some after market upgrades, can be a great motivator. Psychologically when you invest money in something you are more likely to find yourself putting time and energy into it as well. Part of it may be just be so you can justify the money spent to your significant other, but a better bike or saddle or pair of shoes might also make riding a better experience which may be all you need to motivate you to spend more time and more energy on your bike.
CHANGE YOUR ROUTINE
Change can be very, very good, especially when it comes to training. Your body quickly adaptes, if you continue the same even rides even if they are challenging. You need to constantly changing your route, your riding and even you’re your riding companions. If you usually ride long slow rides, add some sprints, if shorter harder rides are your thing add some extra long rides. You don’t have to give up what you love but if you want to improve you need to mix things up. Sometimes that even means riding with a new set of people. Now I am not suggesting that you dump your best riding pals, but adding some new blood to your routine can really help you step it up a notch. New riders will have new places to ride, may know about different group rides and may push you to ride a little harder.
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