Yeah, gotta love defying conventional wisdom. Take 11 years of training and keep breaking thru to new peaks.
It’s been post season power testing the past 2 weeks. Despite all the personal challenges and adversity of this past year. Cranked out some awesome power tests.
Any cycling athlete that trains regularly with watt measuring power device, knows of the sometimes dreaded 20minute Threshold test. Personally I hadn’t worked on one in awhile.
At almost age 42, most people are gonna say… “eh, you know getting up there.” I say, bullshit, our abilities are driven by many factors not just age.
Here’s a reference, much loved cyclist Jens Voight, last month set the world 1hr TT record. He did it targeting a power output of around 370watts. Does that effort hurt? Um… yes. Will there be faster guys that ultimately break his record at higher wattage out put. Sure.
Now I wasn’t going for a world 1hr TT record but I was going for a personal best 20min effort. I’m happy to say I landed just 11 watts shy of what Jens did for an hour. Could I have kept that up for another 40 minutes, hell no. But maybe 340watts, less than 10% off the world record holder? That’s actually not so far fetched.
Power is relative to weight on hills -- and frontal body surface on flats. Jens’ at 168lbs has got me by 3-7lbs on any given day.
I’ve got a point in all this. Don’t believe all the conventional wisdom. Wisdom that says after 10yrs of training you’re maxed out, you can’t possibly get any faster. Guess what? In 11th year and I just put 3% gains on my 20min threshold ability. Oh, you’re almost 42, you’re past your prime. Eh? Well, if that was the case it wouldn’t be a new peak right?
Maybe this is not true for everyone, but my point is don’t give up, try different strategies and approaches. If anything the worst that happens you still maintain a very high competitive form of fitness…
Some of my favorite athletes as a kid were the older ones. They inspired others as to what was possible. Yes, there’s a lot of things in life and we can’t do everything, but if you have a desire for something don’t give up. Believe in the unconventional. World record 1hr TT holder is 43, winner of 2013 ground tour Vuelta a Espana 41, even Olympian’s like Dara Torres can be in their 40’s. Pursue it as long as it’s of interest to you and you have desire. You might just end up amazing yourself…
