Perfect Speed

Recap

The nutrition on the bike clinic went really well. You had so many great questions and I hope the answers I gave you helped keep you eating and drinking enough on the bike. We tried out a new route and many of you enjoyed it. We left the store and rode out on Yale toward Chambers and then caught the Spillway trail, and circled back the short way and climbed that hill at Yale. We never can seem to escape that hill, but instead of it being a burden, look at it as a way to measure your progress each week. I want to you get to the point where you say, “What hill at Yale?” And with time and practice, you’ll get there.
Jackie Riley, Michelle Gilliam, and I raced the My Way or The Tri Way in the traditional swim-bike-run order. Dawn Jenkins came to cheer us on and take pictures as proof that we all started. The proof that we all finished should be posted on the My Way or the Tri Way’s website by the end of the week. Great job Jackie and Michelle and thanks to Dawn for coming out and cheering!!!

Jersey Price Update
I left out the fee for the graphic designer. It is $5 per person. So the cost breakdown looks like this: Jersey $45 plus tax, Graphic Designer fee $5 plus tax, and Printing fee $10 plus tax, for a total of $60 plus tax. That is a great deal for semi-custom!!

This Week
For Wednesday, I would like to continue our focus on nutrition and talk about nutrition off the bike. You have homework for this clinic. You will need to know your weight and estimate number of calories you eat each day. What I am planning is to put that information into a spreadsheet that will give you a range of how many grams of fats, proteins, and carbs you need to eat each day. I am working off of the daily recommended intake guidelines. You will leave the clinic with three helpful pieces of paper: one will be your personal macro nutrient (fats, proteins, carbs) recommended daily intake, one will be a sample menu for one day, and those recipes to try at home. Same time and place as always: Aurora Bicycle Village, clinic is 6-6:30pm and ride leaves after that. This would be a good time to order your jersey!!

This all might seem a little overwhelming but my goal is to get you to think about what kinds of fuel you are putting in your body. Good fuel equals good energy. I judge my success by when I hear you talking about how you thought of me while you were at the grocery store, reading labels on foods you eat every day.

For Sunday, let’s try the c470 route again. Many of you learned from our first trip down that trail, that it’s easier to go toward Chatfield than it is to get home. We will meet at Challenger Park in Parker at 7:30 am and leave at 8 am; the ride will be between 40-50 miles. Bring your climbing attitude and as you drive near Cherry Creek State Park, remember to cheer for all of our athletes who are doing Tri for the Cure that day. Good Luck Ladies!!!

Challenger Park
17299 E Lincoln Ave
Parker, CO 80134

Tip
I hear so many female cyclists talk about how they are not very fast riders. Speed is only one of the very important skills to train. There are also endurance, strength, force, anaerobic threshold, power, and muscular endurance. All of these skills develop together. You don’t exhaust the development of a single skill and then move on to the next. They play catch up with each other. If you are lifting weights in the gym, you will notice that you feel able to ride longer distances and your muscles don’t get as tired as quickly. This will play a role in developing both speed and power.
I’ve been rereading Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull on my lunch breaks. There are two parts I would like to share with you about how Jonathan learns to understand perfect speed.


“The speed was power, and the speed was joy, and the speed was pure beauty.” Jonathan focused on getting faster each time he went out to fly. His speeds grew and grew until they couldn’t grow any more. Then his teacher told him, “You will begin to touch heaven, Jonathan, in the moment that you touch perfect speed. And that isn’t flying a thousand miles an hour, or a million, or flying at the speed of light. Because any number is a limit, and perfection doesn’t have limits. Perfect speed, my son, is being there.”