"The 33"-Road Bike Racing - How to suffer during a TT?

What are some of your techniques on dealing with pain during a time trial? Do you listen to music? Try to "make it to that next electrical pole"? Load up on sodium bicarbonate a few days before?

How to suffer during a TT?

Eat a liverwurst sandwich shortly before your TT.


What are some of your techniques on dealing with pain during a time trial?

When it hurts ... ride harder.

Who has time to listen to music or observe electrical poles during a TT? And what good would sodium bicarbonate do? ... although ... maybe it would have helped ease the nausea of that liverwurst sandwich.

Eat a liverwurst sandwich shortly before your TT.


I think that would do it, and perhaps make the next few people behind you suffer as well. Myself, I try and hold my position and speed until the next whatever that is just out of reach.

I think that would do it, and perhaps make the next few people behind you suffer as well. Myself, I try and hold my position and speed until the next whatever that is just out of reach.

And when you get there?

And when you get there?

There's always a next, until the finish line I keep focusing ahead as much as I can, even if it's only a couple of hundred meters.

Everytime I find myself losing it I think about what it feels like losing, or imagine my 1 minute man closing in.

If it's really bad I shift positions in my seat a little to change the loading on my legs, or try to concentrate on my breathing or pedaling.

I force myself to keep going.. I know that I will be pissed for a long time if I let up and dont put the best time on the board that I can... but the pain in the legs will be gone by the next morning.

i imagine a redneck in a pickup tailing me

Suffering is relative.
Try to remember life changing moments.
Cancer, car crashes, prom night.
Now a bit of lung and leg busting isn't so bad.

i think the will to suffer comes from within, and either you can handle it as a cyclist or cannot. now assuming you can handle the pain the question is how do you push yourself to work harder when you feel it is impossible. what i do, when i am at the limit, is to be sure i am not bogging down on my cadence and will take an upshift if needed to get the leg speed back up (go from strength to more aerobic). then when i feel like i can mash it harder i shift back down and put the big meat behind it.

this is a bit different than the pain to bridge a gap of if you are starting to pop on a climb. in these cases you have to take inventory and forget the pain and try to move outside your body. Jens Voight has a couple youtube videos where he talks about separating mind and body to some extent ... mind tells the body what to do and there is no compromise no matter the pain.

I have my australian friend call me the day before and tell me he's going to spank me at the TT. That's usually good for a PR.

You have to learn to suffer. Practice it. In your workouts, when you are doing intervals, threshold or VO2 you will learn how to suffer. Keep doing those workouts and your body and mind will say, "Hey, this hurts. But I've been here before and I will be fine."

Also, keeping hr/power below that magic number tells me that no matter how much it hurts, i'll be fine.

You have to learn to suffer. Practice it. In your workouts, when you are doing intervals, threshold or VO2 you will learn how to suffer. Keep doing those workouts and your body and mind will say, "Hey, this hurts. But I've been here before and I will be fine."

Also, keeping hr/power below that magic number tells me that no matter how much it hurts, i'll be fine.

+1
Music is a no-no.
Thinking about girls is a no-no.
Internal focus is key. Breathing and pedal stroke.
When you're in the last km, then dream of the gold medal, the podium girls, the spot on Letterman. Threshold doesn't matter any more at that point.
The rest of the time stay inside your body.
It will hurt, though.

Focus on the breathing. Try to catch your minute man. Under no circumstances get passed.

If I feel like I am fading I will click up a few gears, stand up and mash my way to another MPH or two. That usually helps change my focus enough so that I can then settle down again and maintain speed. Unless I am toast of course.

you should focus so hard you can feel every blood cell pump through your legs

no music no distractions. you must be able to focus and hold the pain.
hell don't carry anything not directly related to your TT. any extra weight
will only slow you down.

that takes concentration and you need to be in tune with yourself.


anyhow, get down low NEVER lift up your head or body do not come out of the
aero tuck ever not for a fraction of a second, unless your life is in danger.

and hammer.

use big gears

i imagine a redneck in a pickup tailing me

OMG! I can picture Ned Beatty on a bike spinning for dear life! :)

Suffering is relative.
Try to remember life changing moments.
Cancer, car crashes, prom night.
Now a bit of lung and leg busting isn't so bad.

I'm afraid to ask this question. But what happened on your prom night that put it on the same page as cancer and a car crash?

Something that helps me crank the suffer meter is to count the tempo I'd like to be pedaling at in my head then match my legs to it.

If I feel like I am fading I will click up a few gears, stand up and mash my way to another MPH or two. That usually helps change my focus enough so that I can then settle down again and maintain speed. Unless I am toast of course.

Unless it's a hilly course and you're doing it climbing, this is a seriously bad answer. You're making yourself much less aero, and the power output for that one or two mph is huge compared to staying in your aero psition. You need to train to be able to put out power the length of the TT maintaining a good aero postion.

If you feel the need to get out of the aerobars and stand, on a flat course, you're position needs work, or you need to get better acclimated to your position.

Unless it's a hilly course and you're doing it climbing, this is a seriously bad answer. You're making yourself much less aero, and the power output for that one or two mph is huge compared to staying in your aero psition. You need to train to be able to put out power the length of the TT maintaining a good aero postion.

