Couch to Ironman Series: Bike

COUCH TO IRONMAN SERIES

How do you go from being unable to swim a lap, not owning a bike, and a longest run of 5 miles to completing twelve 70.3’s, three full ironmans, two 70.3 world championship qualifications and running the Boston Marathon? This series of posts will pave the way.

Today we will focus on the cycling piece of the question.  My wife, who spent 2 years talking me into triathlon and 10 years wishing she hadn’t after I became obsessed, taught me the basics of riding as I chased her around on an old iron road bike.  From there I rode with many generous people in this amazing, inclusive sport who were willing to ride with someone new and not as strong.  I eventually bought a decent triathlon bike, and I gained bike handling skills and experience.  The magic started when I hired my first coach.  I learned over time that cycling is primarily about aerodynamics and thus learning to generate power in an aggressive, aerodynamic position is the key to going fast.  The thing is it takes very specific types of workouts to get stronger and faster on a bike, and it also takes time and patience.  With the help of my coach, I put in that very specific work, and I got steadily stronger and faster every year.  I started triathlon in my late 40’s and at 55 I was a top of my age-group cyclist, and that was a big part of what allowed me to qualify for 70.3 world championships twice.  At 56 years old I broke 5 hours, as I literally got faster every year as I got older.  In my mind the training can easily overcome age, if you take it seriously.

At Next Level Endurance Coaches, we work with athletes to improve their cycling every day.  We start with helping you find an inexpensive but solid bike if you don’t have one, and then help finding someone to get you a great fit on your bike. We work on building up your aerobic base and your overall strength while working on technique at the same time.  Once the base is built and the technique is in muscle memory, we design specific types of interval-based workouts to learn to generate power in an aerodynamic position with the correct technique over long periods of time.   We build weekly workouts based on how you are progressing and your specific goals.  We teach you how to race in the unique circumstances of a time trial where drafting is not allowed.  You learn how to ride in the hills in ways to be economical and balance your power and effort.  You learn techniques that make you both faster on the bike, and ready to run fast off the bike.

Check out the pictures of my bike journey from the couch to Ironman and if you want to improve your cycling technique, power, and speed and run faster off the bike just reach out.  This is what we do at #nextlevelendurancecoaches!  Check out our website for coaching bios, and all the information on us at http://nextlevelendurancecoaches.com.

Next in this series is find those running shoes and learn to tackle the part of the sport where the real race starts!