5 New Ways I Got Better On The Bike
5 New Ways I Got Better On The Bike
Oregon 70.3 build, biking in 100 mile training, losing weight while fueling better
My question of the year:
Am I still getting better at Ironman while running 100 mile ultras?
My Oregon 70.3 build (and race) gave the answer. But this post isn’t a full race recap.
Instead, I’m going to share the specific 5 parts of my build that gave me the biggest wins/lessons.
You can steal these to make your own process (and performance) better.
I’ll cover:
Getting muscle memory back on the bike
Hard workouts have to go well
Losing 8lbs with fueling minimums
Signs of progress
Stay biking
These are the keys to my 23+ mph bike split on race day. Let’s dive in.
Want to skip right to the full race recap?
I recorded a complete video on my build, mindset and race day. You can watch it below.
#1: Getting Muscle Memory Back On The Bike
Coming out of my Great Divide 100 recovery, I wanted to overload my bike training.
But that didn’t mean just hammer huge mileage right away.
Instead, I went for frequency and drill work to get muscle memory back.
More touches > Big touches
I returned from 100 mile recovery with…
10 straight days of riding
Lots of Spin Ups and Single Leg Drills
300 miles total during the 10 day streak
I recorded a short video on how I do Spin Ups.
This will help you if you are ramping to a race (or new to cycling).
Watch here:
#2: Hard Workouts Have To Go Well
The biggest win of my whole build was that I didn’t have a single hard bike or run workout go poorly.
I planned and communicated each key workout with my wife
I fueled well for all of them
I had a few bad workouts on endurance efforts. But those are the best ones to let be “meh”.
Reminder: half of workouts will be below average
How quickly you develop is (in part) determined by which workouts you let suck.
That doesn’t mean high intensity workouts are always more important than Z2 work.
But in race specific prep on a short timeline, they were for me.
#3: Losing 8lbs With Fueling Minimums
I lost 8lbs during my 6 week build to race day. That was a huuuge freaking win for me.
In the past, I’ve been guilty of cutting weight in ways that sabotage my training/performance goals (ie: training fasted or under-fueled)
With Oregon 70.3 just weeks away, I made a few commitments to myself:
Goal = lose 10 lbs spread over 12 weeks (longer timeline for weight loss than I typically commit to)
Fuel every workout with a minimum of 150 calories of Infinit sports mix BEFORE the training session starts (including early morning swims - the easiest to trick myself into doing fasted)
Eat a big meal before every high intensity ride (most often: eggs, sourdough, honey)
The result?
I performed well, was less ravished after training and could manipulate calorie deficit later in the day.
A lesson I was reminded of:
If I want to lose weight, I need to go to bed hungry.
A personal insight I was reminded of:
I can default to going low on calories in the beginning of the day. But that often leads to me eating more in the afternoon/at night (and negating any calorie deficit).
But it was something else that made all the difference…
The Tribal Accountability Chat.
I started a small group inside Tribal for athletes who want to lose weight in conjunction with their endurance goals.
We do weigh-ins on Mondays and Fridays and post them in the small group chat.
Having to weigh-in and post my result in the group held me accountable.
I made better choices on days before weigh-ins. And had more consistent checks on my progress than I would have otherwise.
We have 12 athletes in the group and everyone is benefitting from the communal effort.
#4: Power Looked Promising
The main high intensity bike workouts I did were variations of 8x2 min and 10x2 min V02 intervals inserted in the front half of 2-4 hour rides.
Ex:
30 min warm up with a few short surges
8x2 min V02 w/ 2 min recovery between sets
Finish ride in Z2 cruise
My FTP was/is set at 300W. But that number came from a test last year.
I hadn’t done a Threshold Test in 2024 with all the ultra focus. And I didn’t do one in this build.
But I could tell my power looked promising.
My V02/Z5 is set at 318-362W based on last year’s test.
And in these interval sets, I was holding 380-400W for the 2 min intervals.
I was feeling and performing way better than I expected to on the bike.
#5: Stay Biking
I checked back on my bike data from the first 5 months of the year (Jan 1 through Great Divide 100 on June 1).
I averaged 2:30 of ride time per week.
And I only had 4 weeks with zero rides…
2x were 100 mile race weeks
2x were family trips with no bike access
To me, that checked the box on two coaching principles I’ve covered recently.
To elevate from “complete” to “compete”, you can’t have big gaps away from sport
2:30 isn’t an aggressive goal for me. It’s achievable.
And it was enough to elevate my bike foundation (while also raising my ceiling).
In a future post, I’ll cover the how I executed on race day on my way to a new 70.3 PR of 4:33.