Finding the drive to continue training

So it is the end of your season and it has been a long one. You just finished the Everest Challenge which has 30,000 feet of climbing. Or maybe you just did a five day UCI stage race in the Caribbean. For some of the riders I coach, this is the way their season ended. When your season has ended with such lofty goals, you can be left with a lack of drive to continue training.

Some riders force themselves through periods where they lack motivation. This can, and usually does, lead to overreaching and eventually burnout or over training.

It is important to give ourselves time to relax from the rigors of training and racing even if you have come off a stellar season, accomplished your goals, and have a new level of fitness. It is important to remember that even if you are not physically overreaching or over trained, that you may be mentally tired. Our minds need just as much care as our bodies when it comes to recovery.

There are always alternative training methods to maintain and rebuild a high level of fitness. These alternatives can give us a break from a rigorous training schedule and still be fun. One method that some cyclists use is Cyclo-cross. Cyclo-Cross is like mountain biking and running mixed into the same workout on road style bicycles. Cylco-cross race courses are run on single track trails with minimal technical sections, but have areas where the rider must dismount and carry his or her bike while hurdling barriers.

Mountain biking is also another good alternative of riding. At the end of a long season, our training and competing can become only a means to an end. Sometimes this leads us to forget about the fun aspects of riding bicycles. Most of us started riding bicycles because it was fun and our competitive natures pushed us to compete on our bikes. Mountain biking leads us back to trails, keeps our brains engaged picking good lines on technical sections of these trails, and usually leads us to mud; and everyone knows that getting muddy is fun.

If you want to be as functional as possible in your off season, lifting weights is also a good thing to take up at the end of your season. Weight lifting is something you should talk with your coach or trainer about as you can very easily injure yourself lifting. Lifting weights should also incorporate the same movements that your cycling discipline does.

When starting to rebuild your overall fitness and transitioning into the off season, it is important to break up the rhythm of your training to include cross training and conditioning in a fun environment. Allowing your body to rest and recover from anaerobic efforts is important. Allowing your mind to rest from pushing yourself to accomplish your workouts is also very important. Training comes in building cycles. All building cycles whether weekly, monthly, or yearly should include rest periods.

Our long term goals as athletes should include rest, recovery, and relaxation at the end of a long season and taking that time will renew our inner drive. I am writing this blog post from Monterey, California, where I just took a few days off to relax, read books, and ride a mountain bike on beautiful Fort Ord, and believe me, I got muddy.

If you want to take your training to the next level, let the coaches at Crank Cycling know. We can help you meet whatever training goals you have!
See you on the road,
Coach Jesse Eisner

Hone Your Bike Handling Skills

In order to hone your cycling skills it is important to practice them in a controlled environment. This means you should practice riding fast, cornering, and riding in groups. Creating a controlled environment is the hardest part of practicing these skills. To do so you need a safe place to ride and at least one experienced rider who has mastered all of the skills being practiced. Crank Cycling Coaches can help you do this.


Do you want to cruise through the field of riders and find the sweet spot in the peloton? Do you want to slide into the draft and reap the benefits of others' hard work? Would you like to glide through corners at high speeds, not hitting your brakes and not having to over-analyze the word Apex on google search for hours? Do you want to make it over, through, and around obstacles and hazards without worry?

Would you like to keep up on the local club ride without being afraid of riders coming too close to you, or the constant thought of being dropped and not able to catch up at the regroup spot?

All of these things can be accomplished and your mind can be set at ease with some classroom instruction and on-the-bike practice. Come to Crank Cycling's bike-handling and group riding skills clinic on April 16th, presented by Crank Cycling Coach Jesse Eisner. Jesse is a USA Cycling Certified coach and veteran racer with 2 decades worth of riding and racing experience.

See you out on the road,
Coach Jesse

Link to sign up

http://clients.mindbodyonline.com/ws.asp?studioid=7102&stype=-102