London TWC - vol.1

TWC means Track World Cup.

First and foremost – the traffic in London is nothing but ridiculous! Three miles in an hour, that's not too bad, is it?
But anyway, here we are now, the bikes are in the container and official training ahead. And on Friday it is time to open the season with my second world cup start!

It's been loads of this lately....



….but tomorrow it is time for some real track action at the Olympic arena!

The beauty of a rest day.

On Wednesday I had a horrible session consisting of four 72 second intense efforts with 180 second rest intervals simulating the upcoming kilo, and as a bonus some max wattage efforts. On thursday, I had an active recovery. And yesterday pyramid effort from consisting of two, three, four, three and at last another two mins efforts just give a bit of depth for the kilo. The main sessions have been like these two intense ones during last two weeks or so. It's been quite a killer, but yet I've managed to complete them alright. But today is a day off from training.

Another point is uniwork. When I train, I train. When I do uniwork, I think when I'd have time to rest. And when I rest, I feel pressure to do uniwork. Kind of a mind fuck, but in truth, uniwork has lately proved to be a rather nice escape from the training regime. And my dissertation project has taken many steps forward. It is just a major balancing act to get it all suitably fitted in the program, but it can be done effectively.

But back to the header. What's the most beautiful thing on a rest day? The waking up to the fact that there is no training might be one. The thought, that I can just lay and do nothing is another. And the most peaceful morning coffee is just something purely amazing. That might be it, the beauty of the day. I don't know, but somehow at the end of the day, I really start to look forward to get back on the bike and going again, but that ain't a bad thing either.

Today is a rest day, and I've now had my perfect morning coffee. It is time to take care of some practicalities first, draw some graphs for uni and then ultimately it is time for Six Nations rugby action. I'm not gonna move from the sofa this afternoon! Proper rest, isn't proper rest if you do something all the time. And the beauty of rest days ultimately lays within the art of being lazy for one chosen day.

Just another week.

I would have had seriously lots to write about, but I didn't have computer and then I forgot all I was about to share. Just kidding... Although, I don't think that my daily life really has been so inspiring lately. Quite straight forward stuff to say the least: train, rest, eat and study; train, rest, eat and study and so on. That is just how it is at the moment, but only until next week.

Maybe, I'm just exaggerating the boredom of this all, because there certainly has been some breathtaking moments. Firstly, I had to take my laptop to service. Not the nicest thing with the dissertation project going on, but I was relieved to hear that it is just one or two days to get it fixed. And I just want to say, that this happened on Tuesday 31st. Only today, after calling the company every day I got this thing back unfixed – yes, unfixed. But, eventually my old man got it fixed. Apparently, they had successfully changed the broken part, but whilst doing that caused other damage, which they didn't bother to check or fix. It could happen to anyone anyday.

Isn't it normal to get asked for ID if you buy some wine from the supermarket? Yes, I think it should be. That happened to me the other day and I handed my driver's license to the cashier lady. She looked at it for long and asked if that was a driver's license at all. I told that it was and it was an EU one. Apparently, she asked for my age and where it says that in the card, but also called a supervisor in. That time I thought: Oh my... Only then I realized that the supervisor lady either didn't recognize the card, and started asking the same questions and I kindly answered. Then she asked what did this note of year '09 mean in the card and I responded that by asking if looked like if I was three years old and then told that it is the date I got my license. My response, somehow, was considered as inappropriate, but I passed and got my wines. I just don't think that EU license should cause this much trouble or that I'm a toddler. For a toddler, my taste for wines seems pretty developed.

That's about the unexpected. Expectedly I've trained and studied hard. It all seems to come together nicely and I'm well in the schedule with my uniwork as the first results have also been pleasing. In terms of training I've been killing myself on the Wattbike for next weeks test. And yesterday I saw some progress and boosted confidence out of that.

The test, next Tuesday I'll head to London to ride my second Track World Cup, but this time I'll ride the kilo. The Kilo will be on Friday evening. I have no real expectations as it is only February and I haven't really done as much track work as earlier. Although, I have to admit that my form has been building up quite nicely, otherwise I wouldn't go there. I'm looking forward to take another babystep or -steps forwards, enjoy the brand new Olympic arena and ride to my best. On the bonus side is also that I'm not the only Finn competing.

Stay tuned!

Competitive mindset.

So last I tallied about dreams and targets in sport. But another things is how to achieve them. This post is not about the training plan or specific training about it. I'm talking about the philosophy behind my thoughts about how to attain the form. My thoughts are from my head, movies, books etc.

I believe that in cycling, and more specificly in my disciplines, one always gets the results that one deserves. Right? You race as you train; if you back up in training when it hurts, you are likely to do that in racing as well. So if you give your 100% in training and prep, you will end up the result that you deserve. Same thing is that, if you give your 50% in training and prep, you'll end up with what you deserve, although the results may not be satisfactory.

I, personally, try to do things before race 'perfectly' so that on a race day I can just enjoy, ride the hell out of me and bag the result. I can only do that if I've got the feeling that everything is done for the performance. By this I mean that I'm in control of myself – I control the controllables and forget about the uncontrollables. The things that I can't control don't matter so why bother thinking about them. I'm still working on it, but I think that it is starting to work.

A track cycling legend, Chris Boardman, has said: 'Develop a fascination with the journey rather than the destination – or focus on being better rather than being the best. It means you never fail, only have opportunities to improve.' And I can only agree. It is the journey that brings me the happiness more often in many ways. Improving, taking steps, going towards the dreams keeps the motivation up. I think this has been a vital thing for me on my training.

On the last bit, we are in centre field of a velodrome on the way to the starting block. By that time the only thing that matters is that moment. Living in the moment and loving the hard battle - once I always attain that, it will be great. Some people call that flow. Then, only then, I can ride my perfect rides:

-Where are you?
-Here.
-What time is it?
-Now.
-What are you?
-This moment.

My favourite quote from Peaceful Warrior, I strongly recommend that movie to everyone.

P.S. This was just an overview. I could go more into setting mind correctly. Just drop a comment or question... :)