Spring is here—and whether you’re gearing up for a full race season or a big adventure ride, many of us are now taking the final steps to bring about our peak fitness. And it’s this race-season prep work that we talk about on this week’s show: How do you transition from base season to race season? Is this time of year the best time to overreach? Co-hosts Trevor Connor, Rob Pickels, and Grant Holicky discuss their preferred approaches.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a potluck discussion without a few other topics on the table—and in this week’s show we also talk about the power of meditation while doing interval work. Some of us do everything possible to distract us when performing intervals: put on a movie, play loud music, train with others so that we can be distracted from the discomfort. Hollicky has learned to put the music and distractions away and use his interval training to relax his mind. It has become an important way for him to stay in balance. He asks if that’s everyone’s experience.
We round out the show by talking about how to prepare for an epic multi-day event like Trans-Portugal (which Pickels has on his race calendar this year). Getting ready for a multi-day event like this can be challenging, especially as Pickels is expecting several days with more than eight hours in the saddle, yet some weeks eight hours is the sum total of his training volume. This is probably a situation many of our audience can identify with, and he poses the question of how to best prepare yourself for an epic event like this on limited training.
So, start getting excited for the season ahead, and let’s make you fast!
RELATED: If I Only Train 4 Hours a Week, Is the Polarized Training Approach Going to Work?
Episode Transcript
Trevor Connor 00:04
Well, hello, and welcome to another episode of Fast Talk, your source for the science of endurance sports training. I am here with Rob Pickels and not on his phone.
Grant Holicky 00:16
I just got off.
Trevor Connor 00:17
Off to a good start.
Grant Holicky 00:17
Yeah, just I just got off.
Rob Pickels 00:18
But you came in on it, fully engulfed in phone.
Grant Holicky 00:22
I was in a deep conversation when I came in. Then, while we were talking about the episode, I was texting an athlete.
Rob Pickels 00:32
Normal Grant, you’re solving the problems of the world.
Grant Holicky 00:34
Peak grant.
Rob Pickels 00:36
Grant is like my son, Sebastian. In that Sebastian can be playing, causing a huge ruckus, but he’s completely aware of everything that is going on around him, and will answer any question related to anything else. Even though it seems as though he has no clue outside of his own little bubble. And that’s why my tactic with Grant has always been just to keep moving forward, and Grant will be there next to you when he needs to be. It just might seem like he’s way off the back every other time.
Trevor Connor 01:08
So you’re basically saying Grant is like your 10 year old son.
Rob Pickels 01:10
Yeah, we all have our strengths and weaknesses. Sebastian doesn’t shower either.
Grant Holicky 01:17
It’s good to say that all of this is fair. I don’t necessarily have a problem with any of this.
Rob Pickels 01:23
It’s not wrong.
Grant Holicky 01:24
It’s not wrong.
Rob Pickels 01:25
Does that make it right?
Grant Holicky 01:27
No, absolutely not. And I have not showered today for whatever it’s worth.
Rob Pickels 01:32
It’s alright.
Grant Holicky 01:33
It’s all right. I showered last night You know, go for a ride.
Rob Pickels 01:35
You look good. I think that this is like you’re entering a good Heath Ledger, maybe sort of phase to tell you the truth.
Grant Holicky 01:42
All right so.
Trevor Connor 01:43
Isn’t Heath Ledger dead.
Rob Pickels 01:44
Well, yeah, that’s why Grant’s taking his place. He left a void in our collective hearts of the world.
Grant Holicky 01:50
Wow, I do not belong in that void.
Trevor Connor 01:54
And that is Grant Holicky, welcome back. We are here for another potluck episode. So we got three questions that we have posed for this episode. We are going to start with Grant and Grant, do you want to give us your question? Or do you want me to read it?
Grant Holicky 02:08
I’ll give it to you. I remember it now.
Rob Pickels 02:12
This is how little Grant prepared for this episode. He’s like, “Guys I don’t remember my question.
Grant Holicky 02:17
No, I put a lot of time and effort in, but then I compartmentalize everything. So once I sent that, okay, that was done. And then I went on to do whatever.
Rob Pickels 02:26
That went into the Friday problem bin.
Grant Holicky 02:28
Right. And so I went did my thing. And then I was getting ready to come over here this morning. I’m like, “Okay, I need to go back into that place.” So I went to find the email where I sent my question, and couldn’t find it. So I had to ask what my question was when I got here.
Rob Pickels 02:44
Can I ask you guys a quick question before we really kick this off? Memory Palace, right? Are you a memory palace kind of guy?
Grant Holicky 02:50
Yes absolutely.
Rob Pickels 02:50
Trevor, are you a memory palace kind of guy?
Trevor Connor 02:52
I don’t even know what a memory palace even is.
Rob Pickels 02:53
Okay, basically, you know, some people can actually file things away in their mind and visually recall what they are. And this concept never made sense to me until I realized I cannot form images in my mind.
Grant Holicky 03:07
You can’t form images in your mind?
Rob Pickels 03:08
Not at all. I didn’t even know that people could. Like when they say, “Close your eyes and picture a ball.” I was like, “Alright, that sounds like it’s fun, but I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Trevor Connor 03:19
Do you dream?
Rob Pickels 03:20
I dream.
Trevor Connor 03:22
And you form images when you drink?
Rob Pickels 03:23
I think so, yeah. But everything in my mind is a stream of consciousness, but it’s all verbal based.
Grant Holicky 03:30
Do you see colors and shapes at all?
Rob Pickels 03:32
No.
Grant Holicky 03:32
Because that’s the thing too. We were having this conversation in my family recently that there’s a lot of artists who see sounds as colors or they see emotion as shapes, things like that. And it’s there’s actually a name for it, and I can’t remember what it is.
Trevor Connor 03:46
It is actually apparently very common in children and a lot of them lose it as they get older.
Grant Holicky 03:51
Which is a shame. My brother is an architect and he talks about seeing certain things in shapes and colors.
Rob Pickels 03:58
There’s a book and I’m the only person with a, actually Trevor’s the only person with a computer. I can’t remember the name of the book, but it’s exactly about this. And if I remember right, the person was autistic. But it was really interesting about tasting shapes.
Grant Holicky 04:12
That’s cool. Yeah. Yeah.
