Time and time again on various MTB media articles across all mediums I read lines like “so and so has the “fitness” and “strength” or “fitness and power” to win etc… Each time I read such a line I cry a little inside! The line that inspired this short post was the following;
“Rider1 had all of the power and fitness for the stage one win and the overall”.
Well what’s wrong with that I hear you ask…? It’s pretty straight forward really, the misappropriation of the word fitness. It’s become a strange old catch-all for qualities of endurance specific to each discipline and frankly as a physical preparation/coaching professional it gets my goat!
Fitness, simply, is suitability for a task, in the case of Enduro, for example, that encompasses many things, i.e. many components of fitness! Power being one of them, along with strength, aerobic capacity, anaerobic power and capacity, mobility, flexibility, stability…..it’s a long and frankly comprehensive list.
“Fitness” has many components but is not a specific single quality and as such should never be spoken about as one single un-tangible thing! Now you probably think I’m being unnecessarily pedantic but I’m anything but, my job is to increase riders “fitness” and do so I need to know what exact physical qualities/components are required to excel in their sport and discipline and in what ratios!
You see if for example Rider1in the quote above had very poor power then he would no longer have the “fitness” to win Stage One! Simple. Power is a crucial component of fitness for a mountain biker…in all disciplines. What the author has done here is confused the word “Fitness” with “Endurance” .
Endurance has many definitions but really it’s most simply defined as “the ability to resist fatigue”.Not quite the same as fitness now is it!? How do we achieve “endurance” for out sport I hear you ask? We work on the components of fitness most relevant to our discipline, building them in such a way that we can not only meet or exceed the physical demands of that discipline but also resist the fatigue that meeting those demands creates!
Maybe the above went over your head or seemed totally pointless but for me it’s a question of culture and the environment that that culture creates!
Do the small things perfectly and the big things will look after themselves. Educating riders I work with is a key part of the coaching process and even small things like using the correct terminology consistently, leads to a productive environment where we all on the same page and focused on the same goal!
Rant over.
Oh and for those interested the varied and debatable” Components of Fitness are;
Like a flapjack but designed to maintain or maybe, who knows, even improve performance during your training rides or sessions! Between DH runs, on the lift when partaking in Broduro laps or trail side on a trail ride, these PowerJacks are simple to make, quick to cook, tasty, moist and portable! Get on the program my friends.
Ingredients:
Dry
150g rolled oats – (soaked overnight in a small amount of yogurt/water/milk if you wish – adjust wet ingredients accordingly)
2 scoops (abut 120g) of your favourite “Recovery Mix” – I used Kinetica’s Complete (Chocolate Flavour) this time but have used similar products from High 5 and Optimum Nutrition.
Sunflower seeds and hazelnuts (or similar) to taste
1tsp of cinnamon
Wet
1 ripe banana
150ml of Milk of choice (Cow’s, almond, hazelnut, rice etc… – not Soya, soya milk is filth!)
1 tsp of Vanilla extract
35-50 g of honey or maple syrup (Optional)
How To
Pre-Heat a fan-oven to 180c. Mix all wet ingredients together until well combined; add to dry until a nice consistent mixture is obtained. Spoon mixture out into a rectangle about 1.5cm thick on a parchment paper lined oven tray. Top with Sunflower seeds for added texture and awesomeness!
Cook for 12-15mins in the oven, just enough so its slightly browned, to long and you’ll have some dry Jacks!
Remove from oven and immediately, but gently, cut into “bars” – this mixture will make 12-15 small bars. Let cool and BOOM you’ve got yourself some PowerJacks!
Make sure to eat with water/fluids and reap the benefits! Finished product below. Store them in some Tupperware for up to 3 days!
Performance Bread, Perf Cake…I wasn’t really sure what to call this creation but once I tasted it I knew it was more cake than bread and overall as it’s packed FULL of nutrients, vitamins and minerals it’s really a perfect mid-Ride snack, but too calorie dense to just snack on all day everyday! So Point1 Ride-Cake™ it has become!
