The bullet is clenched between my teeth, cold and metallic. It’s time to clamp down. After almost two years of solid riding, and improvement well beyond my expectations, I’ve decided to properly turn my focus towards getting faster on the bike, and am employing the expertise of a coach and a structured routine.
Three months of solid training is my commitment. No ridiculous rides. No hitting Strava segments for the sake of a crown (but let’s be honest, I’ll work this into the training somehow). No destroying myself with no recovery. No beer (that won’t happen either, but I’ll tone it down some). My aim is to transform myself from a cyclist that can perform on occasion, hitting some good numbers, into a cyclist that is race ready and mentally prepared to win.
I expect massive difficulties that will need to be overcome to reach my goals (I won’t go into them yet). I’m basically a rider who has been cycling for 25 years, but had a 23 year taper. It’s really in the last couple of years that I’ve turned my attention fully to wheels, and much of the riding I have done has been inconsistent, random, but above all, interesting and exciting. But with such a broad spectrum of cycling challenges in such a short time, I don’t know how well I will adjust to a structured regime with, “training”, and “recovery”, and “stress scores” and “sleep”! I’m going to attempt to ride smart, and not just like a smart arse.
I’ve decided to take up help from Matt King, a local Darwin rider. Do a google search, and you won’t get a huge amount of hits. But you should discover that Matt was an U23 National TT champion in 2008 (and 2nd in the road race the same year). He is no longer a professional, and is only recently getting into coaching, but I am confident that he will help me improve immensely in three months. And being in Darwin, I have the advantage of regular face-to-face time – something you can’t really get with the modern online coach.
Things kick off this week, and I’m taking it easy until some testing Tuesday morning. Thank fuck I’m still buggered from the combined efforts of the last everesting and The Redback – spinning the legs is about all I feel like doing right now. And before I sign off on this post, it’s worth noting that in early April last year, I was certain I’d maxed out my potential – oh boy, did I learn otherwise…. Suffice to say I’m excited to see where the improvements go.
P.P.