A Knight To Be

It had never occurred to me to consider what this Cloud was all about. Now I know. It's not about climbing above the clouds, or other astral aspirations. It's not about being high, or similar altitude-related (or dopamine) ambitions. It's certainly not about anything light and soft that carelessly floats where the wind might randomly blow. No, none of those. It's about Winter. It's about Pain and Misery and Agony. It's about Dedication and Consistency and Determination. It's about Commitment and Single-Minded Focus. It is Winter. Dark and cold. The Cloud is a lightning-charged, rain-loaded, heavy cumulonimbus. The sort that rides in slow from the sea, so massive that light cannot penetrate to its base. Looming darkness, low and steady, thunder rumbling far in the distance, as if trying to catch up with the floating behemoth. As it clears past the shoreline, the floodgates open, and rain falls in thick sheets, seeming to flow from an infinite well. The Keepe...

Some things must be done. Some things only you can do. Some things can only be done one way. As a Knight Of Sufferlandria , our glorious Nation, I must continuously improve and seek Glory. The path is painful, challenging, and miserable - but I won't have it any other way. Seeking perpetual improvement demands higher and higher goals. And now, at the foothills of my personal Mt. Sufferlandria, a lumpy mound awaits. This bump in the road, a virtually snow-capped knoll of sorts, goes by "Alpe du Zwift" in the patois. And, on June 9th, I'm going to ride it no less than 10 times. Such a feat will get credit both for a vEveresting , as well as a 10K Everesting, AKA "High Rouleur's Society". These past 12 weeks I've been training for a 100 mile (160km) race with The Sufferfest. As part of this plan, I've ridden multiple centuries, imperial and metric, and spent over 6 hours on the longest rides.  So far, the training program I started towards the end o...

#OutsideIsFree they used to say, but it has become rather expensive these days, even criminal. As such, many cyclists have turned to indoor cycling and the virtual world to replace the "outdoors." While some PROs are more than happy to churn away on their indoor turbo trainers, other Professional riders I know said that they started racing professionally for the love of riding their bike; riding indoors on their trainers is not "riding their bike." These Pro Athletes are having a tough time, especially mentally, as maintaining a Pro-level training volume indoors is undoubtedly a challenge if that's not your thing. I won't mention the fact that WorldTour Pros are losing races on Zwift because of inexperience and noob mistakes, we'll leave that for a later post perhaps. Anyway, these are all problems I'm sure we'd like to have - Pro level training volume, albeit indoors. In today's post, I want to walk you through creating workout file...

It has been an odd couple of weeks. My solitude has been revoked. It's like I had a world to myself, and now suddenly, everyone's come over. What's this? Keep reading. ~30K simultaneous riders on Zwift. Wow. I remember when there were 500. I remember the 1000 milestone. I rode those roads a little after Jarvis on the Open Beta, well before the Ocean Route, KOM & Mountain route, the Volcano, and the Alpe du Zwift, of course. We had the flat route, the hilly route, and figure 8 basically. (Zwift newbies will always complain that there "aren't enough roads"... sheesh, you know nothing). I took a little time off Zwift right after the Volcano release because my 3rd infant had something against me sleeping at night, and I struggled to maintain a routine, let alone train at the level I wanted to. Brief strength/weight sufficed for that period until my comeback in June 2018. I've ridden well over 20,000km on Zwift, unlocked nearly everything, a...

Eight weeks to go. 2019 had just ended. Here are some stats: 94% of those kilometers were indoors. It was my most active year in a decade. My oldest child (of 3) is ten, so it kind of matches. 2015 was strong, and I also had a few podium finishes, including one on the National Championships (for CAT, Masters B). Still, there's a direct correlation between the occurrence of an offspring and a reduction in cycling volume. A brief history of time: In May 2018, I decided that I'm going to ride the Alpen Brevet in Switzerland, only three months or so away. This followed 2.5 years of practical inactivity: 2015: 400 hours / 10,000 km 2016: 116 hours / 3200 km 2017: 40 hours / 790 km 2018 (through May): 12 hours / 270 km Then in June 2018, I started to get things in motion with Zwift's Fondo plan. I managed to ride about 40hrs/1000km in training before the August event, which was pivotal. I knew I was light years away from my podium form, yet rode on in t...