If you feel the need to get out of the aerobars and stand, on a flat course, you're position needs work, or you need to get better acclimated to your position.

suggestion noted. filed accordingly. :troll:

Learn to enjoy the pain. The pain is mostly internal and temporary. It's an outlet. Let the pain transfer from in to out.

seeing as how I'm a masochist and loathe myself, I enjoy the pain.

Call me weird, but I fall down inside the pain and let it become my world. After a bit, the pain centers overload and stress adaptation starts to occur, or I* get a big dump of endorphins and the pain slides away again.

Whenever I go out my goals are;
-Catch 'x' amount of racers and not get caught.
-Never leave the most aero position unless climbing a sudden grade
-Tape over my computer head so I don't know how fast,how far, or how much power I'm putting through; therefore I'm at the edge
-Focus on breathing and whats up the road
-Think of winning
-Put everything you have into the pedals when you see the mile to go marker

It's called the pain cave. If you visit it enough, you can learn to live there for a while.

"We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret or disappointment."
~Jim Rohn


"All pain is either severe or slight, if slight, it is easily endured; if severe, it will without doubt be brief."
~Cicero


Then there is my favorite. William Ernest Henley's Invictus

OUT of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.


If none of the above make sense to you, a TTist you are not.

"We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret or disappointment."
~Jim Rohn


"All pain is either severe or slight, if slight, it is easily endured; if severe, it will without doubt be brief."
~Cicero


Then there is my favorite. William Ernest Henley's Invictus

OUT of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.


If none of the above make sense to you, a TTist you are not.

That last one was TL/DR but the first quote makes alot of sense. Wrote it on a sticky note and put it on my wall.

[QUOTE=DrWJODonnell;8010418"All pain is either severe or slight, if slight, it is easily endured; if severe, it will without doubt be brief."
~Cicero

I had been told that one previously. Here are a couple of my favorites.

"Pain is weakness leaving the body."

"It's a question of mind over matter, I don't mind and it don't f****ng matter"

But I have to admit that being close to fifty I tend to follow more saguin mottos.

"A lazy person, whatever the talents with which he set out, will have condemned himself to second-hand thoughts and to second-rate friends. "

Thus my attraction to BF...

Just keep promising yourself ever greater rewards when the TT ends if you don't slow down. My legs respond to positive reinforcement.

"crawl inside your pain box and get comfortable"

none more truer words have been said. the earlier post about training to be in pain is spot on. saw a show about the brain the other night and it made an interesting point- in the 80's great leaps were made in developing the strength/muscles of athletes. in the late 90's+ research shows the body is actually a minor part of the equation and that the largest contributor to performance is the BRAIN.

the technique i use is counting. sounds simple and trite- but every breath, every pedal stroke, every telephone poll, every third breath- whatever- i just count.

there's almost a disassociation between the higher cognitive part and the lower physical part of the brain/brainstem. the higher functioning part is relaxing to the cadence of the count and is pre-occupied with what is essentially simple mathmatics (addition)... whereas the lower part is free to apply power.

it keeps the brain from focusing on the pain/discomfort and prevents it from firing PANIC symptoms.


there's a little more to this- but i really like winning TTs and i dont want you bozos using this against me.

that being said- i've got Aspergers so this is right up my alley. everyone is different and you need to find what works for you.

A bit of a different take...but there you go.

http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x210/darkintruder/vikings-demotivate.jpg

"You feel your strength in the experience of pain" -Jim Morrison

"The only races that haunt me are the ones where I left something on the table" -Racer Ex

"dude, did you just quote yourself?"

-Brianappleby

"wanders is as wanders does" - wanders (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MVUIRZ1CyA)

"dude, did you just quote yourself?"

-Brianappleby

:thumb:

I ask myself this (and it's abbreviated on the head uit of my Powertap):

what would JENS do?

WWJD.... crush souls?

-L

I prefer a little comedy with pain. Though I am not really a bike racer anymore (if ever I was), I am learning to suffer in that crazy world of triathlon. When I really don't want to swim anymore, or go for the run after the swim, I think of this little dialogue:


(http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000681/)Peter La Fleur (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000681/): Uh, actually I decided to quit... Lance.
(http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000681/)Lance Armstrong (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0035790/): Quit? You know, once I was thinking about quitting when I was diagnosed with brain, lung and testicular cancer, all at the same time. But with the love and support of my friends and family, I got back on the bike and I won the Tour de France five times in a row. But I'm sure you have a good reason to quit. So what are you dying from that's keeping you from the finals?
(http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000681/)Peter La Fleur (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000681/): Right now it feels a little bit like... shame.
(http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000681/)Lance Armstrong (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0035790/): Well, I guess if a person never quit when the going got tough, they wouldn't anything to regret for the rest of their life. But good luck to you Peter. I'm sure this decision won't haunt you forever. (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000681/)

Always get's me going again.

Lance Armstrong: Quit? You know, once I was thinking about quitting when I was diagnosed with brain, lung and testicular cancer, all at the same time.

:lol::lol::lol:

I ask myself this (and it's abbreviated on the head uit of my Powertap):

what would JENS do?

WWJD.... crush souls?

-L

Jens is basically a marauding horde, so the Viking thing is just an extension of that.

1. I stink at TTs.
2. I think motivation is very personal, so what motivates one athlete seldom motivates another. I learned this while coxswaining for national caliber rowers in college.
3. For me, being pissed off is a good way to get thru 2-3 minutes of pain. So yes, when I find myself sagging, I will intentionally remind myself of the things that most infuriated me in my life.