Mar 11
13
Lungs or legs? Heart or Head? Which one is running the show?
Think about this for a moment……….the vast majority of age group endurance athletes go through the last 2 hours of an event toward the bottom of their aerobic range
why? why does someone who has an aerobic range of 120-160 bpm chug around an IM marathon at 130bpm
answer- the legs have given out well before an limit of the lungs
more complicated is why? there are simple explanations- lack of fuel, lack of proper preparation, overpacing early in the race etc etc
now lets look at more simple ideas…..
there are many ways to ride a bike fast. You can muscle the thing – not dissimilar to a low reving muscle car with a lot of torque. Disadvantage is this big engine sucks a lot of fuel and produces a lot of heat
Humans are not much different. The guys are the worst offenders- simply because they have more muscle mass usually to throw around.
Problem? Your muscles only store so much fuel in them. The rest comes from the liver and the blood stream. There’s around 2 hours of good glycogen stored up- which is ready to burn. You can usually go another 2 or so hours into defecit before things get noticeably bad. 120K into the bike or the 5hr into the race mark- everyone starts to blow. The heart rate comes down, the legs slow down and the concrete feeling descends, overheating begins.
Now lets be clear on this you CAN train to ride very efficiently in this style but it takes dedication and a lot of work. The majority of age group men never go much past the 4-5 hr mark in training- or if they do they spend Sunday morning pigging out and lying on the floor. Whilst this fixes the problem of being low on gas that day it does nothing to prepare a body to do a 9hr + effort. Simply put -impressive bike times in training but spectacular explosions every time they race
If you start your next race with the simply focus that this is an aerobic sport- your lungs and heart should be guiding the work- not the stupid muscles or your big head. Intelligent racers try to conserve every piece of glycogen in their body. On certain parts of the course it makes a lot more sense to rev harder and use the lungs more- rather than hammer and use your muscles all the time. I’ve got a friend who owns a Lexus Hybrid 4WD – that thing has some serious grunt and can burn some serious petrol but it can also hum along on the electric motor when there is an opportunity to do so.
So ask yourself the whole way through the day….can I use my lungs and heart a bit more to do the work? Particularly in long races we rarely race at an intensity that the lungs cant keep the work going- its aerobic. But it takes focus to not just dump the gas on – you have to actively shift through the gearbox the whole day. Some times its sensible to hammer it (wind at your back/ getting onto a group in front/ getting away from a bad rider etc). At all other times look for a way to make your lungs do the work.
Of course this is a bit simplistic- all these organs are interelated, but lets go back to starting observation- age groupers crawling through a marathon at 130bpm heart rate. I’ve got a guy I coach who constantly complains he “can’t get his heart rate up on the bike”….but he consistently runs out of gas on longer rides. I ask him why not drop the gears back a bit and rev a bit higher- let the lungs do a bit more. His answer- well I just go slower then. Exactly – you need time to reprogram your muscles and brain to operate this way- you will likely go slower for a while. But if we shift the focus onto efficient riding and what we need to learn to finish an event well …..it will all pay off. Athletes who learn how to power their effort from the lungs will be able to run at 75-80% of their max all day long
So before you smack down the next ride ask yourself who’s running the show ? Lungs or legs? Heart or Head?
