A lot of what I’ve heard on FastTalk and in many of the discussions here seem focused on achieving optimal performance through physiology and metrics. But another aspect to performance is the holistic lifestyle side. @colbypearce focusses on that a great deal in his show. It’s interesting to me to hear how non- pro/former pro athletes are able to “do all the things” while still having great performances. The lifestyle plays a big part in that.
With that in mind, is anyone willing to share their lifestyle-side intentions for the new year? For the purposes of discussion I will define “lifestyle intentions” succinctly as purely process-oriented objectives. These are things that won’t result in a directly quantifiable outcome but will help make you a happier, more functional whole person who happens also to ride bikes real fast.
Here are mine:
Drink more water. For every cup of coffee, drink a pint of water. Keep drinking throughout the day, not just during meals.
Put a whiteboard on the fridge and use it to communicate my weekly/daily to-do list with my spouse.
Get a bike fit. Experiment with new touch points (saddle, bars, pedals).
Sell old equipment.
Anyone else interested in sharing to give inspiration to the community as we go into the new year?
Prioritize sleep (easier said than done). I haven’t participated in the Sleep quality and training load thread but relates to this and some good resources and suggestions there.
Race against others, but don’t compare yourself to others. This is very tricky for me, and I’m sure for any competitive person. I have other slightly negative mental habits that I fight, so to put it in a more process-oriented way I would say: make it a habit to be grateful, which leads to positive mental state. Positive people win more.
I think I am going to continue on a few things I carry over from last year that have served me well:
The common things - prioritize good diet, healthy training, recovery, sleep, and stress management…
Get back to my roots - don’t skip the weekend fun-social group ride or cut back on commuting just to be “fresh” for the group-race ride. Keeps those rides in, cut back on the “group-race” rides. And stop and enjoy the scenery and sounds more!
Be an advocate (and maybe get into coaching) for the sports I do and include others who want to also participate but are unsure how safely - using my experience to introduce others who want to get on their bike and ride but unsure of the safe places to go or even how to start. I have found it very rewarding to help others get started and teach them and learn from them. I have found it more rewarding than getting into non-social group smashes and just staring at a wheel.
Remove the “toxic” aspects of the cycling/endurance sport fitness and focus on the things that got me into it in the first place. Plan structured training and training rides well. Leave time for the fun and social rides. Don’t push or do a group ride when not recovered adequately just because others are doing it. Don’t ride with those who claim to do a recovery ride with you and then start “Stava-ing”.
@bgkeen I like your #3. My spin on that one would be to help out with trail maintenance days more often, even if it means skipping the ride (can always ride there and back too!). There is a NICA league starting here in Ohio and it would be awesome to help out with that (somewhat selfishly, since I’d love it to be really strong when my kid is old enough to do it!).
These are all great ideas and endeavours! In terms of giving back, one thing I also did as a young racer was to become a commissaire and work a few races a year. It was a good way to enforce a break from racing yourself every few weeks along with appreciating the work involved in putting on events.
Thanks for your comment @steveherman and your responses, everyone else.
A bullet list of mine:
daily 20 min meditation. This is first thing in AM. Sometimes I count exhales, from 1-8 and back from 8-1. I have spent 35 years moving…it’s time train my self to slow the F down. Cultivate stillness.
daily I consume about 2L of water a day, always local spring and I add minerals
daily prayer, which I posted in IG yesterday if you want to check it out
micro moments of meditation or focus on breath
on long work days at my home desk [always on mondays] I break for 30 second - 2 min mini exercise sets: prone cobra, stability ball crunches, fitball pikes [office chair is a fitball so it’s not far away] etc
“micro-mediations” where I stop for 30 seconds, and breathe. Or look at a flower. Or pet my dog or hug my wife.
currently supplementing with lipsomal D, COQ10, NAD+, and immune support.
various teas during the day, usually Tulsi.
Tulsi Sleep tea at night. It’s like an elephant tranquilizer
on long work days, I eat very little, and I consume only healthy fats. Today I had only a double espresso with cinnamon and cacao butter, until about 3pm when I had a small cup of coconut milk and chia “slurry” [only other ingredients were cinnamon, vanilla, honey], then dinner around 6:30PM. This keeps me sharp, big meals tend to kill the momentum.
Sweep your own doorstep, and you make the world a better place.
@ThermalDoc I have always had eye-opening experiences when getting involved from the non-playing side of sports. I was a high school official (baseball, basketball, football) for over 10 years and being on that side of things really makes you appreciate the rules…Once I was on that side I do not second guess “calls made on the field” and even other administrations of events. Everyone is doing their best and doesn’t have time to “play favorites” regardless of what fans may think.
