A few years back I started to get semi-serious about cycling. There is a great group of riders here in Saratoga called the Saratoga Freewheelers who ride out of Blue Sky Bicycles on Church St. They have some regular rides a few days each week during the summer (for all levels). http://saratogacyclingclub.com/. It was riding with them that I was encouraged. There are a few competitive riders in the group, and I was pumped when they said I was decent and I should do a race sometime. Anyway... my story begins with this new found idea that I could be decent enough to race. Later that summer, one of my former rowers (Emily Serotta) brought a friend home from college who was on the Bucknell Cycling team. While he was doing an internship at Serotta http://www.serotta.com/ and I was training for my first ride from Saratoga to the Canadian Henley I decided to ask if he wanted to do a few rides with me. The first time out, we rode up West Mountain Rd. Priding myself in my hill riding ability, I was a little disheartened as he seemed lighter than air as he flew right up the hill, while I plodded my way up. But, I was a novice, so I just figured it would take a little while before I was that fast. 2 days later we went for another ride... this time fewer hills, and out to River Rd. We were riding along happily at similar speeds and sharing the lead when we wanted to push it. Then the most amazing thing happened (to him thankfully :-)) My Bucknell racer friend "bonked". I am not sure I had ever seen or experienced it that clearly. One moment we are side by side and I am pretty sure he is the stronger of us, the next moment he cannot keep up. I slow down... he still cannot keep up. At this point we are a good 20-25 miles from home and if we continue at this rate, we will not make dinner... And then it happened... Candy from Heaven. As we limped our way home, we came across an unwrapped Butterfinger candy bar http://www.butterfinger.com/ on the side of the road out among the farms. The debate was lengthy, but we both knew in the end he was going to eat that Butterfinger bar from Heaven. A little while later, he had regained some of his energy, and we were able to make it home at a reasonable but not ambitious pace.
That was a long story to get to this point. Actually, let me squeeze in one more interesting - related - point... Today while getting my car inspected I was reading "Car and Driver" Magazine. They had an article reviewing the most expensive and fastest production car in the world. At a base price of $1,250,000 the Bugatti Veyron http://www.bugatti.com/en/veyron-16.4.html has a max speed of 253 mph. At max speed, the car gets a very thirsty 3 mpg. Yikes, I thought... until I did the math (I am a bit of a nerd) The car is going 4.2 miles/minute, and the car is burning 1 gallon every 3 miles. That means the car burns a gallon of fuel in less than 44 seconds - I am not sure you could pour a gallon of gas that fast. Double Yikes! I digress...
The human body requires energy to perform. Whether you are a Volkswagen beetle, or a Bugatti veyron you are not going to perform at the peak capacity of your machine if you do not have the required fuel to do so. That Bugatti is a STUD athlete. But if there is only a gallon of gas in the tank, you had better be next to a gas station because it is going to be hard to push that thing.
In cycling, like my story above, it was easy to see what had happened to my friend. I did not chalk it up to a lack of mental toughness, I did not assume in 2 days he went from the better cyclist to the worse cyclist. So, what is wrong with our sport of rowing. Why do people always blame the inability to hold splits on lack of mental toughness? It would be hyperbole (SAT word) to say "there is no such thing as mental toughness" but... I think it fair to say that a good portion of what we call a lack of mental toughness is actually a lack of physical preparation.
There is an old saying that I was recently reminded of: "Eat like a king at breakfast, a prince at lunch, and a pauper at dinner" I learned this lesson three times in my own life... and I am sure will have to learn it a fourth time... because our society keeps trying to change my mind. First, when I was training in college. I was trying to gain weight, and so I was eating big anyway, but I found that the bigger I ate at breakfast, the better I felt during the day, and the better I performed. Interestingly, the more I ate early in the day, the less hungry I was later in the day... Eventually my eating pattern transformed to the King,Prince,Pauper.... But, since I was trying to gain weight at the time... it became like work to eat more in the evenings - because I was not very hungry.
The next time I learned this lesson was after I had participated in a study on the effects of Creatine. Prof. Arciero (our yoga guy) was doing a study on the effects of Creatine. I was being paid to participate ($50) in this Skidmore Sponsored Study and I was part of the control group (at least I think I was... I hope I was not on Placebo) My job in this study was to mix up a kool-ade type drink of Creatine, drink it daily, and NOT workout. Easy cash right? I thought so. Well, over the course of the study I put on almost 20 lbs. It cost me a $300 gym membership to get back to my athletic weight. During that time of losing weight, I remembered the lessons of trying to gain weight. If I eat like a King in the morning, and a Prince at lunch, I will not be hungry later in the day. AND I will still feel great all day and have plenty of energy to perform the tasks of the day. So I developed this idea that breakfast calories did not count, Lunch calories counted, and dinner calories counted double. Piece of cake (but only if it was for breakfast).
The last time I learned the same lesson was during my last 2 years at Harvard. I had a tiny "room" in which I lived in Cambridge. I do not cook, my idea of food shopping is going to the Salad bar, or buying a can of soup. In those 2 years, I never used a stove, and my mini fridge only held left-overs and Diet Lipton Green Tea with citrus. So, I had to find a way to live inexpensively while eating all my meals out. Once again, the old adage came through... Eat like a King for breakfast (breakfast is CHEAP...). Eat like a Prince for Lunch (lunch Specials!), and eat like a Pauper for dinner (a salad from the grocery salad bar, or a bowl of soup). Viola... a man with no money who loves to eat can afford to eat every meal out.
Recently I have been trying to stress this lifestyle with my athletes. The pieces of their life for which they need proper fueling happen between 8 a.m. - 6 p.m. Why, then, would they wait until 7 p.m. to really get their body fueled well... just in time to go sedentary. They all respond something like "I know, I know "breakfast is the most important meal of the day"" If we all know it... Why do we not do it? Almost everyone says they are not hungry in the morning, or they cannot eat, or they have enough time.
(This is getting way too long... but I think it is important for everyone)
Well, that is all training. Of course you are not hungry... you stuffed yourself at dinner. Eating habits are very cyclical... once you get into a bad pattern, you need to break it. You have to make a goal of going to bed a little bit hungry and waking up famished (it is called break-fast after all). Otherwise, you will never be hungry in the morning. As for those who say they do not have enough time... I will leave you with one of my favorite quotes.
If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend six sharpening my axe. -- AbrahamLincoln
Time spent waking up a little earlier and having a nice hearty breakfast with some protein is like time spent sharpening the axe. If you no not do it, the rest of your day will not be effective. Sharpen the axe, and you will find the tree is cut down much quicker.
