"You only ever grow as a human being if you're outside your comfort zone"- Percy Cerutty
Truckee, CA
Joined February 2009
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Had the pleasure to chat with two of my favorite people, @JimLubinski and Gerry Rodrigues, on the T26 podcast. We covered it ALL, including a deep dive into my cycling career and the NEW Tower 26 cycling program we are launching soon. Enjoy! podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas…
Athletes: Read this! Understand that building fitness for endurance sports takes years not weeks or months. As an u23 rider I raced for three years getting my teeth kicked in for the most part till that fourth year it all paid off. Good things take time and consistency.
Further context: An athlete can improve by 3% every year for the last 10, but, for some reason, this is the year that they think they're going to improve by 30%.
No.
You'll likely improve another ~3% (assuming everything goes well).
When it comes to endurance sports, you need something other than delusions of massive performance leaps to keep you motivated in the long term.
You need to learn to...
#LoveTheProcess
Sport is one of the most beautiful expressions of life. You can give your entire self to it, do everything right, and still have your hopes and dreams shattered. But, if you can pick yourself back up and keep going, it will always come together, often when you least expect it!
When younger I always understood the differences in theory between age group athletes and professionals. Now having two kids, a full schedule, and fitting in training (for fun), I have a much deeper appreciation and understanding of those differences that serve me well as a coach
Daily reminder: embracing the journey isn’t just showing up for the work, it’s allowing the space for recovery. Without it you will always break down. Learning to rest when needed is as valuable a skill as being able to push yourself to the limit and beyond on occasion
You will fail. Over and over and over. Stop fighting it. Accept it. Learn from it. The grind is what makes it worth it in sport and life. The top of the mountain aka success is fleeting, so you better become addicted to the process if you want to last in whatever you’re doing.
One of the greatest values of sport is teaching us to be comfortable with the unknown. You may have an idea of how training/race day is going to go or how you’d like it to go, but in the end we are often forced to adapt to how it is actually going, and step into the unknown!
-Pro athletes (real pros, not influencers): train, eat, rest, sleep, repeat
-Age group athletes: train, drop kids at school, rush to work, try to eat, work, train, dinner prep/family time, sleep
-The two are not the same yet so many coaches try to train them as if they are
Who’s going to be the next to bring the panache and excitement to cycling like @petosagan did? It wasn’t just his performance on the bike, it was that at times he hit rock star status off the bike, and people love him for it. First person since @lancearmstrong to really do it.
When working with age group “non elite” athletes the challenge is really in getting them to understand the value of recovery. Almost across the board they are eager and always motivated to put the work in but struggle to grasp that it’s in recovery where the gains are made.
Cultivating a way of life that cuts out the bullshit and allows you to focus on what matters is the definition of success. Not dependent on any external metric, it’s something only you can know whether you’re doing or not. Highly uncomfortable process but well worth it.
Do you go through the shit or do you run from it? I’m amazed at the number of people I’ve met who are incredibly “tough” elite and recreational athletes with an amazing ability to endure and persevere in their sport but who fail to apply those traits to their everyday life.
I used to be one of them. Eventually you realize the true value of sport is an opportunity to hone an ability to “show up” and embrace discomfort. But if you don’t recognize the lessons, it’s impossible to apply them. Sport for the sake of sport is relatively pointless
I didn’t wake up motivated every single day as a pro athlete and I still don’t now. But guess what: You don’t need motivation to get going, you just need to show up. Last thing I wanted to do today was hit the gym, so that’s exactly what I did! You will never regret showing up.
Anyone at the elite level likely knows and embraces the philosophy @stevemagness references here. It’s all so basic but is missed by so many, coaches and athletes alike, at recreational levels of sport. If you want some wisdom read through his thread!
Every morning, whether I want to or not, I sit down and fill a page with whatever needs to come out on it. While I talk a lot about the value of physical practices, I’ve found no practice that helps me set the tone and intention for each day better than journaling first thing.
At the end of the day training is as simple as this: stress, rest, repeat. There is no magic formula and there is no metric or device better than your own body, once you learn to listen, that will tell you whether you are ready to push on, or if you need to back off.
Outside of elite/professional athletes, sport is solely intended to enhance your life, to make you a better person, father/mother, wife/husband, friend, etc. If it’s a source of stress rather than joy, now is a perfect time to re-evaluate your relationship with it.