Chris Case 04:16
Today’s episode of Fast Talk is brought to you by Alter Exploration. Hi, I’m Fast Talk Labs co-founder Chris Case, and I created Alter Exploration to bring challenging, transformative cycling journeys to people who love to ride. If you’re looking for an early season training camp or wanting to improve your climbing technique and pacing, join me for the Boulder Back Roads climbing camp, April 5th through 9th. Camp posts five days of riding on Boulder’s best roads, some paved, some dirt, all of them spectacular. Not only will we ride the most famous climbs in the locals only secret dirt, there will also be on the bike discussions of climbing technique and pacing, sports psychology and physiology. There is no better way to start the season than with a big block of quality miles, especially in a stunning place like Boulder. Get your climb legs ready. Buy now at alterexploration.com.
Grant Holicky 05:06
Anyway, moving on, now that I have found that file in my brain.
Rob Pickels 05:11
Perfect.
Grant Holicky 05:11
So my question to you guys is.
Rob Pickels 05:13
What color is it?
Grant Holicky 05:13
It’s yellow, I don’t know why.
Rob Pickels 05:16
Like, yellow.
Grant Holicky 05:16
Like a yellow hanging folder? So my question is kind of about, and I got a lot of a hard time about how I wrote this. But in the momentness. In the momentness?
Rob Pickels 05:28
That works for me.
Grant Holicky 05:29
Okay, so how do you guys find that presence when you’re on the bike? Or do you look for it? You know, this was what Trevor made fun of me because I was like, how do you find it? And then the next question was, or do you even find it? And I guess my point is, this and let me preface it. I have this strong belief that intervals on the bike, or running, or in the pool, are akin to meditation. When we’re doing them in our perfect world, we have little going on in our head other than breath. Most of the time, and this is the way we want meditation to work as that extraneous thought comes into our brain, we tend to accept it, put it back out, because there’s worked at hand to be done. And so I like asking this question of athletes and coaches and people around sport. Do you feel that? Do you rely on that meditation in your life? Or are there ways that you go about it differently?
Rob Pickels 06:28
Are we answering this Grant, from the perspective of being on the bike or being in life? Because I might answer it differently depending.
Grant Holicky 06:35
My question is almost how do we tie those two things together?
Rob Pickels 06:38
Sure.
Meditation
Grant Holicky 06:39
Because I have this theory. And I really want to do a little work on it. And I may as time goes on, but I have this theory that one of the biggest struggles that retired endurance athletes have is that they no longer have this built in meditation in their life. They move on to quote unquote, real life and a lot of them aren’t exercising or training in the same way and this meditation leaves. And they talk about being overwhelmed. They talk about not being able to keep up, they talk about being unstructured, and they probably are doing less things or have less on their plate than they did when they were racing. But they’re still feeling this out of control-ness. So that idea of meditation through sport, or when we don’t have sport, how do you find life?
Rob Pickels 07:28
Well, this is interesting to me, because your question actually came across, and we do like to text each other earlier in the week, what the questions are. When I was sitting at a coffee shop, about to put my headphones in, to do a daily meditation. And it’s most interesting to me, because I just started that this week. So it was serendipitous, in fact, which means it’s really worthwhile. Um, you know what I’ll say, in general, if I sort of describe my life, meditation is probably something that would help me. But what seems to happen is that I tried to engage with meditation at the times when I least need the help. When I have the bandwidth, when things are going well, when everything’s functioning really well. And things like meditation seem to leave my life as soon as things get tough, which is probably exactly the time that I need the meditation. But what’s been interesting Grant is listening to you ask this question, with what little I know about meditation, riding has seemed to be a form of meditation when you pose the question in the way that you did. Because what am I doing when I’m riding? I am in the moment, my best performances and intervals come not when I’m griping about work. Griping about Trevor over there across the table from me. Griping about my kids griping about everything else. My best performances come when I’m in the moment. When I’m focused on my breathing, when I’m focused on how my legs feel, when I’m focused on my posture, when I’m going through this sort of body self check. And that’s all part of what I’m learning in this meditation process that I’m going through right now. I never knew that any of that had anything to do with meditation previously, right? But as an athlete, you learn to do it, even though you never learned to put that meditation name on it. And I am just kidding. I don’t necessarily sit around griping about Trevor when I’m riding my bike. He’s a huge boon in my life so I appreciate that. But it is interesting how we can find solutions that are not formalized. Like we would say, a specific type of meditation is.
Training as a Form of Meditation
Grant Holicky 09:38
Yeah, and I think that’s one of the things that I’m pretty adamant about, about using athletics as a get to instead of a have to, right? All right, we get to go out and train, I get to go out and do intervals because I get to go out and do intervals and I come out of this in a better place, physically, mentally, as a father, as a partner, as all those things. And I want to hear what Trevor has to say, but I’ll tell real quick story before I do that. During the pandemic, at the beginning of the pandemic, we were all inside, right? Nobody was riding their bikes outside, we were all afraid to ride our bikes outside around here, at least, we were kind of encouraged to stay inside. So I spent a lot of time on Zwift. Spending a lot of time on Zwift, watching TV. Spending time on Zwift watching TV. And I started to notice that I was struggling, I was getting overwhelmed, I was getting behind, I was frustrated, and the bike wasn’t helping me. So I made this decision a while, and remember, part of that for me during the pandemic was still recovering from a broken collarbone and some of those things. So I spent a ton of time on Zwift. I started turning the TV off, putting headphones in, and doing intervals to music in the garage. And then eventually got to the point where I was doing intervals without music, in the garage, not watching anything. Now, for a lot of people, that sounds insane, but that’s not much different than we’re doing on the road. And I started to get this balance back in my life. And this is when I started to formulate this idea that for me, intervals are meditation. And that hard training became my daily meditation. Now I have found ways to do it in my life naturally off the bike as well. But I’ve really learned to rely on that in a lot of ways. And a lot of that for me outside, whether it’s running or riding is making sure I don’t have headphones in. I take a little bit of time to look around, commune with nature, and do my intervals just blanking out.
Trevor Connor 11:39
So I actually really liked the way you rephrase the question, which is a little different from what you emailed to us, which has actually led to a different answer from when I was thinking I was going to give. You know, I’ll start by saying I fully agree with you You know, something I’ve always noticed with my own training and my own racing, I am at my best when I’m mostly in the moment. And when you get out of the moment when you’re worrying about what’s going to happen two hours from now, when you’re worrying about what you did before, you can’t focus as well. I don’t, I just don’t perform as well. You need to be in the moment. But something I learned from sport that I think applies to almost everything we do is there is a duality to this. So I’m going to use an analogy to explain this. So I always love the analogy when when talking to athletes about goals and building their season and going to the races doing their training as, think of it like a road trip. And since this is a sports podcast, talking about driving in your car, we’ll talk about let’s say you’re going out for a long bike ride. You’re trying to get from point A to point B. It’s important to know where you’re trying to go and a sense of how to get there. So that’s the looking ahead, the planning. Because if you just get on your bike and start riding, and you don’t even know which direction you’re going in, you’re not going to get to your destination, right? So you have to have that. But there is a flip side of this, if all you’re doing is sitting in your house, mapping out the route and thinking about what you’re going to do when you get there, you never actually get on the bike and get there. So both will prevent you from accomplishing the goal from getting to where you want to get to. So there is this duality of you always have to have that awareness of where am I trying to go? What am I trying to accomplish? But then you need to get on the bike and do the work and focus on the moment. What’s my next turn? When am I going to stop for food? All those things along the way that are going to help you get there. Well, having at somewhere at the back of your head the where am I trying to go?
