The Hour

Being a full-fledged-card-carrying tri-geek sometimes gets a little, well, slow. This fact dawned on me the other day like a lazy summer sunrise. We are all about slow and steady. With managed heart rates and well-defined calories per hour. We monitor averages and subtleties. We endure. We go long. The most exciting part of the day is usually the last 50 meters. Between the Point A of a canon blast and those final few meters of Point B comes a full day's work, relentless and aerobic, never getting out of control because that has too great a cost to the energy reserves, a precious commodity rivaling that of, perhaps, only light sweet crude. Sometimes the most exciting thing that happens during an Ironman bike leg is being handed a banana at an aid station by someone dressed as an ape. Pretty exciting stuff, Tarzan.

We sometimes altogether miss another world because of this. What our long, steady distance provides as challenge, bike racing offers as adrenaline flow. Not too many things can take us from a mild endorphin high, to an all-out, high-intensity adrenaline rush like going fast on a bike can. They are two completely different mindsets. The triathlon world of endurance to the racing world of speed.

That sunrise dawning pointed my vision towards the path of current training creating future racing performance. The crossroads where hard winter efforts produce powerful summer results. The goal, however paradoxical, of speed becoming efficient. Using less octane to push further and faster. It's an old question: Which is 'better': A 60 minute ride at a controlled heart rate, or two 30 minute rides at 90%. Further, (pun fully intended) how about, four 15 minutes sessions at max?

Hummmmmmm.

How would THAT play out come the race day demands of 2.4, 112 and 26.2? Motivationally, the easiest way to play the adrenaline card is to race often. If you live in a place where you can. Here, we need the virtual. The indoor. Some combination of technology and opportunity. We need to bring the race inside while if is cold, wet and dark out.

I have been reading a compelling novel of one man's pursuit of one of the most respected records in all of cycling. It is by Brit Michael Hutchinson and it is called The Hour. As you might have guessed, it is about his process chasing the simple, elegant and demanding challenge of riding a bike as far as you can for one hour. Just mentioning that added ten beats per minute to my HR. Can you feel what that is like right now? All out for 60? No metrics, no percentages, no team to rely on or big bodies to draft behind, just you, your motor, and the passage of sixty clicks of eternity. Point A to whatever will become Point B. As measured by miles.

We start Monday and will take it through the end of January. The BAC Hour. Everyone will ride the same course. It has one teeny, tiny hill at mile ten. Other than that, it is up to you. You can make as many attempts as you. Here is some history on The Hour Record to the prime the pump. It will always be the same course, same challenge, same protocol.

Or will it? Maybe you will get faster. Maybe you will go further. Maybe you will see empirically how power becomes endurance.

It could be the dawning of your next new day. The race you were born to win. And it only takes an hour.

Here are some video archival retrospectives:

Eddie Merckx in Mexico City, 1972

Chris Hoy in 2008

Victoria Pendleton

Graeme Obree

Chris Boardman

Pic: Mixed two-person team racing last night in the HoM. Green Team in back row, Jane and Jeff, took down the Red Team of Garry and Yasuyo by a combined 3 minutes over ten flat miles. How that will play out over 112, or an hour, is anybody's guess.