Week 10. 14 days to go. It's when you're singing along, humming to the tunes on "It Seemed Like Thin Air" that you know you've been doing this for a while. As the 40-minute climb draws to an end, "Don't Talk To Me" plays loud over the TV speakers. Louder than the 20" metal-bladed fan, spinning at full blast, that's for sure. My wife, who had just come back home from work, gets the message — no exchange of words necessary. The puddle of Sufferlandrian Holy Water beneath me extracts a nose scrunch, though. I keep an eye on the clock because I'll be doing the cooldown on the MTB on the way to fetch the kids from school. It was close this time. I lost electricity twice during the session. Luckily, we have a backup diesel generator to keep everything working while the main feed from the electric company is down - which happens more often than not these days. It can be because of the rain, a fire, or some maintenance work - but you'l...

Week 5 (end of). The Sufferfest training week has me riding the longer sessions on the last two days before the rest day. For me, this these are Monday and Tuesday, as my rest day is on Wednesday. (Why? because that's when the cleaner comes and I can't ride and take a shower like a normal Sufferlandrian who has the house to himself.) Luckily, this first week of the second training month is pretty relaxed. Three days ago was all about strength with a Yoga session, Strength Training, and then some cadence builds and holds. So neuromuscular training at its best. I use the Halo Neuroscience Headset to neuroprime before these sessions. It seems to help with learning moves and maintaining form, but also I find it reduces RPE. So you're able to perform at very high intensity, yet it's somehow more tolerable. I will try to articulate it better on a later post. Yesterday (Mon) was "To Get To The Other Side" - a leisurely Tempo ride with The Col Collective ...

Week 5 When I first started with The Sufferfest Training Plan, I had to pay attention to planning the upcoming weeks carefully. Going from Xert, which is "dynamic," meaning you can find the right workout for your goal on any given day, SUF Plans are pre-fixed. Let's dwell on that for a moment: Pre-fixed training plans are a "given." You get the workout schedule for the next ~12 weeks and follow it. Sick child? Holiday? Business trip? Tough luck. Yes, life always gets in the way, but you more or less have to make up for missed sessions somehow. The Sufferfest makes it easy to figure out what to do in such a case: https://thesufferfest.com/blogs/training-resources/skip-a-workout-dont-panic . But as a whole, you're committed and inflexible. It's the same with training plans on Zwift and Today's Plan. Zwift will give you a short window to complete workouts, but if you miss the train, you're in trouble. Dynamic/Flexible training pla...

You. Can. Do. This. The final words on the "Positive Self-Talk" MTP session (The Sufferfect Mental Training Program). It's not the first time I've completed this little exercise, and the value keeps coming back with interest. In this session, you'll learn about the types of self-talk: Motivational: "you can do this!" Instructional: "Keep spinning those legs at 100rpm." Reward: "You did it, you crazy SOaB." And get some pointers on how to listen to your self-talk and direct it to the Positive, so the outcome is in your favor. If you've ever pushed hard enough, you know it works. A few months ago, I decided it was time to ride the Uber pretzel on Zwift .  I ventured outside the Torture Chamber and set up a mobile Pain Infliction Unit outside on my porch. T'was a lovely day, and I felt oddly positive. 4 hours later, and rather loudly, while shredding chamois up the Alpe du Zwift's +10% grades, a...

A couple of days ago, we reviewed the first two weeks of the Journey. Yesterday was a Rest Day flavored with some Yoga and the MTP session named "Relaxing to Recover." It's rather enjoyable. About 20 minutes in which you flow through a contraction-relaxation routine from head to toe. Some background music adds a lot, and, if you are lucky enough to find 25 minutes of uninterrupted stillness (i.e., no kids screaming in the background that they don't want to take a shower, no SO on the phone, no doors opening and closing, no people coming in and out because your torture chamber also happens to be their playroom...etc) then it's wonderfully meditating. Today is just a Strength session with a recovery spin — nothing to write home about. So instead, let's paint the background picture with details of the torture chamber set up: Trainer : Tacx Neo (1st. Gen) Smart as they get. This trainer is by far the best thing I've spent money on this decade, ...

Today marks the end of an eight-month training period on Xert. I started using the dynamic software, with great success I might add, reaching new highs and breakthroughs consistently. Racing in Zwift, I won some races and PRed on an ongoing basis. Yet, something was missing. Xert, being "dynamic" will let you slack off. You can indicate your fatigue level and remain stuck in Endurance training for the entire program, or have only a handful of quality, high-intensity workouts. Also, Xert will ask you "what type of rider do you want to be..." playing to strengths rather than focusing, or clearly identifying, weaknesses to improve. Other than that, which can be solved with a strong will and headstrong obedience, the biggest missing element is Strength.  By Strength, I mean weights and (lean) muscle building, integrated with a cycling training plan. I could never get both to sync even though I can train anyone on the bike, and have years of experience in t...