Grant Holicky 13:36
Yeah and I think you brought up this idea of not looking ahead and not looking behind. There’s this Dallas concept that your life is you in a boat on a river. And all you can really control is what you’re doing in the boat in that moment. There’s stuff downstream, you can’t do anything about it because you don’t know what’s coming. And all you can do is prepare yourself to do the best you can do with whatever is thrown at you. Can’t do anything about what happened upstream, it’s upstream, you can’t go back up there. So everything is about this in the moment-ness. People are probably really familiar with the concept of meditation and why it is beneficial. And everybody has their own reasons of why it’s beneficial. For me, it is simply about clearing my brain for a period of time. Just not thinking about much for a little bit, because that’s what gives me this opportunity to go see things in new, right? To look at things differently. So I love this concept of going out and being on the bike, or being on the run, or being in the pool, and just having it stop. Everything just stops for a little bit just trying to go hard man. And this is very much the concept of flow, right, or being in the zone. And I think we get caught up as mental strength coaches or as coaches trying to teach people how to get in to flow… you can’t. I think that’s one of my, my big complaints about the idea of flow is everybody’s trying to get there, how do I get there? How do I get, it’s got to come to you. Flow happens. And if you can be in this place where I know how to just do, just get on the bike and do. Get outside and run and do, that’s when you start to see this flow come into life.
Listening to Music or Podcasts During Training
Rob Pickels 15:24
Grant, it’s interesting that you bring this up, because it parallels something that I’ve been noticing in my own life in my own riding. And it pains me a little bit to say this, but riding was the time that I used to listen to a lot of podcasts. I would save them up, I’d go for a three hour ride, I’d work through three or four podcasts. And what I began realizing was that I was carrying a high level of stress following those bike rides. It didn’t feel like and looking back, as you’re saying, I didn’t get that release, right? And so I had to start taking podcasts out of my riding. I don’t recommend any of our listeners to do that, because riding your bike is the perfect time to listen to podcasts like Fast Talk Labs. And for me, I kind of equated it to the fact that I’m a pretty introverted person, and that it was really calling a lot of my attention away from sort of myself. And I think that that is very aligned with what you’re saying about clearing your mind. Because I wasn’t clearing my mind for three to four hours, I was trying to cram my mind with as much information, and learning, and everything as possible. And it was in some regard, mentally exhausting. Now, I don’t think that music does that to me as much because at times, music is the forefront in my mind. And at other times the music has has kind of disappeared. I’m not even aware that it’s playing. And I think that that’s when I’m in more of that flow sort of state. That I’m so focused on myself, and the trail, and my environment around me. So it’s been interesting, Grant, I’m glad that you brought this question up. It’s been interesting, because of the things again, that I’ve been noticing in my own life without ever actually being able to put a name to them.
Grant Holicky 17:02
Yeah. And so I think the music piece is interesting because it’s very different for different people, right? I stopped riding with music initially, for safety a number of years ago. I was just tired of getting buzzed and being surprised by it. And you’re probably not going to avoid that car that’s getting too close to you, but you almost know what’s coming, when there’s no music in your ears, right? Especially now with AirPods that can, aren’t truly noise cancelling on the road. But there are times where music to me facilitates flow. If I’m listening to music, while writing programs on a Monday, I will hit flow regularly. That is, I am almost never as easily into a flow state as writing programs as a coach with music on. If I don’t have the music on I’m not, I’m all over the map with that. And again, like I said, I’ve found this idea while riding with music in the garage doing intervals. So I think music can be a really beneficial piece of finding some of this balance. I don’t particularly like it outside because for me, rides are that ability to get away from this world that’s putting pressure on me and get outside into nature and kind of commune, and have my break, and have my moment, and come back to my house, and be there for my kids, and be there for my wife, and be there for my cats. Because the cats take a lot. They’re stressful. So I really liked this. I appreciate the answers and I appreciate the thought. I do kind of encourage you all out there listening, I’d love to hear some of the feedback of what you’re doing and how you find that meditation and or whether this resonates with you. In a true mindfulness approach, let’s take a moment, focus on our breathing, and transition to the next topic.
Rob Pickels 18:57
When you’re ready.
Grant Holicky 18:58
When you’re ready, I’m ready. Are you ready?
Trevor Connor 19:01
I’m ready.
Rob Pickels 19:02
Hi listeners, we just launched our new podcast series, Fast Talk Femme. Tune in to hear co host Julie Young and Dede Barry, former pro cyclist and US national teammates chat with a stellar lineup of experts to explore female physiology, nutrition, training through pregnancy, and more. Check it out at fasttalklabs.com.
Trevor Connor 19:26
All right, so let’s move on to my question, which is going to be a bit of a transition because this is just a straight training question as I like to give. So we’re actually in February right now, but this episode is going to publish middle of March. And I was thinking what’s happening for a lot of athletes in the middle of March. And that’s usually when you’re transitioning from the base phase to building race fitness. And this is where Grant goes, “What’s base?”
Grant Holicky 19:53
My eyes just rolled back in my head.
Best Workouts to Build Race Form
Trevor Connor 19:56
So my question is what are the best March workouts or ways of training, in your opinion, to bring about race form? Well, not setting the athlete up to be completely overreached or even overtrained by May. And I did put in brackets here, the answer “It depends”, is not allowed for this question.
Grant Holicky 20:20
So, I was trying to think of another way to say it depends, and I just couldn’t do it.
Rob Pickels 20:29
It’s contingent upon.