Based on a Point1 Athlete only bread I call Bulk-Bread™ this cake is easy to make, requires 2 bowls only and one cake tin. One of the main ingredients is almond flour/meal so while very high in fat the mineral content is high and as such a perfect snack item to have for rides or epic trips that are going over the 2hr mark. It has a soft tasty texture, provides a variety of multi-transportable sugars/carbohydrates, is high in magnesium, phosphorus, potassium and has small amounts of sodium! All very important for muscle function and contraction. Due to the eggs protein content is high too so in theory and based on some limited research it may help you recover quicker and lead to less muscle soreness post ride, but that is debatable for now!
So here it goes:
Dry Ingredients
1 Cup Almond flour/meal (blanched or not your choice)
Half cup of buckwheat flour, Quarter cup wholewheat flour(ahh gluten), 3-4 tbps cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder or bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp cinnamon (ground
Wet Ingredients
4 eggs (free-range) lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla essence
6 or more tbps honey (melted)
50g-75g 70%+ dark chocolate (melted)
1 very-ripe banana
Combine all wet ingredients in a bowl, until well mixed. In a large, separate bowl combine all dry ingredients until you get a nice smooth “flour”. Add wet to dry, mix well but not overly well.
Transfer everything to a baking paper lined “cake-tin”, through it in an pre-heated oven at 180c for 31mins. Take it out, cool, enjoy!
Top Tips:
If you are eating this while riding you must sip plenty of water. This is a “real-food” snack for riding so ideally only consumed after the 2hr 30min mark. Over consumption will lead to bad things mainly due to osmolity issues and subsequent stomach cramps. So be smart. 2 thickish slices with a small amount of jam between is perfect. Especially if you have had a gel, chew, fruit or other simpler carbohydrate source at the 1hr + mark into your ride.
Finally after a big days training or riding if you are searching for a simple dessert than Ride-Cake™ covered in Natural or Greek yogurt with some seeds and fruit is amazing!
And finally, finally – Feel free to remove the Wheat flour and replace with a gluten free alternative or just 1 full cup of buckwheat flour. The cocoa and half the flours could easily be replaced with your favorite protein powder to increase protein content. The cake would then become less “Ride” focused though. Likewise playing with extra honey, bananas or adding in a maltodextrin powder or other carbohydrate source to increase it’s “energy” content is fine. Possibilities are endless so go get animal in the kitchen.
Energy bar, “power-bar” (that’s a Nestlé brand..be careful now), “cereal bar” (certainly not, cereal is mainly for horses), pro-bar, a serious slab of home-made awesome! Call it what you will these bars are made with a basic “corner-stone” recipe that can be modified as needed to up any particular macro nutrient content you want, cover on or off the bike micro-nutrient worries or just simply to taste awesome and cover your energy needs out on a big old ride!
Other than in a prolonged flat out race like XCO, a time-trial or similar I’m a big fan of covering your energy needs via small, frequent intake of solid food and an electrolyte or “light” energy based drink.
These bars cover all of the needed bases, taste, texture, energy, micro-nutrients, simplicity, portability!
Pretty easy to make, simple to adjust, hold together well, have plenty of carbohydrate from multi-transportable sources and don’t stick to tin foil making an uneatable mess in your pocket.
So here goes! Choc-Nut-Protein-Fruit-Energy-#Point1-Pro-Bar – Surely there is a catchier name than that?
Ingredients:
1 cup of Medjool Dates or other re-hydrated or moist fruit
1 scoop of Chocolate or Vanilla Protein Powder
1 teaspoon of Cocoa powder (if desired, depends how “dark chocolate” you want them to taste)
Half cup of Rolled Oats
Half to 3/4 cup of Apple Sauce
1 cup of frozen Raspberries
Half cup of dried, unsweetened Coconut
5-6 tablespoons of honey
Handful of nuts of choice – I used hazelnuts only in this recipe
Texture of batter should be thick, smooth and slow running – you can add a small amount of liquid or dry ingredients to the above to achieve this texture – It all depends on your fruit “dryness” I think – But choose extra ingredients carefully – Think of Macro content!
How to:
Mix/Blitz the medjool dates with a teaspoon or two of water in a large bowl with a handheld blender – This may take a while (the dates will need to be pitted and chopped before you start)
Add all of the wet ingredients to the Dates and mix until you get a nice runny consistency – The honey may have to be heated slightly to stop it sticking. Add in your frozen Raspberries or other frozen fruit and mix well.
In another bowl thoroughly mix all of your dry ingredients – Slowly add the wet mixture to the dry until a nice smooth batter is achieved!
