Blather on Bicycling

In my last entry, I mentioned my short taper strategy for the Slammer worked well. Now I’m rethinking this, because Bartel has been sharing his strategy that took him to Cat 4 victory. I think I understand the protocol as he described it to me. It basically went like this in the days leading up to Slammer:

1. Get sick
2. Recover
3. Fly to Nashville
4. Avoid sleep
5. Develop knee swelling
6. Get sick and throw up for a couple days
7. Avoid food
8. Fly back to Boise very late the night before race
9. Relax for a few hours of shut-eye
10. Get on bike for first time in a week for 5 minutes of warm-up 
11. Win a race

We may have to get him to outline a specific day-by-day schedule to accurately replicate this pre-race plan. This is a novel training concept, that I haven’t read about or tried yet. I’m fairly certain the training gurus like Bompa, Friel, Carmichael, and Burke never mentioned this in their books or magazine articles. Outlining the plan here may revolutionize the current paradigm.