Grant Holicky 20:33
No, so I will make a quick clarification. I do believe in base training, I’m just not as big on a on a true dedicated base phase. That being said, as we transition from a preseason kind of idea to “Hey, we’re gonna go race soon”, I start looking for workouts that take a certain amount of mental focus, as we’ve talked about, on this, I’m a big believer that the brain and the body are tied together. That it’s not just about doing a workout to train the legs, and then okay, the legs can now perform and alright, we’re ready to go. I’m a huge believer in the when we talk about peak, that peak has a lot to do with our emotional state. That if we can somehow regulate our ability to stay emotionally fired up, for a period of time, we can peak for much longer than is assumed in the norms of training, right? So I start looking for workouts that are going to challenge the athlete mentally. So obviously, some of this is VO2 max kind of stuff, but a lot of its repeatable. Via VO2 max stuff, we start getting, I love a series of 30 30s into a sustained effort. Stuff that simulates the intensity of an early part of a bike race and then having to, “Oh god, now I gotta settle in.” And it’s still hard and right, forcing them to that place with some regularity that they’re sitting there going, “Oh, God, man, I just don’t like it here.”
Rob Pickels 22:10
Yeah. Grant I’m very similar to you in that there’s two major changes that I like to make. One is putting more emphasis and control on the athlete. And I’ll preface this by saying, base is typically a phase that’s occurring when the weather isn’t quite as nice for most people. You’re probably doing more on the trainer than you otherwise would the rest of the year. That means that workouts are probably an ERG mode, right? And the emphasis is off the rider, they’re sort of just following the computer. The other side of that is that workouts tend to be a little bit more steady during that base phase as well. So for me, the two big changes are one, get that rider off of ERG mode, make them do it so that they’re shifting and regulating their own effort, right? Because that places the emphasis on them, frankly, they’re gonna have to do that out in the race. That’s one nice little tweak. The exact same workout feels very different when the computers controlling it and when you’re controlling it.
Grant Holicky 23:08
Absolutely.
Rob Pickels 23:09
The other thing is what you said second, as well is the variability of the effort, I think is very important as well. As opposed to you know, Trevor, you’re a big proponent of five by five minutes with one minute of rest. How do we turn that into over unders? How do we make that so that you’re not just going at 280 watts for five minutes. Because in the race, there’s little surges, little relaxes, you’re still at that high effort level, you’re not relaxing all the way back down to a base or recovery. But we need to be introducing that variability into workouts as well. If it’s clear, and you can go outside and your weather’s nice enough, then that’s certainly easier to do on the road. But if you’re still on the trainer, you need to be building that variability, perhaps into the workout that you’re doing to match what your needs are for the race season.
Grant Holicky 24:01
Yeah.
Trevor Connor 24:02
So I’ll give you my answer, which is a little bit complicated. And I’m gonna preface all this.
Grant Holicky 24:07
Oh, really? Really, it’s complicated?
Rob Pickels 24:10
That’s why he wrote it down.
Trevor Connor 24:13
So oh, boy, this is already started.
Grant Holicky 24:17
Oh, I walked in here and got lit up. So I’m just going give a little bit back every once in a while.
Rob Pickels 24:26
Okay, Grant, a 10 year old boy that I love.
Trevor Connor 24:29
Yeah, we got five minutes right now. Give it to me.
Grant Holicky 24:32
All right, all right, I’ll shut up. Sorry.
Trevor Connor 24:35
So I’m going to preface this by saying I have to be a little careful with my answer. Because I am going to give some things that are a little bit dangerous. And so the preface is.
Rob Pickels 24:46
Oh Spicy Trevor.
Trevor Connor 24:47
I never ever as a coach want to overtrain an athlete. If an athlete gets overtrained, I have completely failed as a coach. That’s one of the biggest mistakes you can make. So that’s gonna be my preface here. So what I will I’ll say is this transition period is probably the biggest, hardest few weeks that I give an athlete. And this particularly thinking about athletes that do have a race season, they’re going to go and race, it might be a little bit different with somebody just trying to have some fun. So I’m talking a little more to the racers with my answer. So during the base season with my athletes, I tend to be as, as Rob was saying, a little steadier, that’s when I do my long, slow, that’s when I’m doing the longer threshold type work. As you said, it’s in ERG mode. And Rob, I want to know what you do when you start doing your base work, not an ERG mode.
Rob Pickels 25:36
Well that’s a little tough. So I can’t I can’t drown out and just watch TV, that’s what happens.
Trevor Connor 25:44
So it’s very steady. When I get into that transition phase, I don’t fully get rid of that. So this is the one phase where there’s kind of an overlap. I keep doing some of that work, but now I’m throwing in that race work. So as you were talking about I love the let’s give you some tabatas and then steady work after it.
Rob Pickels 26:02
Which if you haven’t done it, it’s painful.
Grant Holicky 26:05
It’s fantastic.
Trevor Connor 26:06
And the first time you do it, like you have on your prescription, do a set of tabatas, then do five minutes steady. And if I get through a minute and a half steady, I’m like “I did good.”
Grant Holicky 26:15
The first time I’m like, “I scored man.”
Trevor Connor 26:18
Yeah, so I’m throwing that in. And the longer rides, they’re now a little less steady. So either they go out by themselves. And I’ll say, “You know, do a few hours steady, and then throw in a hillclimb, throw in some efforts. Or this is when I say “Go out, it’s March, it’s starting to warm up. Go out, and instead of doing the four hour steady ride, go to the local group ride and beat it up a little bit. So if you’re talking in terms of, you know, the CTL, TSS, all that, these are the three, four weeks where I’m going to have the athletes do biggest volume, biggest TSS, they’re really going to push up that CTL. Boy, am I sounding scientific control here.
Grant Holicky 27:02
But that helps me.
Trevor Connor 27:04
That really gets driven up because you’re still keeping that volume, the big work from the base, you might even be increasing the volume a little bit. Now you’re throwing intensity. And this is going to be fatiguing for my athletes. I’ll flirt a little bit with overreach, I don’t want to get them close to overtraining. But everybody talks about, you know, when you get into the season and when you’re racing, that’s where you want to bring the training stress down so that you’re fresher and you can go to races really strong. Well you have to come down from something.
Race Preparation
Grant Holicky 27:33
Yeah, you know, a couple things. One of the things I really liked, and this is a long way away, but I love this with cross is we’ll get into that phase in August. And people say like, “What does a crossbelt look like?” Okay, we’re gonna start touching it in June, we’re gonna get on our cross bikes, we’re gonna start doing that stuff. We’re really starting to hit the intensity and things that we want to hit June, July. And then we get into August, August is kind of a catch all. Where are we? What do we need to really do? And for me, that’s race prep. And that the same thing in marches for the road guys, right? It’s like, okay, we need to do something that’s really specific to what you’re going to go and have to deal with. But one of the things I’ve really started to find that with well trained athletes, you can throw a really dedicated rest weekend right after this kind of build that you’re talking about, this overreach build. Throw a rest weekend, maybe two weeks, three weeks out of the first race, that they can really adapt, absorb all this training, and then you float. Right, you can just kind of float into that first race where it’s not like you’re dropping way off and they’re feeling off like that traditional feeling of a taper than some athletes despise, right? I don’t feel connected, I feel off. Neil used to call it a reverse taper, right? Like you rest and then you kind of crank back into it a little bit. And I think not quite that idea. But look for that block, three weeks out, maybe even four weeks out, really adapt, right and then come in and you can touch all these places. You can touch a little bit of threshold, you can touch a little bit of bass, you can touch a little bit of VO2, go in and and keep all that feel. And then obviously the race week itself, you’re going to do some prep, and then you’re flying. I love that dedicated adaptation week. I hesitate to call it a rest week, right? Because we’re coming off of this wind up and then okay, let’s let body really really adapt and now we’ll go rip it.
