Two Types of People

While visiting my folks for Christmas I paid my yearly visit to church to hear my Dad preach. It's no secret that we don't exactly see that whole religion thing through the same perspective but I do enjoy watching my Dad do what he does so well. He's a great public speaker and so I generally go into my annual service looking to find something to take away from his message that is not theologically based.

I remember he said something along the lines of, "There are two types of people in the world, those that separate people into two categories and those that don't." Right away the irony of this statement and message jumped out at me and I laughed to myself, but also, if it's assumed that it's a true statement, I am very firmly in the category of people that do the separating.

I essentially see life through filters, many, many filters. There are people that plan and people that don't. There are people that eat meat and people that don't. People that shower and people that don't. These are broad, but everything, to me, breaks down into two categories.

Bike racers are no different. There are basically two types of bike racers, numbers geeks and everybody else. In this month's issue of Road Magazine there is a great interview with Floyd Landis which puts him into the "everybody else" box.

The following is the best paraphrasing of the article I can do from memory. But, the point is going to be the same.

Road Magazine: What have you been doing for training?
Floyd: You know, I go out and ride around a bit.

RM: You must have some sort of structure.
F: I get on my bike and I ride for as hard as I can for as long as I can. I know what hills I need to ride up. I know about how long it should take. I haven't had anything with numbers on my handlebars for two years.

RM: [Some sort of probing question]
F: I have a hard time convincing myself that I should ride fast up this hill for 4 minutes when it takes 5 minutes to get to the top. What do I do at the end? Turn around, go home, get in they car? I've never tried to do intervals in a race, but I'm not sure it'd work out. Am I supposed to tell the group that we're going to ride slow for the next 15 minutes so I can recover and then ride fast again? If I'm tired I go home. If I'm tired and motivated I ride some more. If I'm tired in the middle of the ride I go to In-N-Out Burger. If I'm tired and I'm home, I sleep.

This series of answers regarding training doesn't surprise me since I've read a lot about Floyd over the past few years. But, it's important for the rest of us mere mortals to keep in mind that Floyd is a naturally gifted freak. He is the proud owner of one of the highest V02max numbers of anybody ever tested. You know how all you people think Lance has the highest because he was the first person to care about such things and everybody made a big deal about it. Yeah, Floyd's is higher. So it might be possible for Floyd to go out with no real structure to his plan, ride as hard as he can for as long as he can and then race in the pro peloton, but for most of us, this just isn't really the way that we're going to get faster.

It's also important to note that Floyd hasn't always felt this way about training. He's always been laid back about the whole process, but back in 2006 when he won that little race called the Tour de France, he was the biggest athlete on the endorsement list for Cyclops, the company that makes the power tab rear hub. Floyd worked with Dr. Allen Lim, the leading coach in power training, and they posted all his numbers on his website for all of the world to see. Stage 17, where Floyd went solo over 3 mountain passes to win and put himself back in contention for the leader's jersey, the stage that eventually tested him "positive" for "abnormally high testosterone levels," wasn't left off of the website where you could go look at Floyd's power output for the day. In fact, if you know what you're looking for, it was actually a pretty shitty effort. Everybody else in the group was just feeling even more shitty than he was and so nobody followed. It wasn't a super human effort like that of Riccardo Ricco at the 2008 Tour, but, nobody seems to take that into consideration, and now this has turned into me defending Floyd, which isn't my goal.

The point is most of us need those numbers on our handlebars. We need feed back from cadence, heart rate and time at the absolutely minimum. Power numbers would be ideal but some of us are poor and every time we look at a power meter online it makes us cry a little bit and hate all the rich kids rolling around with the SRM that daddy bought them. Those numbers tell you very important things as you're riding. Sometimes you feel tired because you're over trained but sometimes it's because you're being a wuss and need to get yourself mentally into the effort at hand. The feedback from your heart rate will let you know the difference. Floyd is also working in recovery days, but like most pros they don't like to talk about those. They only talk about the fast days which makes most amateur think the way to ride your bike faster is to always get on your bike and ride it faster. Unfortunately, this method of training is going to result in a plateau that you'll hit relatively quickly.

One last point of note, I realize that my boy Floyd has been out of racing for two years but while he was training with power, a coach and a plan he won the 2006 Tour of California, 2006 Paris-Nice and the 2006 Tour de France. So far in 2009 when he, "Rides around a bit," he's finished 23rd, just over 10 minutes down on Levi. I realize he had a bit of bad luck on Stage 1 where it took him about 5 minutes to get a new wheel after he flatted because neutral support got pulled off the course and I also realize it'll take some good racing before he gets his race legs back under him. But, maybe there's something to be said about riding 4 minutes fast.

And, totally unrelated to training, is he endorsed by In-N-Out? He works it into every single interview I've ever read. He orders his fries "Animal Style." I didn't even know that was possible. Gonna have to try that sometime!