Poor this into a baking paper lined dish and place in a pre-heated oven at 170c – (I used a fab oven so adjust temperature accordingly)
Cook until a little crispy but not black on top – a small knife should come out clean – To get a nice texture for storage and use on the bike it’s important to use a try big enough so that the batter pours out to an even 1cm – 1.5cm while wet in the dish. After cooking this should rise to almost 2cm and be perfect to cut into consistent but moist bars.
The above recipe makes from 10-14 bars depending on how you cut them.
Please feel-free to comment on how you’ve modified the recipe or even if you like the taste or have any thoughts, tips or tricks!
Gnarly Granola! This is taste central. “Shop Bought” granola and muesli will often have plenty of additives, preservatives and generally a huge amount of grain and not much of the good stuff you want, i.e. – nuts, seeds, fruits, quality honey and no added sugar!
So step in the simple as chips Point1 Gnarola™, like granola only gnarlier!!!
This is simple enough to make even for those who burn water in the kitchen, all you need to do is buy good qaulity ingredients, drop the smartphone for 8 minutes and you are set.
Ingredients:
DRY
150g Mixed Nuts (I used Walnuts and Hazelnuts but whatever nuts you want, brazil-nuts taste amazing and are packed with selenium!)
250g or about 2 Cups of raw rolled Oats
35g Pumpkin Seeds
50g Ground Flaxseed/Linseed/Chia Seed…any seed!
25g chopped/dried coconut
2 tsp or more of Cinnamon
WET
15-20ml Walnut oil
150g or 4-5 TBSP of decent Honey (Maple Syrup works fine too)
AFTER BAKING – ***optional***
150g Chopped dried fruits of choice – I used fig, sultanas and prunes – re-hydrate if you wish
How To:
Pre-Heat the oven to 155c (fan oven) – Line a decent size baking tray with parchment/baking paper.
Mix all of the dry ingredients together in a large bowl – you can play with exact quantities of each type of ingredient.
Combine your oil and honey in a small bowl and heat until real runny over a bain-marie or at worst in the microwave.
Pour wet stuff into dry, give it a good mix (it should coat but not overwhelm the dry ingredients); spread out all of the Gnarola mixture thinly onto the baking tray, place in the oven for 10-15 minutes until she is golden and crispy! Make sure to keep an eye on the oven as it burns easily and burnt food ain’t ever good for you! EVER!
Once out of the oven, you should have a dry, light and crispy granola. Add in your chopped mixed fruit, let cool and store in an airtight container.
It can be enjoyed with the milk of your choice, but my favourite is with yogurt as part of a pre-ride breakfast. A big sprinkle on some good porridge made from well soaked steel-cut oats is amazing also, especially with more cinnamon and apple compote on top!
Basic Nutritional stuff:
Obviously with all the fruit, honey and oats this is not the kind of thing to be eaten 5 times a day in huge quantities if you want to stay, lets say, in race shape. Enjoy it in moderation as part of an overall savage diet and you’ll be well….a savage!
The oats are packed with fibre and carbohydrate, the honey is a wild mix of a variety of sugars. Nuts like hazelnuts and walnuts are packed with thiamine (B1), Vitamin B6, protein, quality fats and very importantly for any bike rider minerals like magnesium, manganese, zinc and iron all of which are very important for proper CNS function, cell health and muscular contraction.
Likewise sunflower seeds and flax-seed both pack a mega nutritional punch with high amounts of fibre and trace minerals!
Finally the dried fruits (dates, figs and sultanas in this case) add to the carbohydrate content which is important on a riding or training day or for recovery but they also, unknown to many people, are full to their sweet wee gills with important minerals like iron, magnesium, zinc and potassium! Add in the cinnamon and all the yogurt, “veggie milks” or whatever else you eat with the Gnarola and you’ve got yourself a serious snack!
Wrap Up: Point1 Gnarola™ – Tastes the business, is packed with quality carbohydrate, protein, fats, vitamins, minerals and provides a great crunchy texture in a moderate GI package that’s packed with fibre! Enjoy it anyway you want.
Feel free to comment with any additional ingredients you add.
I do alot of cooking/baking and all-around tasty performance eating. Just because something is supremely healthful and conducive to performance doesn’t mean it has to taste bad!