Trevor Connor 29:34
I love it when my athletes do like they’re going with their family to the beach for a week right at the end of March. Three weeks after that, we’re gonna beat the crap out of you. You’re gonna be fatigued. Go sit on the beach. They come back they’ll be a little bit rusty, so we have to hit him with a couple couple efforts. But then they’re flying. But you know, the important thing to remember here that a lot of athletes don’t understand is when you do that three week block, that transition block, that’s when you’re going to be racing your worst. You are fatigued and be okay with that. So sometimes I’ll have these athletes will go and do a race in March when I have them in the middle of that. They go, “Oh my God, my season is terrible because I just got popped.” You’re like, “No, it’s March. Who cares?”
Grant Holicky 30:19
Well, and that’s a big piece that I talked about a lot with, like staying at that peak. There’s only so long you can walk into every race expecting you’re going to perform at your highest level. Right. So from a mental, emotional standpoint, if I can walk into races and go, “You know what, this is a training race,” you can watch people perform out of their skin in quote- unquote, training races. If you’re strong, you’re strong. It’s that there’s so much you’re giving to stay at a super high level for a long period of time, not just physically but mentally. And it’s a huge ask.
Rob Pickels 30:53
The other side of this too, is even if you’re not doing racing during that three week build, or however long it’s going to be, your testing numbers, your power numbers, your ability to do workouts, all of that is probably going to change and maybe not for the better, right? Because oftentimes, what we’re talking about is two steps forward one step back. The first week, maybe your numbers are pretty good. Second week, maybe they’re okay. Third week, you might bounce back, or you might be even be worse.
Grant Holicky 31:19
You’re hanging on for dear life.
Rob Pickels 31:20
Exactly. You know, and I do think that there is certainly a line of what is an acceptable amount of acute performance drop off, right? Because that can also be a sign, Trevor, like you’re trying to avoid over an overtraining or overreaching situation. We have to expect that your ability to go out and do five minute VO2 efforts, your wattage might come down a little bit. But at the same time, if they’re precipitously off a cliff, if you did five by five minutes last week, and this week, three by five minutes and you’re dead, maybe you overcook the first two weeks. Everybody needs to be really in tune with their body during a time like this and make sure that things were appropriate.
Common Mistakes in Training
Trevor Connor 32:01
The other mistake that I see a lot of athletes make is, I do think it’s really important to have that two-three week block where you just push it a little bit, you get that big training stress. And then you use the as you said, take a break, use that to adapt, and then you have something to taper down from. So the mistake I see athletes make is they’ll do the base, and then they come into March they go, “I want to be racing now.” And so they immediately jump into racing, and they’re always feeling a little undercooked. “I’m not quite where I want to be.” And so middle of April, in the middle of their season, they go and do that big training block, or they travel somewhere and do a big catch.
Grant Holicky 32:40
Reactionary, it’s reactionary.
Trevor Connor 32:41
And then now you’re cooked in the middle of the season. And by the time you taper off of that, and have some good fitness, the season might be over.
Grant Holicky 32:49
Well, and we see this a lot. I think that a lot of people kind of react to struggling in a race setting, with their first reaction being “I’m unfit.” Without their first reaction maybe being “I’m tired.” And whatever that’s being caused by- to Trevor’s example, if you roll right into racing off a base period, and you haven’t been doing any high end work, you’re gonna get into the races and they’re gonna kick your butt. In a way that you can’t even relate to. You know, you get done and you still feel like you’re tired. But what it’s doing to your central nervous system, because you haven’t done anything like this is gonna throw you off the chart. And we see it like people get into this period and everybody knows this about me. I’ve said it before, I feel like training peaks is skewed towards volume. So when you come off of some of these volumous sweetspot blocks, and you come into racing, sometimes the racing, especially if it’s grit racing doesn’t represent how hard you’ve actually gone in terms of what TSS says. So you get into a racing block and you watch that CTL start to drop and people go, “I’m not feeling good. My CTL is dropping. I must be unfit. Time to go train.” I think that’s where it gets incredibly dangerous. We have three of us sitting around the table going “Yeah, yeah,” patting ourselves on the back. I will throw one thing out there and and I love you guys both kind of touched on this and because you were talking about the favorite kind of workout. I love that workout. And Neil Henderson always had a classic called Batman’s where you go in for 120% for 30 seconds and then you got to ride thresholds for four minutes. And then you come out of it with the other side of the bat with another one of those. That mental, physical, emotional period after you did the 120% while you’re still riding threshold where you have to come to terms with the fact that you’re gonna be okay. You can keep going at this place. That to me is the workout that preps you for racing.
Trevor Connor 34:57
Look, I know I’m known as the steady guy and I love my steady intervals. But I’ll be the first to say, if all you ever do is steady intervals, you’re gonna be really good at sitting at the front of the field driving the pace with people going, “Boy, that person’s strong.”
Rob Pickels 35:12
That Trevor Connor guy is such a great guy, towing along.
Trevor Connor 35:16
You’re gonna finish fifth from last. You’re the domestique. If you want to be on the podium if you want to get a result, you know, I like to study work in the winter, but there is that phase where it’s now you have to hurt and you have to do that short hurt. And it has to hurt so much, you’re doing 30 seconds ago and, “Oh my god, I have to do this again. I don’t think I can.”
Grant Holicky 35:37
Yep, yep, yep. Yep. And that that, to me is that kind of mental piece and that psycho biological piece that those two things are tied together.
Trevor Connor 35:46
But look, I don’t think intervals are the only way you can do it. The way I always did it that worked best for me because I could never hurt myself enough in the intervals.
Grant Holicky 35:55
This is where he went down the basement with a flogging stick and just beat himself.
Trevor Connor 35:58
Yeah pretty closer. I would actually, when I was in March doing that, that big, fatiguing block, I would go to some of the training races in March. And I would go to him saying, “I don’t care about the results, here’s what I’m gonna do. I’m going to attack. I know I don’t have the fitness to stay away. So I’m gonna get caught.” When you get caught you are dying. And then that’s the hard part. It’s the dig deep so that they don’t drop you. And it’s often I just barely get onto the back of the field and then I’ll let myself recover for a minute and then go attack again.
