Words of Wisdom

One of those Perth Winter days today. Not quite miserable enough curl up in a ball and drink hot chocolate, but not quite pleasant enough to be outside having picnics. Sort of in between. A very frustrating sort of day for exercise.

I caught up with a few athletes this morning and all of them expressed frustration with the weather and their inability to dodge it, despite their best efforts. It is the unfortunate reality of July in Perth, it is the middle of Winter after all. Really we shouldn't complain too much as our Winter is pretty mild and it could be a whole lot worse, but it is still annoying when it happens.

For myself I was pretty lucky. I got in 90 minutes of paddling without a drop of rain this morning. It wasn't until I was talking to people later that I realised how lucky that was, nearly everybody else everywhere spent the morning getting soaked. The rest of the day has been annoying though, I was keen to get in a bit more exercise for today, but that hasn't eventuated, just to plain horrible outside. In fact I wish I could play a recording of what I am currently hearing outside my window, just a wee bit of a storm. Hopefully this current storm may blow itself out by the morning, although I am not particularly confident of that happening.

One of those days where you just need to suck it up and do the work. Not pretty, but necessary.

On that topic, I saw an interesting statement in an interview today. The interview came up on the TrainingPeaks blog.

TrainingPeaks Blog

The interview was with Tim Kennaugh who is the performance manager for team EF Education First-Drapac p/b Cannondale.

When asked if there was any other wisdom or nerdyness he'd like to share about training, this was his answer.

I think just do the simple things, right? Everyone’s trying to look for the next big thing, the 1%. But is your diet good? Are you consistent with your training? Do you rest? Just the basics take you a really long way. Not everyone has them nailed down before they’re looking for the super workout or the special diet. The basics are diet, consistency, and recovery.And ride slow—I think a lot of people get caught up in just doing lots of work in zone 3 and 4, riding really hard all the time. There are so many adaptations that come from riding in zone 2. It really works to just keep a really long zone 2 ride in your week, for sure. Even as you get into the season, definitely keep a few maintenance rides just to maintain your condition.

I have always thought that people spend too much time looking for silver bullets with their training rather than just concentrating on the basics. It was nice to see that I am not the only one who things that sometimes. Nice little reminder for us all.