These pancakes are a perfect example. Packed with protein, a variety of carbohydrates and a small dose of tasty fats. They make a perfect afternoon snack, a pre-training meal about 1 hr out or even better with loads of yogurt and/or fresh fruit at breakfast!
Ingredients:
Half cup of buckwheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
2-3 Tbs of ground flax seed – (I used a ground flax/sunflower seed mix)
1 egg lightly beaten
2 ripe and mushy bananas
Half a cup of your milk of choice (cow’s, almond, rice etc…)
Water as needed to get desired thick but runny texture
Optional extras:Vanilla extract or 1 scoop of protein powder to replace flax for added Protein but less taste!
Real simple to make, mix all the dry ingredients well. Combine, in a separate bowl, all of the wet ingredients then add the two together until a good mixture is obtained. It will be quite thick so add a little water until you are happy with the consistency! Trial and error at first for those not used to making pancakes. I used full-fat cow’s milk as it’s awesome stuff if you are not intolerant, it makes the tastiest pancakes but vanilla or plain rice or almond milk works perfectly also.
Cook on a hot pan, no need for oil or butter, just patience! They take a few minutes to brown each side and it’s better if you pour them thin as they rise and in general are quite moist. The finished product should have a nutty banana flavour, be real light and fluffy and literally melt in your mouth. – Savage!
I’ve not broken down the Macro nutritional content yet, but it’s all health and all amazing although they do pack some calories in a small space so if you are trying to loose body fat for performance then don’t go too wild!
Top tip for cooking these is let the first side brown totally before you try and flip, there’s no silly wheat or other grass in here so they take patience to cook! You can also easily mix and match ingredients to suit. Apple sauce instead of bananas, tapioca flour or some almond meal instead of half or all of the buckwheat flour, more eggs for a heavier cake. Just play with it. Although be warned there ain’t nothing as awesome as Buckwheat in my opinion.
I think next-up in the cooking series is the Point1 Badass grain-free Brownies!
Feel free to ask any questions! Keep ‘er lit and #eatreal
Now Heart Rate monitors are Old School, that is a fact; they’ve been around a long time and these days Power Metre’s are the “holy-grail” of monitoring performance trends on the bike. But sometimes old school has it’s place, just like Steve Peat, old school can still get the job done and done well at times!
Using a HR monitor to see trends in fitness, freshness and fatigue and backing this up with Perceived Exertion as an experienced rider is still very valid. the key being consistent use of the same HR monitor!
Check out the graph below. A straight forward repeat sprint session,. Aim of the session is was to improve the aerobic capabilities of the fast-twitch or “more powerful” muscle fibres of the pedaling muscle on my actual Enduro race bike.
After a pretty simple 25 min warm-up, there were 2 sets of 6, 8 sec uphill sprints from a very slow rolling start. Maximum intent was given on every “sprint” and recovery between sprints was dictated by a drop to 135bpm or below. You can also see there was a 4 min rest gap between sets; active rest!
So what can a HR graph like this tell you about fitness, freshness and fatigue? Well as long as you correlate the numbers and trends with perceived exertion you can start to see some telling signs.
1. About one quarter way into the warm-up I decided to open up the taps a little on a long section of smooth trail. Going inot a slight head wind, I built up steadily over 45sec+, never feeling like a monster effort, I had a quick look at the HR monitor and I was sitting at 200bpm, a little more pressure on the cranks and I was at 203bpm. My true Max HR.
Basically being able to hit high or maximum HR’s without a monster feeling of effort usually points to good freshness and certainly gave me the green light to attack this session. A Repeat Sprint session like this needs good overall freshness but also a fresh and healthy Central Nervous System to maximise effort on each sprint, so ease of hitting high HR’s coupled with fast and “snappy” legs = Green Light!
2. The first set of “intervals” or more precisely sprints also show good freshness and pretty good general “adaptive reserves”. HR wasn’t used in this session to dictate intensity (it seldom should be really), but we can see is that following each effort HR rose and fell quickly. My body was able to quickly meet the huge demands being placed on it with each sprint and then recover after each one quickly.
What you are looking for is pretty uniform “spikes” and “troughs” in a session like this. My target recovery HR was 132bpm. Once I dropped to that I got into position and attacked another sprint.
