‘Train your weaknesses, Race your strengths’…and a practical example.
Train Weakness, Race Strengths...
Coaches will tell you that your best bet is to train your weaknesses, so that they do less to limit your race success. But when you show up at the race race your strengths. If you’re a strong time trailer, but can’t sprint to save your life, it makes no sense to sit back and let the race come down to a final sprint. The better tactic for the time trialist is to try and turn the race in to a time trial. Attack early and hope you can get clear. With a big enough lead, the sprint specialists might be very reluctant to work hard to close a gap. Similarly, the time trailer might be able to attack late in the race, but while the distance to the finish line seems too far to pedal alone. There are times when an attack 5 kilometers from the finish might seem foolhardy, but might be the best odds for victory for the strong time trailer with a mediocre sprint. On the other side of the coin, that pure sprinter will conserve and stay in contact hoping the race will come down to a final sprint. Don’t be surprised if that person only follows wheels, or is never seen on the front of the race. Don’t blame her if she’s only on wheels; labeling her a ‘wheelsucker’ misses the point. She’s racing her strength. It makes no sense for that person to sit on the front wasting energy pulling hard. But when the 300 meter marks shows up, it’s time for the sprinter to shine.
Keep in mind, ‘training your weakness’, although a good practice, doesn’t mean that you’re going to turn a weakness in to your strength. If your physiology is full of fast twitch fibers, you might improve as a time trailer, but you will never match the strength of someone who was born to be one. When you show up at the race, you still want to race your strengths. By improving your weakness you might be reducing your limitations, but it’s a rare occasion when you can actually turn a real weakness into your strength. Most athletes find their strengths early and naturally gravitate to races and opportunities that play to those strengths.
And now for a practical example…
Let’s say your weakness is climbing. If you’re a pretty large cyclist like me (175#-79kg and 6’1”-185cm), you’re likely to never be a climber like Andy Schleck or Alberto Contador. You can maintain a high strong effort, even on a climb, but when the surges and attacks happen on a climb, you suffer and usually get dropped. So what do you do? Training your weakness (climbing) is still important. You should include force intervals, hill attacks and stomps in your training. You should work on proper climbing technique emphasizing strong cadence maintenance to keep your legs from fatiguing. Learn to use leverage and body position to maximize force without ‘fighting’ the bike. Work on your attitude about climbing and the climb. Develop mental cues to help convert a problem climb in to a challenge that you attack. Break climbs down in to manageable segments. As you reach goals within the climb you can create energy for the next challenge. As you gain climbing prowess, you will get to the top of climbs more quickly, but you still may not be able to climb with the best climbers. Trying to match them pedal stroke for stroke may be your undoing. To deal with this ‘weakness’ you can adopt a tactic known as ‘slide climbing’. This tactic allows you to climb at a pace more to your liking without losing contact with the climbers. When you see a climb coming up, don’t lag at the back of the pack. Move to the front. Try to start the climb on the front, or even off the front. Then settle in and climb at your strong climbing pace. Be willing to accept the fact that you’re going to get passed by the true climbers. Stay mentally focused; keep your pace at a level you can handle. As the pack gets strung out going up the climb you may be passed by most or many of the other riders, but with luck you’ll still be in contact with riders as you reach the crest of the climb. Rather than facing a miserable solo chase to try and reconnect with the pack after you’re dropped, you have wheels to follow and riders to work with. Low and behold, you’ve raced your strength.