Rob Pickels 36:35
That’s funny, Trevor’s attacking. He’s kind of like loading the gun for him. Right like, “All right, here it comes.”
Trevor Connor 36:42
That’s exactly it. It’s how many times can you do that before you die? Yeah, that is still the hardest workout I have ever done.
Grant Holicky 36:53
That’ll leave a mark. There is no doubt about that. So I think Trevor’s question kinda leads to Rob’s. Yeah.
Rob Pickels 37:01
It does. Well, guys, let me fill you in on my life a little bit.
Grant Holicky 37:05
I’m gonna interject here.
Rob Pickels 37:07
Oh god
Grant Holicky 37:08
I came in looking like whatever I came in looking like, what did you describe it as?
Rob Pickels 37:13
My 10-year-old son.
Grant Holicky 37:14
Okay.
Rob Pickels 37:15
Oh, no, no Heath Ledger.
Grant Holicky 37:19
Rob is like so stylish right now. I can’t quite wrap my head around it. Allvuaere or whatever that brand is.
Rob Pickels 37:26
Yeah man. That’s not true. This is, the tops Lulu.
Grant Holicky 37:32
Oh okay, a little Lulu. Yeah, you’re the pinnacle of athleisure fashion.
Rob Pickels 37:39
It’s pretty bad man. I got my Allbirds shoes on, my Vury pants, my Lulu top. I got my melon hat on.
Grant Holicky 37:47
I was wondering if you had a birthday recently.
Rob Pickels 37:50
I did not have a birthday. This is, I’m usually not very athleisure and today is very athleisure day man. It’s a Friday casual
Grant Holicky 37:58
Casual Friday. All right, moving on. I just I wanted to stress how, just how good you look.
Rob Pickels 38:03
Thanks, man. I appreciate you letting me plug my sponsors.
Grant Holicky 38:08
They’re your sponsor? Why don’t we get any swag?
Rob Pickels 38:11
This episode is brought to you by.
Grant Holicky 38:13
Why am I wearing Carhart?
Rob Pickels 38:15
No man Carhart’s is in, just so you know.
Grant Holicky 38:18
I know, it’s like bugging me a little.
Rob Pickels 38:20
You’re more trendy right now then, you know,
Grant Holicky 38:22
I know. It’s bugging me.
Trevor Connor 38:24
I’m so glad I’m wearing nothing that is worth commenting on.
Grant Holicky 38:28
Oh, you got the Canadian brand on? You got Roots on.
Trevor Connor 38:32
Thank you for recognizing it’s Canadian.
Rob Pickels 38:33
Guys, guys, you’re preventing me from talking.
Grant Holicky 38:36
Sorry I forgot. We’re moving on.
Rob Pickels 38:37
This is me know about me.
Grant Holicky 38:40
I can tell about your outfit.
Rob Pickels 38:41
Alright. So as you guys know,
Trevor Connor 38:43
Just tilt your head just slightly to the side.
Rob Pickels 38:45
No, no, no, man. It’s off center for a reason. There’s no way I’m wearing this thing straight on my head.
Grant Holicky 38:54
Oh my God.
Rob Pickels 38:55
All right. All right. All right. All right. As you guys know,
Grant Holicky 38:58
I really like this.
Rob Pickels 38:59
I know, I’ve been looking forward to this all week I’m not going to lie. As you guys know, December is kind of my down period. I love the holidays. January came, I wrote a training plan. And then I went skiing, and then I went skiing, and then I went skiing. And then February came and Valentine’s Day has now come and gone. And I realize that it’s the middle of February and I have to raise my mountain bike from the northern border of Portugal to the southern coast in May, eight days of five to seven-ish hours a day on the bike. And I have not been training. I think that I have decent just general fitness, right because of all of the training I have done for the past 20 years. And it’s not like I haven’t been riding my bike, but I certainly haven’t been training in a pointed manner. And so my question is this, I know that I need to get in a lot more volume than I’m doing right now. And in my typical training, I usually reserve Saturday as a high Intensity day usually a shorter workout, it leaves me some time to hang out with my family, go to basketball games and whatever else. And then Sunday tends to be a longer day in my life. But I know that I can’t, I can’t do that. I can’t just let Saturday be just intensity, because I’m not getting enough training volume. But what I’ve really been struggling with is I still want to do intensity on Saturday and add volume, how do I combine the two of those together? I can go out and hit some nice climbs outside my door early in the ride, and then get a couple hours of base in after that, I could do a couple hours a base and then come back and do the climbs at the end of the workout. I could sprinkle them in the middle. And what I’m interested in because I got to do this as of like, tomorrow, how do you guys, how would you increase my volume, but also keep the intensity that I’m doing? I’m not looking to triple my intensity in just a super long, intense, right. And I don’t have the fitness to do that right now, to tell you the truth. I need 45 minutes of intensity in a three plus hour ride. So Trevor’s like dude, this is Trevor being like, “Rob, you’re done. You done screw it up.” You done?
How to Increase Volume While Keeping Intensity
Trevor Connor 41:16
Well, look. So before we get into the specifics.
Grant Holicky 41:20
Boy,
Rob Pickels 41:21
Trevor’s gonna fire me because he’s like, “You are a junk show man, like you should be way more prepared than this.”
Trevor Connor 41:27
Which is kind of my answer. I was gonna do it the nice way. So I get it, I can actually tell you a story from when I was home over the holidays. I was talking with my nephew. He was talking with a few of us, there was another person there who had been a very high level athlete. And my nephew was telling me about this book he had read by this guy who was all about human inspiration and what humans can accomplish, and this guy was going and like trying the craziest things. Like doing 150 mile running race, going and doing the one week of what the Marines do, all this sort of stuff and saying, “People can do more than they think they can do.” And he’s telling us these sorts of things that this guy would do these things. But then he’d be like, in the hospital for three weeks with organ failure and all this sort of stuff. And my nephew’s like, “Isn’t this inspiration? Isn’t this cool?” And I kind of looked at the other person who had been a high level athlete and we both had the same response, which was stupid, what an idiot. So this is what we answer to my nephew, which is, this guy isn’t proven anything we don’t already know. Of course, you can do these things. Of course it is possible. Let me just qualify it by saying I am not putting down at all what people accomplish. If you’re going out and doing your first marathon, if you’re doing your first Ironman, that’s an extraordinary accomplishment. More of what I’m getting at here is just a tribute to how amazing the human body is and what the human body is capable of. But what we’re getting at is, if you are doing one, these events, and you’re not there to win it, you are there to just finish, accomplish that event, which as I said, is a big accomplishment, the focus is elsewhere. The focus is more on making sure you get through successfully, that you don’t injure yourself. That as athletes, what you learn is yes, you could do this, like I’ve never run a marathon in my life. I know I could go tomorrow and run a marathon. That’s not the issue. The issue is, am I going to be walking the next day?