3. Set 2 shows pretty equally good waves of effort and recovery but if you look closely you can see a wider base to each spike, meaning I was taking a little longer to reach my target recovery HR than in the first set, pretty normal really given the nature of the sprints,but also something good to use as a gauge for subsequent session, hoping to see a closer set 1 and 2 as aerobic fitness and mechanical power improve.
Obviously with other metrics like speed, cadence or better yet power we could tell even more precisely how “fresh” I was coming into this session or how it compared to previous sessions of the same type!
Having said that a €60 HR monitor can be a great tool for those on a budget or those new to the whole idea of planned, specific training.
Any questions, feel free to ask below in the comments.
Now while there are a few staple go to exercises that should form the bulk of any sound strength training program (deadlift, squats, single-leg work, push ups, pull ups, TGU’s etc…). It’s nice to have a few extra moves in the “toolbox” to keep things fun, motivating and sometimes maybe to kill a few birds with one stone.
Step in #1 in hopefully a long series of interesting moves to add to your strength and power training! The RFESS Iso Hold Med Ball Slam.
Sounds like a right handful but it’s not! Get into a rear foot elevated split squat position (a move that should be in your regular routine), Knee at 90 degrees, hips and shoulders square, pelvis neutral (no forward or backward tilt/slide) and then slam that med ball hard, reacting to the bounce, reloading and slamming again! Aim for 2-3 sets of 4-6 reps per side and be very certain you keep lead leg at 90 degrees, torso “tall”, hips and shoulders square and lead foot planted flat on the floor!
It’s a power move for the upper body, with isometric strength demands for the lower body and great hip, torso and shoulder mobility and stability demands thrown in for good measure! Slam hard and enjoy! Form is critical as always. I was only using a 3kg med-ball in the video below.
Protein, well it’s the bees knees (not literally). A macro-nutrient that is the major structural component of muscle tissue and many other structures in the body. Used to produce enzymes, hormones and hemoglobin, protein is formed by amino acids, there are 22 standard in total, 9 of which are essential which means you need to get them from the plate and into your mouth!
Regardless of your sport you need all essential amino acids in the diet, in adequate quantities to promote health and well-being, to keep all the normal processes in the body working and obviously to maintain or create new muscle mass! It’s the fact that our muscle mass is solely maintained by the ingestion of amino acids (read Protein) that make it so important for all athletes to get enough of the right types of protein at the right time! Our muscles are the movement creators. Getting from A to B on your bike only happens by the contraction and relaxation of muscle fibre. Simple!
Exercise or training (strength or endurance) of any kind causes the breakdown of muscle but also signals your body to create or synthesis new muscle. The positive balance of amino acids in the body is what will result in the creation of new muscle and a positive adaptation to training. So basically if you train you need to eat enough protein to ensure you’ll create new muscle, adapt to the training, feel recovered and fresh the next day and make PROGRESS!
The challenges that Enduro produces, especially during extended training sessions and competitions is that it’s an acute mix of aerobic endurance, strength endurance and power repeatability. You are riding all day and then pushing the body and all it’s systems to the max for 3-15 mins at a time 3-8 times a day for the timed stages! Hard stuff that requires plenty of quality carbohydrate but also plenty of decent protein to ensure full recovery from racing and increases in strength, power and endurance from training!
The first step to making sure you get enough protein to maintain a positive protein balance in the muscles is eating protein with each meal! Animal or plant sources, it doesn’t matter, but make sure you are combining plenty of sources if getting your protein from plants as most plants lack a few key essential amino acids (remember those from above?). Quinoa, buckwheat and sprouted lentils are some plant sources of protein that get you all the essential amino acids. Animal sources are usually “complete”. So, simply, 20-30g of protein per meal (a chicken breast has about 25-32g).
And here-in lies the challenge for the Enduro athlete! If you are racing for 5 – 6 hrs in a day how do you make sure you get adequate protein in your diet?
1. Eat 20-30g of Protein with your final meal before racing/training. This will frequently be breakfast and having protein at breakfast is always important, not only does it make sure you have enough protein for muscle synthesis it also leaves you feeling fuller for longer, adds taste and texture to your meal and lows down the absorption of your carbohydrate meaning you have a nice steady release of energy throughout the morning. This final meal should be about 1h 30min before you start your pre-race warm-up and can contain whatever you want, meat, eggs, fish, milk, yogurt, beans, pulses etc.. all contain protein!
