V-CLUB TRAINING CORNER
We’ve teamed up with Marilyn Trout, certified USA Cycling Elite Coach to answer V-Club members’ training questions. You can view her coach profile at: http://www.linkedin.com/in/mountainpedalscoaching80903
Send your cycling inquiries to Marilyn, and for a limited time, if yours is selected to be answered in our V-Club column, VeloWear will send you a $20 gift certificate that can be used towards any purchase on VeloWear.com. To submit your inquiry, e-mail her at trout_mic@msn.com, and type “V-Club Training Question” in the subject line of the e-mail.
Perspective: Training The Way Life Really Is
by Marilyn Trout
Per-spec-tive n.
1. Any of various techniques for representing three-dimensional objects and depth relationships on a two-dimensional surface.
2. The relationship of aspects of a subject to each other and to a whole.
We live in a house built in 1925 and so it goes without saying that there is a bit of maintenance from time to time. Fortunately, the house is quite small so the repairs are manageable…meaning they don’t cramp our saddle time. The other day, I noticed water slowly dripping in an odd spot from the basement ceiling. It’s never happened before and there isn’t a water source upstairs that would align itself with the drip. (The excitement around here has no end!)
I couldn’t see anything upstairs that would cause the problem. Wait a minute. That’s odd…what’s a sock doing in the dog’s water bowl? No way! Could the two actually be related? Sure enough, over the course of a couple hours, water found its way from the bowl to the basement along a very circuitous route.
In a previous article, I mentioned some important things to keep in mind when going after your goals: a resource for a scientifically-sound training program, your ability to get trustworthy advice from someone who believes in you and, I might add, understands YOU. I strongly believe that understanding the nitty-gritty of the athlete’s daily life (time constraints, family obligations, school, fatigue, health issues, shiftwork, weight control, nutrition, travel…) and making necessary adaptations to optimize training is not done nearly as much as it should.
Remember the secret of “secret training”? It’s your “training fingerprint” that is uniquely you. It’s representing all dimensions and depth of the athlete’s life. It’s seeing the relationship of aspects of an athlete to each other and to the whole. It’s having perspective.
Back to the sock. Many times things don’t appear as they seem and sometimes we think a problem is bigger than it really is. Our mind wildly goes in a direction that the house needs to be re-plumbed rather than pulling a sock out of a water bowl. When things seem amiss with your training, take some time to evaluate the situation. Is there stress (mental stress takes a real toll on the body), fatigue, changes in routine/diet/health, too much work and not enough recovery…? Being mentally and physically tenacious and living without excuses is huge to any successful athlete. But as you know, our greatest strengths can be our greatest weaknesses and many times we choose to bully our way through a workout at the expense of optimizing training over the long haul.
At times, we feel that our training, maybe even life, is like a particular point on a wheel that just comes around again and again without any progress. Indeed that is the case if we focus on that singular point. In reality though, we are not at the same point but have made our way further down the road. It’s all in the perspective.
Marilyn
The moral of the story…don’t let your dog sort your laundry and have a training plan that includes all the dimensions of your life.
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