Grant Holicky 43:27
Next week.
Rob Pickels 43:28
I don’t have to walk the next day, I have to ride my bike Trevor.
Trevor Connor 43:30
That’s what this guy was was not proving. So look, the start of my answer is, yeah, you could go tomorrow and do this event. I know you, I know your tenacity, you’ll get through it. The question is whether you are going to be a 90-year-old man for the next five months after that or not.
Rob Pickels 43:48
Oh no, what’s hilarious about this is, this is actually this Portugal race is my overtraining block because three or four weeks after that I fly to Finland to race Finland Gravel.
Trevor Connor 43:59
Which is the bigger issue?
Rob Pickels 44:03
Finland as far as I’m concerned because of this great training I did in Portugal the month before.
Trevor Connor 44:10
So to me, that’s the bigger issue is not getting through this but getting through it safely and successfully.
Rob Pickels 44:18
I agree. He has no advice. He’s just concerned.
Trevor Connor 44:21
Well I’ve been talking for a while now. So I’m looking at Grant to start this, I think we’re gonna have actually very similar answers.
Grant Holicky 44:27
Well, aside from the flaming dumpster fire that is Rob’s training right now.
Rob Pickels 44:35
It’s my whole life at this point.
Grant Holicky 44:37
It can’t be, you look so good that can’t be. That’s a high-end dumpster fire.
Rob Pickels 44:41
Have you ever you heard of a facade? Fake it till you make it?
Grant Holicky 44:47
No, I haven’t if you can look at me and know that. Okay, so back to what your initial question was. I think this is a really poignant question or a really important question for a lot of people that we actually probably listen to the show.
Rob Pickels 45:00
There’s more people in my position then in yours.
Scheduling Your Training to Ride Fatigued
Grant Holicky 45:03
Yeah because we’re trying to figure out how to do these more crazy style rides or races with the schedules we still already have. It was one thing if you’re gonna go out and do it three and a half hour Boulder Bay race. It’s another thing if you’re gonna go out and you’re gonna try to do on mound. How do I find those pieces? One of the things that I really look to and I’m a really big fan of is stacking days in a row. So moving from high intensity, shorter workouts towards lower intensity, longer intervals towards a base day at the end. So even looking at a three day block like Friday, Saturday, Sunday, you’re doing something on Friday, that’s I wouldn’t even call it super high intensity, but maybe neuromuscular, maybe some cadence work some of those things, get your body really moving for the weekend, and then roll out on a Saturday. I love the idea and I don’t necessarily have the science or anything to back this up other than the work that I’ve done with athletes, putting intervals elite in a ride, doing them fatigued. So going into a point where all right, we got two hours into this ride, I got a good solid base for two hours. Now I’m going to do some hill work. And now I’m going to do some intervals. And then following that up on Sunday, with your super long base day, because what you’re getting then is you’re trying to ride that base day with an accumulation of fatigue in the legs. That’s simulating a little bit more of what you’re gonna feel like on day three of that Portugal race. Yeah and I do as my week actually is stacked, I agree with you on that training concept. So I start my training weeks on Thursday with a rest day. And then I usually go into Friday as like a one hour base day, Saturday is a hard interval day, Sunday is a long day. Monday is usually skills or base day, Tuesday is another interval day, Wednesday is another longer day. Not quite as long as the weekend and that’s why I put the weekend first because my week starts on Thursday because I go into the weekend fresh, they’re the most fatiguing. And then on my Tuesday and my Wednesday rides, by then I’ve accumulated fatigue, I know my workouts not going to be quite as strong as it was. So that’s why I don’t like making Monday my first day because I don’t want to start off with the tired workouts. So I definitely like and will continue stacking, like like you’re suggesting, yeah.
Trevor Connor 47:25
Continuing with what both of you’re saying, the really important thing here is you need to learn how to train and to ride fatigued. So the ideal way, which you see for a big event, which you see pros doing if they’re getting ready for a Grand Tour is have weeks where they’re doing multiple six hour days. And you’re getting pretty fatigued by the end of those, and you just put in hours and hours and hours and fatigued to learn how to deal with fatigue. When I was racing full time, that’s kind of what I did. When I went back to school, I remember I went “Oh, I can’t do six or three days in a row of six hours. So I got to find a different way to do this.” And I always found the best way was the have a really hard day that’s short-that’s first. So my favorite block was the Friday, I would do intervals in the morning and then I would hit the weight room Friday night. So I would smoke my legs on Friday. And it was intentional to do the weights at night so I wouldn’t be recovered Saturday morning. And then we had a group ride up in Fort Collins where I lived that was about a four hour pretty hard group ride. I would go and do that. But when they were heading back to Fort Collins to finish a ride, I would turn left and go climb this HC climb and do a six and a half hour day that I would barely walk in the door from. And that was the finding the way to train myself through fatigue. I certainly wouldn’t do this in January. Going back to my answer. This was my favorite kind of late February, March thing to do. And it was just teaching my body to handle fatigue.
Rob Pickels 48:59
I think what’s interesting, right is and hearing you in some regard, I know the answer. But it’s always nice to hear it from somebody else. Because half of my brain said intervals early mean you get the best quality interval with no glycogen depletion. The other side says, “But fatigue is also important.” And I think both of you are identifying. And this is how we should be looking at every workout that we’re doing. What is the major limiter of the race? And you’re right, you’re both entirely right without saying it. It’s not how fast I can do the first climb. It’s whether or not I can do the 1000 climbs after that. Right? That fatigue is a bigger problem than just the all out effort.
Grant Holicky 49:45
Right. So I have two thoughts on this. One is side note, I love the idea of lifting and doing intervals the day after lifting. Or doing a long, hard ride the day after lifting. And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve put that on a program and listened to the athletes say to me, “But I am going to be sore, I’m going to be hurting,” and then responding with, “That’s kind of the point, right?” Because and especially this is something for people that are doing back to back races, you wake up, you’re sore. And it hurts. Like we used to joke about double days in cross, you’d wake up and you feel like you got put in a sack and beaten for an hour, and then turned loose and like, okay, everything kind of hurts, right?But then the other thing that I really liked that you’re bringing up, Rob is what are we training for? If we’re training for crits, or cross races, or short road races…yeah, put the intervals early. Do them with with a lot of sharpness and quality, right? But if we’re talking about stage racing, put them late, you know? Get in that point where I have to learn how to do this when my body just doesn’t feel normal. Right?
