My Training life on Team Tibco

I have now been in the bay area of San Fransisco since early March, racing and training with Team Tibco.

Many people ask me what it is like being a pro cyclist, where am I based this season and how hard do I train between races.  They also want to know how often I race, how I spend my days, etc so I thought in this entry I would give you a little insight into my current training life with Team Tibco.

I am living about 60km south of San Fransisco in an area known as Palo Alto.  I live with a married couple and two English Bull dogs.  The bay area, as its known, is cycling crazy.  There are literally hundreds of people out riding every day.  There are at least 3 group rides every day (6am, noon and 6pm) and I am constantly amazed at how many people I meet don’t work.  They tell me they ‘made it’ during the dot.com era and now are comfortably well off.  There are also a lot of venture capitalists and other financially wealthy individuals that have decided to spend their days riding.  Some are hairy legged strong beasts, others have all the flash equipment and better training wheels than my race wheels, but they are all fun, friendly people that enjoy cycling.

So early season, when I wasn’t racing, this is a good overview of a typical week for me.

Monday – Today was a recovery day.  I rode for 1hr (25km) and also did some core stability exercises. I used the day to catch up on my chores – grocery shopping, banking, bills but also took an afternoon sleep.

Tuesday – I met 4 team mates and we did an hour easy to warm up.  Then I did some intervals – 2x5mins and 2x3mins as hard as I could go.  Amber and Brooke also had similar intervals so we started a few seconds apart and chased each other.  Brooke and Amber took it in turns being the rabbit, whilst I was the chasing fox from behind.  After each interval, I could hardly pedal and was only able to suck in oxygen and try not to think about how much my legs hurt.  During the last hour of our training session, we joined a bunch ride that starts at noon each day.  This ride, known as the noon ride (for obvious reasons) is a really fast 1.5hr ride with about 40-60 cyclists.  I often wonder if anyone works in California.  So I hung on and did the noon ride, used it as a motorpace session to do leg speed work, then headed home.

Wednesday – I woke up, ate my aussie Weetbix with muesli, sliced banana and milk and drank a mug of Peets coffee.  Peets is one of our team sponsors and it is a joy to start the day with a strong cuppa.  We get two big bags of coffee a month and I think it is heaven to have a coffee shop as a sponsor.

I hit the road (on my Look training bike) at 8.30am, heading south to Los Altos to join the main bunch.  This bunch of 25 or so semi and full time professionals as well as some independently wealthy casual riders included 5 of my team mates, Rushlee, Amber, Rachel, Brooke and Victoria, as well as our director and manager, Linda Jackson.

We did a 5hr training ride today.  I had some big chain ring hill intervals to do, and incorporated these into the days training session.  Over the 5hr ride, I consumed several cliff bars but we also squeezed in a midway stop at the Pascadero Bakery. I couldn’t believe the size of the cookies – the size of dinner plates but I managed to inhale it in a few bites. I downloaded my data at the end of the day and burned 3,100kcal so no worries with that cookie.

After eating a hearty salad sandwich and doing my customary stretching, I took a half hour snooze, did some emailing then cooked dinner.

Thursday – Today was a double training day.  I ate a light breakfast of vegemite on toast (one of my all time favourites) and headed out on Canada rd on my TT bike.  After a good warm up I did 2x15mins intervals.  These caused a lot of leg pain, especially after yesterdays climbing.

I returned home, showered, ate a second breakfast and then drove south to Santa Cruz to join our Look sponsors on their noon ride.  After a quick tour of the Look office and a chance to check out their latest wheels, bikes, etc that they have in stock, we hit the road.  This time I was on my road bike.  This time, Rushlee needed to do some intervals and she soon had us hanging on to her back wheel, as she hammered the pedals.  Brooke and I were on her wheel, in the drops, waiting for the Look staff to attack us.  We had been joking for half an hour that this training ride was “a race” so we were anticipating someone to launch down the road.  Sure enough, Chris (Look) attacked but Brooke was ready and pounced.  I won’t go into the details but the finish line was at the top of the climb and Brooke looked gallant in victory.

Friday – I love Fridays. Today is my recovery day.  I rode to Palo Alto for a massage and then did a light spin to loosen my legs on the way home.  I met 3 team mates at the Woodside bakery for a coffee, and chat, before heading home.

Saturday – Today I did the Spectrum bunch ride.  This is bunch ride of over 100 riders that starts in Los Altos at 9am every Saturday morning.  It starts at an easy pace for about 5km and then it is on.  I headed out early to get an hour of riding in first, then met up with a few team mates and the bunch.  I needed to do 4 x 1km maximum efforts within my ride.  I did each interval in the drop, simulating a lead out.  I decided to do each interval in the lead up to the designated sprint spots (typically sign posts, imaginery lines drawn on the road, etc).  These intervals were great lead out practice as a Tibco team mate would launch after my interval and go for the sprint.

Sunday – Today I did a long day of climbing in the hills with many of the team’s sponsors.  I ended up climbing over 1,900m but at a lower intensity.  The aim of this ride was to build strength and endurance.  I returned home about 1pm, stretched, ate and took another nap.  In the late afternoon, I took the dogs for a walk and then cooked a roast.

Well, I hope I’ve given you a little insight into my weekly training schedule.  And for those that love data, I rode 22hrs this week (600km) and expended 12,100kcal.

Keep pedalling and hoping for sunny days and tail winds.

Helen.