Winter training has been solid. Fitness is improving quickly and I am becoming more and more comfortable with regular, consistent workouts. This past May I graduated from Skidmore College with a degree in Exercise Physiology, very cool stuff, but I recently realized that I am rarely applying the principles I learned in college to my career, training, or further studies. With that realization, I am ready to change and begin training like a scientist. My most recent equipment purchase, a crank based power meter, has proved most useful in making this a reality. If it's good enough for Pete Jacobs, 2012 Ironman World Champion, it's good enough for me! I won't bore you to death with talk of functional threshold power, lactate threshold, aerodynamics, power to weight etc., but just trust me when I say that knowledge is power, and many of my early season fitness gains, particularly on the bike, I attribute to the use of the power meter.
As important as pacing and knowing your body helps you race, I'm still a firm believer that some performance variables are immeasurable. Specifically, no matter who has the higher FTP, the athlete who races with the most passion has the better race day. Period. For those of you who are not familiar with the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, here's a quick overview. Dr. Jekyll is a brilliant, upstanding professor of medicine and chemistry, but all the brains and academic achievement in the world can't fulfill his more primititive desires, which are dominance and sex. He proposes that human nature is a two sided coin, and that while we put on our proper faces to agree politely with society, there is a subdued side to every man that wants to break free, kill its enemies, and fulfill desire. Dr. Jekyll develops a medicine that brings this inner beast to life, allowing his primitive self, Mr. Hyde, to do as he pleases. Uninhibitted, Mr. Hyde gets everything he wants, without any regards to the well-being of other members of society.
There is no place where the lessons of this story are more real than in sport. This past Sunday, the Baltimore Ravens won the superbowl by thinking like Dr. Jekyll, then playing like Mr. Hyde. Without a smart and calculated strategy, the game would have easily been handed to the 49ers. With that said, if every move was overthought, especially on defense, the quick 49ers offense would have flown right by them everytime. The key is balancing emotion and arousal with caution and strategy, and releasing the beast as necessary. This is how I plan to race the 2013 season. Pacing will be carefully calculated, but when it comes down to win or lose, the beast has to come out. Sometimes you have to just grit your teeth and push harder than the competitor, no matter where the heart rate is or how many watts you're pushing. Nobody cares which racer has the highest lactate threshold, they care which one crosses the finish line first.
The first race of the season is fast approaching, HITS Ocala on March 23. The data will bring me to the starting line prepared and with a plan, but only the animal inside of me will be able to bury my competition. I'm trying to hit 12,000 yards in the pool, 200 miles on the bike, and about 40 miles of running for the next few weeks of training leading up to Ocala. Just know that when March rolls around, I will be ready. Will you?
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