2. Protein during the day? The most challenging one. Trying to get enough protein on the bike? Is it even necessary? Well like I mentioned above ingesting protein with your carbohydrate can actually slow down your digestion of that carb (but speed up the protein absorption!) and for some people this can also cause bowel/stomach cramps and problems. Not what you want when racing. But there is some evidence to show that having a source of protein during prolonged exercise can help maintain protein balance in the muscles and in theory speed up recovery and adaptation. The bottom line is experiment, maybe a half a homemade or bought protein bar in the bag or some chicken? It’s personal but keep in mind that normally at the 3hr mark of exercise you should be thinking about having some solid food, so a natural energy bar home-made or like a Clif-bar will have around 9-10g of protein in it anyway.
3.After training or racing! It seems going to the gym and slamming a protein shake ASAP afterwards is ubiquitous nowadays and rightly so. Getting quality easily absorbed protein into the body ASAP after training is the best way to make sure you keep or make your muscle mass and recovery well. So pre-planning is key here. Make sure you can get a good protein source into you ASAP after racing or training, a whey type powder or recovery formula of whey and sugars mixed is the most popular and convenient, but real food is also an option as is milk and yogurt. Research shows that having s source of carbohydrate and protein together is the quickest way to get protein to digest. Also Whey protein is the most quickly absorbed of the powders but milk also has it’s benefits because of a high Leucine content (an amino acid) which allows for longer periods of positive protein balance in the muscle! So never underestimate the power of Chocolate milk. Some other guidelines to follow are limit fat intake with the post exercise meal and make sure you are again getting 25-30g of protein in this meal/snack. A simple tip I always give my athletes is to start the recovery process early and have a protein and sugar source about 20 min before they stop their training session, so that’s usually just a few minutes before cool-down. That way protein intake becomes a subconscious “process” over time!
4. The aftermath. So racing finished at 5 p.m. but you are not going to eat dinner until 8.30 p.m.! Will you have enough protein in your post training snack to bridge that gap? I hope so, but if you aren’t sure then snack again near 7 p.m., Greek yogurt, nuts, seeds, whatever you want! Dinner? Yep simple, yet again 20-30g of protein (regardless of body mass/size). Lean meat, fish, plant sources, dairy or eggs, the choice is yours based on diet, religion and wants! Just make sure to keep it interesting with plenty of colour and texture.
The final clever bit though is the next gap in time. So you finish eating at 9.15 p.m. go to bed at 10.30 and won’t have any protein or food for 11hrs until you wake at 8 a.m. – that’s a big gap – what if you are racing the next day or going to work and have a gym session planned the next evening. Total recovery and muscle growth is what you need and there is some new research showing that having a simple protein source just before bed can have a very positive effect on curbing muscle breakdown and promoting muscle growth and recovery. Yet again aim for 20-30 g of protein. The type of protein is up to you, but a complete protein (all essential amino-acids) maybe best and something that release slowly in digestion like the Casein protein found in milk could be a good strategy. But yet again find what works best for you.
The Enduro racer faces some new and unique challenges with their nutrition and recovery from training. Experiment, note changes and be diligent. Make sure you have a protein source with each meal, experiment with protein during, just before and after training and competition and on heavy training or racing days have some protein about 20-30 minutes before sleep.
Sport is as much art as it is science, the less tangible areas of performance are what often defines great champions and great moments in their careers are often achieved not through superior science or physiological qualities but through the power of a strong mind. A strong mental approach in difficult conditions, in less then ideal circumstances, under pressure from fans, sponsors or a nation, rebounding from defeat or living up to expectation (self inflicted or extrinsic) is what makes performances truly exceptional. It is those kind of performances that can teach us how to improve and perform ourselves in sport but also in life. Watching world class elite sport is usual interesting, but by taking a step back and really letting the little old gears in your mind turn we can sometimes pick up on little qualities, situations, circumstances and events that may define an athletes career but luckily for the sports fan teach you invaluable lessons that you may be able to apply in sport and life yourself. I’ve chosen three recent sporting performances that stand out as exceptional for varying reasons, many of which less then obvious. So feel free to comment with your take on each performance or your own examples of exceptional performance under exceptional circumstances!