Diving Volume
Rob Pickels 50:55
So let me ask you guys both a follow up question. Knowing that multiple back to back days are important. If I’m looking to get as much volume as I can over the weekend, would you evenly divide that volume between Saturday, Sunday? Or we’re saying “Hey, Saturday’s probably a little bit more high intensity,” would you make that a slightly shorter, maybe a two hour, and then we’re looking at four hours on Sunday to get six hours total?
Trevor Connor 51:21
So I’m much more on the, do the shorter intense day and then the longer day versus two, three hour days or two, two and a half our days. Because again, it’s the first build up that get the legs sore and then spend several hours just riding through that fatigue and learning to deal with it. Because that’s a lot of what your events going to be. These are going to be longer days. And you look there will be people racing that event, those people that are putting in 20 plus hour weeks right now, you’re probably not going to be up there with them.
Rob Pickels 51:54
My goal is top 30%.
Trevor Connor 51:57
So as as Grant said, you don’t need that sharpness. You’re not worrying about attacking and taking somebody for the finish line four hours into that event, you’re trying to get through this successfully. So to me, it’s whatever you can do to train that fatigue. And I think if you did two medium days, you’re going to sort of fatigue the first day you’re going to sort of fatigue the second day, you’re never going to have those hours of “Oh God, do I have to keep turning the legs over? How do I do this?”
Grant Holicky 52:26
Yeah, and I think there’s, if you’re limited in time both days, then do intervals with that time the first day. Try to go slightly longer without intervals on the second day. But where I would go into every once in a while, is maybe taking, “Hey honey, I’m gonna take both days this weekend and I’m going to do two four hour days in a row or two, five hour days in a row,” and just get that accumulation of button a saddle time. And I think that’s a better way to do that then go out and try to do one seven hour day, which you may not really be ready for, frankly. So three and a half and three and a half, four and five something along those lines that you get. Here’s my big weekend, maybe circle that weekend and plan for it. But I also love the idea of maybe put a little bit more on your plate Friday, come into something Saturday, hard intervals, long day Sunday, and then really back off that skills day Monday.
Rob Pickels 53:25
Yeah, no, certainly and gosh, improving volume in general is forcing me to make you know every other day bigger than it otherwise would be in my general training scheme. So yeah, Friday is certainly moving up without question.
Trevor Connor 53:40
Hey, listeners, are you struggling to finish your workouts or your races? At Steve Neal Performance, you’ll discover the proper nutritional balance that you need to finish workouts and races strong; both in body and in mind. The coaching and testing services that Steve Neal Performance offers are uniquely crafted specifically for you, no matter your athletic level. Stop waiting to fix your energy deficit issues yourself. Check out stevenealperformance.com today. It’s something that Grant brought up earlier that I really recommend that I love doing myself is when you do that long, fatiguing ride towards the end of it, build in some intensity somehow. So the way I love to do it personally around here, I love to finish my my six hour rides with the stretch of 36 from Lyons back to the Boulder. So for anybody who doesn’t know that, it’s the series of several one and a half minute climbs
Rob Pickels 54:37
Three feet away from cars going 60 miles an hour.
Grant Holicky 54:39
Yeah, but you’re truly three feet away from them instead of some of the other roads where you’re one foot away from them.
Trevor Connor 54:45
I have lived in big cities. Come ride in Toronto or Boston with me. All the people who complain about 36 I’m like “You don’t get it.” Some of the cities I lived in, we biked an hour to get to a road that good. So I will head back on that route and like I said, the important thing is it has the series of shorter climbs. And I try to time trial it. I try to hit each one of those hills and hit it really hard. And let me tell you, by the time I’m getting there I am tired. And all that is going on in my head is “Oh, I don’t need to do that this time. I had a good workout,” and I’m completely bargaining with myself for, “I don’t need to do at this time.” And then you hit that first hill and you go, “Nope, let’s do it and it hurts and it’s a struggle.” But you’re trying to put out that for a minute and a half. That above threshold power and it hurts like you just can’t describe.
Rob Pickels 55:34
Yeah, fair enough, fair enough. Well guys, it’s pretty insightful.
Grant Holicky 55:38
Occasionally.
Rob Pickels 55:38
Hopefully it’s warm enough this weekend that I can put this into play.
Grant Holicky 55:41
It’s supposed to be. I think we’re supposed to get some 50s man.
Rob Pickels 55:44
Yeah, buddy.
Trevor Connor 55:45
Go do 36 just back and forth, back and forth, back and fourth.
Grant Holicky 55:48
I’m riding today you can come out with us at noon.
Rob Pickels 55:50
Dude I’d legitimately rather ride the trainer than do laps on 36.
Grant Holicky 55:56
That’s a bold statement, but I think I might be with you. Not that term. Not wrong.
Trevor Connor 56:05
So I actually do the bus stop ride which goes out 36. And the first time I did it after I moved back from Boulder-we were talking about the cars beside you–here we are riding side by side in that three foot lane. And first time back after moving back to Boulder, there was a crash right at the front of the group.
Rob Pickels 56:22
Sounds about right.
Trevor Connor 56:23
I’m on the left side and I have enough time to react to it to move left and I look left…there’s a car beside me. Just go, “Damn it.” Slam into the guys, flip over, and cracked two ribs.
Rob Pickels 56:35
Perfect.
Grant Holicky 56:36
Welcome back. Welcome back. Welcome back. Welcome back. Welcome back.
Rob Pickels 56:45
That was another episode of Fast Talk. Subscribe to Fast Talk wherever you prefer to find your favorite podcast. Be sure to leave us a rating and a review. As always, we love your feedback.
Trevor Connor 56:56
I was like are you going to finish here.
Rob Pickels 57:00
Crap, what comes next. Join us on the forums or something. That was another episode of Fast Talk.
Trevor Connor 57:08
You were doing so well Rob.
Rob Pickels 57:09
I was, I was because here’s the thing. When I’m reading it, that’s about the point that my brain turns off and I’m just streaming from my eyes to my mouth, and I lose it. I don’t know tweet at Grant, tweet at Trevor, tweet at me.
Trevor Connor 57:25
All the opinions expressed here verse things you should not listen to. In any way, shape, or form.
Grant Holicky 57:33
Don’t sue us.
Trevor Connor 57:36
If you follow them, may God have mercy on your soul.
Rob Pickels 57:39
Good luck.