@colbypearce this caught me at a great time this morning. I have been thinking about getting into meditation as well as other breathing exercises. I was about to go down my morning news reading holes (which has the opposite effect of mediation) when I saw your reply. I decided that the next 20 minutes would be best spent on meditation and just cut down my news hole time. I liked how things turned out and I am now setting a goal for my first 20 minutes of the day (maybe I will shoot for 5 days a week) for this year. Thanks for the inspiration!
I love this post, thanks for sharing all your goals. This has inspired me to write down some goals of my own, which is something I have always wanted to do and then just never do it.
Write things down – I have a lot going on in my brain and more often than not I have an idea or a goal or a to-do and because I don’t write it down I completely forget or I remember weeks later when it’s too late. Also, I love the whiteboard idea @SteveHerman
Consistent sleep – more often than not I get enough hours of sleep, but I want to do a better job of consistency with sleep times and wake times.
Sauna – full disclosure, I don’t have a sauna…yet! Lots of research on the benefits of sauna and I would love to have one at my house.
Explore – I like @bgkeen idea of stopping to enjoy the scenery and sounds more. I actually do most of my riding/training indoors most of the year due to time management with job and family. When I go outside to ride I tend to focus too much on the training aspect and not on the being outside in nature aspect. I just moved to a new city so I hope to explore my local roads and just enjoy being outside doing what I love.
I am sure there will be many more goals that come and go during the year and if I am any good with #1 above, maybe I’ll write them down!
Great thread everyone! There are some amazing goals listed out, and I think going through this list is great for anyone who reads the thread as it will provide motivation and additional ideas for methods to improve those lifestyle intentions. I love the gratitude suggestion as this is something I’ve said to my athletes many times in the past. This helps us stay in a very positive space and really supports our evolution as humans and athletes.
Here are some of mine:
Continue to focus less on results and more on the experience. Enjoyment of the experience will provide the appropriate results and drive a positive feedback loop.
Maintain strength training through the year to support health as a newly minted 40 year old.
+1 for more frequent meditation.
Set some goals with the kids and do some “epic” shit with them on bikes!
@ryan#4 goal is the hardest challenge for me. I have an 11 and 9 year old. They love to do things outside, but not with me or my wife. We do nice weather and holiday family runs and bike rides - some are pretty epic. I love doing them but just getting them going is quite the endurance event and then it is a mental resilience training session dealing with their complaining during it
Thanks again for putting this out here. It here has made me more committed to my 2021 intentions - at least for now . I have made an online journal and planning on writing how I did with these along with a few more family-focused ones and plan on reviewing how I did every week. Also adding in a few questions for both my training/activity and my family-focus. I feel if I can reflect and look forward once a week it will help keep a good focus:
Wow! This has turned out to be a great thread! I’m glad others are finding value in it.
@bgkeen and @murphyy12 I keep a race journal/spreadsheet to record a bunch of relevant info for my CX races (tires/pressure, weather, schedule) and outcomes (objective and subjective). I reflect on exactly your four points every week and I can say from experience that it is incredibly useful. This is my “secret sauce” that I can go back to each year to help refine the process. I don’t find looking back on TP comments terribly useful since it isn’t straightforward to go backwards but the excel file where I keep my race journal is set up that way.
@ryan +1 on doing strength throughout the year. While I have a few years before I’m a 40+, time waits for no one. I also think I lose muscle mass faster than most.
I dig the epic adventures with your kids goals. I bought a bike trailer for my toddler and I to ride around in. He doesn’t love it yet, and I’ve only got him out for 30 minutes at a time before he’s had enough. Any tips? I’m looking forward to doing hill repeats with the trailer this spring #gainz
Hey @SteveHerman, yeah the trailers can be a blessing and a curse depending how the kiddo feels about it on any given day! I had a routine with my first kid (I was doing the stay-at-home dad gig for 2.5 years with him, and it was amazing) where we would do our morning routine of breakfast, I’d get some work done, etc. Near mid-day we would make lunch for my wife, who worked about 30 minutes away (by bike) and then I would pull him on the trailer and we would meet her for lunch. On the way back he would usually be ready for a nap, and it mostly worked where he would fall asleep and I would either get a 30 min ride back home, OR I would take my chances and get the occasional bike pathlete adventure of another 60ish minutes of riding by taking the long way home.
I definitely took some hilly routes, but rarely found the time to do any type of “workout” other than either a base effort or a tempo effort. The more consistently I could ride, the better he seemed to handle it. We had a few breakdowns where we were 30 minutes away from home and he had enough, but we worked through it and it was all good.
This past summer, we had his longest MTB ride yet at a great loop in town, so I like to think those trailer miles helped build his base
. I have made an online journal and planning on writing how I did with these along with a few more family-focused ones and plan on reviewing how I did every week. Also adding in a few questions for both my training/activity and my family-focus. I feel if I can reflect and look forward once a week it will help keep a good focus:
