Scooby’s 200 Mile Bike Race.
Are those muscles for go or for show? The below video is different from all my others. I have over two hundred videos on how you can lose weight, gain muscle, and get healthier but none about me. This video is about me and my fitness goals and this is important for two reasons.
First to show you I practice what I preach. I harp on your folks about how important goal setting is and Its just as important for me as it is for you! Every year I publish my fitness goals on the About Me section of my website and in this video I will cover a 200 mile race which was one of my fitness goals for 2012
The second reason I feel this is important for you is that you can tell from looking at me that I know how to build a great physique and can follow my own advice, but what you cant tell is if my bod is for go or for show. Its one thing to build an amazing physique, its another to build a functional and healthy body. Too many bodybuilders get out of breath climbing up two flights of stairs and dont do anything athletic outside the weight room.
I have learned just as much about fitness, bodybuilding and health from sports as I have in the weight room. For example, I can tell you firsthand from doing triathlons about how important hydration is, whether cardio burns muscle, and how far the body can be pushed. From beach volleyball I can tell you firsthand about shoulder an knee issues and how to keep the joints healthy. Bodybuilding experience comes from a variety of sources, from books, from lifting weights and from sports.
One of my 2012 goals was to complete a 200 mile bike race, a double century. Its a one day extreme event. The video above is about my double century that took place this weekend.
First of all, I didnt decide to enter this particular event till 17 days before so I had very little time to prepare. This isnt quite as bad as it sounds because I keep at a very high level of conditioning all year round – my life has no “off season”. To make things more difficult, the few training days I did have were hindered by unseasonably bad weather making doing a few centuries beforehand difficult. I focused on hill climbing because that was the easiest way for me to get the best cardio training bang for my buck. I am fortunate to have a large variety of mountains to climb right near me that have a nice 6-7% constant grade up to 2500′ so I used those.
Five days before the race, I stopped all caffiene. To take full advantage of caffeine’s benefits in improving endurance, I needed to have it all out of my body by race day. Didnt want to cycle in the 5 days before the race so took the opportunity to completely clean and lube my bike to put it in perfect mechanical condition. In the days leading up to the race, the weather was really iffy. First the storm was predicted to arrive on race day, then the day after – then it would waffle again. I had already decided that if rain/snow were predicted I would have to cancel because I was not experienced enough with the course to do it safely under those conditions. The day before, it looked good, the storm was still predicted to hit the day after.
Checked in for the race the night before because I didnt want to get up any earlier than I had to the morning of the race and then went to bed at 8pm. Slept ok considering it was pre-race. The second I got up I started pounding the water. I had only one hour before start time and knowing the importance of hydration to sports performance, I wanted to be fully hydrated by start time. The first 20 miles was all a climb so I was going to be sweating. From experience I know that when I’m going up hill, I cant drink fast enough to maintain hydration so like a camel, I needed to make sure I had enough water before starting.
The first 100 miles was easy, mountains with very little wind so I was averaging almost 16mph even with the mountains – then all hell broke loose. The incoming storm messed with the normal afternoon weather pattern and what would have normally been 70 miles of tailwind turned into 70 miles of agonizing battle against a constant 25mph headwind. Now for really good cyclists, they just got into their pelotons and took turns leading the pack – problem is, I’m not a good cyclist, I’m a 240 pound bodybuilder. I had to slog it out by myself and for much of the way, my normal non-wind cycling speed of 20-25mph was dropped to a moral-crushing 8-10mph.
I still dont know my final time but I make it, I did the whole 200 mile racand I gotta tell you that there were about 1000 times during that 70 mile stretch of horrible headwind that I wanted to just call it quits. What kept me going? I just kept telling myself that although I was totally exhausted and sore, I could do one more mile. Just do one more mile and then decide if I wanted to stop or not. Just taking it one single mile at a time is the only way I made it.