1.- Ted Ligety, St.Moritz GS*, Final event before Olympic games
Ted is known as “Mr.GS”, he has dominated the discipline for years, 4 World Cup Titles, 2 World Championship golds and unseen margins of victory. But the 2014 races haven’t gone his way, errors in 2 rounds left it with two DNF’s something that hadn’t happened to him since 2008.
He’s the favorite for Gold in the event in Sochi but is medaless at the event in previous Olympics. St.Moritz was the final GS before the Olympics and after two DNF’s Ted could have been forgiven for playing it safe and skiing conservatively to guarantee a finish and gain some confidence for the Olympics. That’s not the approach or attitude though that gets you 20 World Cup victories though. Even though the conditions were horrendous with thick fog, deep ruts and huge bumps on the course, Ted stuck to what he knows best, attacking skiing, trusted his technique and tactics. He trusted his approach that has worked literally hundreds of times before and attacked a course that many struggled to complete.
His first run was exceptional and demoralised his competitors taking a huge margin over second place into the second run. Ted held his nerve and stuck to his approach for the second run and skied the fastest time in that run also. Locking up a dominating pre-Olympic victory. Shaking off two DNF’s in previous events, not worrying about exceptional difficult and dangerous conditions. Just calmly and methodically destroying the competition! Enjoy.
*GS is short for Giant Slalom, arguable the most athletically and technically complete Alpine Skiing discipline.
http://youtu.be/Z6KRUbpq-fw
2. Fabian Cancellara – Ronde Van Vlaanderen 2010 – Final Attack
Ahh, Spartacus himself! Maybe easier to relate to MTB for some readers. He’s had some many amazing performances over his career that it’s difficult to pick one!
But he came into this race in 2010 in exceptional form, the outright favourite. After over 240km of hard racing up repeated short, sharp and brutal climbs that define the Tour of Flanders it was just Fabian and local superstar Tom Boonan left. 16km to the finish, one last accent of the infamous Muur van Geraardsbergenand a one on one battle between two cycling legends was all that stood between two cyclists and another spot in the history books!
With exactly 15km to the finish, after negotiating all the perils of the peloton and placing himself exactly where he needed to be, Cancellara attacks on one of the steepest parts of the climb. No sudden movements, no standing, no bravado. Just masterful precise pressure on the pedals at the perfect time traveling across the cobbles with ease. Tactically and technically it was perfect, but add to that the fact that the Swiss man in 4 simple pedal strokes in front of a huge, screaming partisan crowd on the most revered climb in Belgium dropped Boonen like a stone and you have an beyond exceptional performance
It’s subtle and easy to miss, but Fabian’s line choice, timing, pedaling technique and total calmness leading to his attack are what define this exceptional performance. 15% plus gradient, in amphitheater packed with Belgian supporters, the lion of Flanders waving in every corner and oh so smoothly Cancellara lays a death blow seldom seen in cycling.
From the crest of the climb, Fabian time trials his way to the finish line. Coming home in the end with a 1 minute 15 second advantage. Road cycling may not be loved by everyone, but this was world class, exceptional!
3. Aaron Gwin – Windham World Cup 2012
I suppose I had to include at least one DH performance! It would have been easy to choose Danny Hart or Sam Hill in Champéry or Gwin in Val di sole. But the point of this post is about thinking laterally and finding the subtle qualities that make an exceptional performance.
3 wins on the bounce, Gwin was having an unheard of season. That moment in an athletes career when all the pieces of the puzzle find their home and victory is yours to dish-out weekly! Looking for win number 4 in a row (seldom seen in World Cup DH), Gwin finds himself competing at home, the only U.S. stop of the series.
Being the clear favourite after destructive wins in the previous 3 races brings with it all the pressure possible. Add in a vocal home crowd expecting a Gwin win and a short, brutal course that demands total precision while severely punishing the smallest error and you have a stage set for exceptional performance. But that stage is just as easily set for exceptional failure.
But true to form that season, Gwin did what needed to be done and no more, clever, precise riding. Technical execution at huge speed under huge pressure. The home favorite risked just enough and brought home a qualifying and finals win for the full 250 points.
Forward the below video to 5:19 to see Gwin’s run.
They are just 3 examples of exceptional performances that athletes at all levels can learn from. Feel free to leave your own favourites in the comments below.
