We always need a plan, yet before the plan we need to understand why we want to challenge ourselves to improve, I’ve thought about this a lot – and as I’ve mentioned before the Time Traveller project is my own way of figuring myself out. I was listening to a podcast recently and it really hit home. I recommend highly listening to the whole pod, yet the relevant part begins at 1hr 4mins:
THE TIM FERRISS SHOW: Tim Ferriss x Rich Roll
This is the advice it recommends:
- Why: what’s the purpose for pushing yourself outside your comfort zone.
- Camaraderie : how it plays such an important part role in .
- Structure: set measurable and tangible goals.
- Curiosity: make it intriguing enough to explore and learn.
- Experiential: what will make it stick in your head.
- Accountability: this comes back to camaraderie – share the journey with others.
Give yourself some time to think about this, because it’s not just about the outcome, in fact the most important part is the process. Although this is an individual challenge that is about self-fulfilment it is much more than just numbers, yet saying that – the numbers are important, and here’s another podcast worth listening to that explains the reason why numbers are a key part to all this. It comes from the guys at The Breakaway App who’ll be offering you a two month free subscription next week to track yourself and compare against your friends.
Listen to it to understand why measuring power is so valuable for performance tracking and training:
SIMPLE BUT NOT EASY: THE BREAKAWAY PODCAST: Jordan Kobert x Christian Vande Velde
So now we have a grasp of what we’re doing at psychological and physiological levels. Now we have to find our baseline fitness, this will be the benchmark we use to track because by knowing what our Functional Threshold Power (FTP) is will allow us to create the applicable training while also setting target.
What is FTP? Here is a great explanation.
Improving our maximal output over 20mins is the target of the Time Traveller project. It happens that 20mins is the blue ribbon time for doing a 10mile TT – the classic UK event that has been held for decades in country lanes across the country - I’ll come back to that in the near future.
We talk more about the project here and you can be a fly-on-the-wall at my first test in nearly a decade. OFF BIKE pod to go here.
If you don’t have the good fortune to live in Girona and have a coach + testing centre at your disposition, then we recommend using a Zwift ramp test to define your FTP.
We’ll be discussing this more with Christian Vande Velde and the people at the Breakaway App this week.
Lastly, we have designed a calendar for you to print out and stick somewhere so you can be constantly reminded of what’s ahead.
Click here to download it, and fill in your plan.
TRAINING TOWEL
TRAINING TOWEL
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