Training & Nutrition - Ok, a friend who I'm training screwed up big time and got drunk. Need Advice.

When I told him no drinking tonight, which he did anyways. He came back all drunk and bloodied. He told me he had a few drinks and got into a fight. Have a training ride scheduled for tomorrow morning for early, but I'm going to call that one. But I'm getting him up early on Monday and it is supposed to snow. I plan on pushing him with a 30 mile ride at a hard race pace. I usually would not push him like this, but with his not listening to me, I'm going to push him hard. Is this a sound way to approach this?

Hi,
I wonder if this was a bad day, some conflict between the two of you; or a lack of commitment. I would ignore it for now.
If it's conflict, you don't want to feed it. If it'a a bad day; well it's done and gone. If it's a signal he's losing enthusiasm, that requires it's own strategy.

If it's a signal he's losing enthusiasm, that requires it's own strategy.

And drilling him at race pace on Monday is only going to feed that lack of enthusiasm.

There is alot of motivation, maybee I should have a talk with him instead.

Hell, I would have him ride through his hangover. No need to push him at a super fast pace but a nice easy pace with a few good climbs will not only get him though the hangover but will teach him how the alcohol affects his training.

And about him doing what you said not to, either he is not realy committed to achiving his goals, no priority there, or perhaps he is just an alcoholic(just speculation). He may have a lot of motivation but with out commitment it means nothing.

If he is not going to listen to your advice you should not take it personally. It is like trying to get some one to stop smoking if deep in side they are not ready to stop.

If he is trying to piss you off then may I suggest a large bag and a Louisville slugger? :p (jk)

:beer:

Sounds like he is wasting your time. I'd call it off for the whole week.

Pretty disrespectful, IMO.

I don't see motivation.

If you know you're in training, you don't go out and get drunk and get into fights. Period. Even Jan learned his lessons- he doesn't hang in the bars anymore. He's in training, and keeping to a pretty strict regime too. When he was doing the bar stuff, he wasn't getting anywhere with the Tour de France.

There's absolutely no benefit to pushing someone who's not prepared for it. I'd skip the ride and tell the dude to call you when he's ready to play grownup and do some big time training.

By the way, if he messes up again, I'd drop him entirely. It would just show me he's not serious, and with all the time I put into training people, I would not deal with someone who slips up more than once. It's a time waster.

Tough love, buddy.... it's all about tough love.

Koffee

I agree with Koffee, You can't motivate him.
Its like dieting, or quiting smoking etc. You can't do it
for someone and they won't do it until they have made
up their mind to do it.
Your buddy (client?) has to really want it, not just
profess to want to train.
Marty

I've got a different take, for consideration at least, since you're the only one that knows enough to really judge. It sounds like he's pretty well motivated and committed. Sometimes, a night of partying can be a symptom of too much discipline. Or more than he is able to handle. Another flavor of overtraining, if you will. Maybe not, you're the only one that can judge, and it's you're call as to how you want to deal with it. If he's using you, drop him like a bad habit.

I agree with your plan to let him off the day after... serious training with residual hangover dehydration and all those toxins still floating around in his system would do more harm than good. Finally, it almost sounds like you're planning the hard Monday ride as punishment. Counter-productive, IMO. Somewhere back there in the lizard brain the message gets reduced to 'bike training is punishment.' Just one more obstacle to overcome.

Ok, got stuff worked out today, this has gotten worked out. I told him to use judgement on whether to drink or not, but informed him that it could effect his riding if he drank too much. We will see how that works.

Always get him out and work his ass off. Afterwards, you can joke about it and then maybe have a talk with him (if necessary, only you know), then give him a couple of days off. It is "punishment" but if he makes the effort the next day, it shows his motivation and committment. These days are going to happen as we are all human, but they do have to be kept in check. It reminds me of volleyball practice (I know, not the same forum) in high school. If my coach ever new we went out, he would call a "surprise" practice for Sunday and it would be a "conditioning" practice. We learned not to go out too hard until after the season was over.

It sort of depends on the guy and his personality and how much you care about him.

I had a friend who was an alcoholic. If we had something scheduled and I came over and he had gotten plastered the night before, I got him up and going. He would complain about feeling sick and I would say "no surprise there, you your drunk last night".

He felt that drinking was a big personal disgrace and he avoided facing it. My take on it was different. Drinking was a weakness of his that he had to adjust to, learn to manage and live with. If he lapsed, he had to get up and put it behind him and keep trying. No disgrace about it. It was a fact of life. Like it is a fact of life for me that I have a crummy sprint.

He did get his life straight too.

Of course, there are other people who are young and their bodies can take a lot of abuse and they go out and get drunk and fight and figure that they can shrug it off. And there are some people who can actually do it. Apparantly Babe Ruth could. I read an account by one of Ruth's teamates who went out with Ruth drinking one night. The next day they had a double header. This guy felt so badly he thought he was going to die and barely was able to play and that badly. He said there was Ruth looking fresh as a daisy and playing like he slept like a baby the night before. He said that Ruth was not human and that Ruth had dropped out of a tree somewhere. I think that comment is a nasty thing to say about apes who tend to be very sober individuals. But I think you get the idea.

Maybe you can work with this guy and maybe you need to find someone else who shares your goals and dedication to work with. It isn't even necessarily about committment either. If you want to train hard, you need someone to push you and you can ride with a person who works hard and is dedicated but just does not perform at a high enough level and even with the same committment this person would not make a good training partner. People vary and you got to take them or leave them as they are.