The DHC Podcast
Ever wondered what it’s like to be truly involved in sports? Wonder no more!
On this podcast, I’ll sit down with players, GMs, owners, and passionate fans like you to uncover how they fell in love with sports. We’ll dive into their unique journeys, explore the business side of the game, and discuss the endless possibilities that the sport offers.
From behind-the-scenes stories to deep conversations about the sport, I’m here to explore it all—while having a ton of fun along the way!
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The DHC Podcast
Racing to Success: Katie's Journey from Amateur to Semi-Professional Cyclist PT1
This podcast episode explores the journey of Katie. A semi-professional cyclist, weaving personal stories and insights into the world of competitive cycling. She shares her transition from triathlons to racing, her challenges and triumphs, and the team dynamics that define the sport.
• Katie discusses her injury days before her wedding
• Journey from grad school to becoming a competitive cyclist
• Importance of community support and proactive engagement in sports
• Breakdown of different types of cycling races
• Description of training routines and intense preparation
• Insights into the camaraderie and challenges during races
• Discussion on the realities of semi-professional cycling life
Make sure to rate, review, and subscribe to our podcast, and share this episode with someone who loves cycling!
Make sure to follow the Dad Hat Chronicles: https://linktr.ee/TheDadHatChronicles
Yeah, I've got a plate and 12 screws in this wrist and my forearm from a pretty horrific crash. I had 12 days before my wedding because I was dumb enough to raise right before my wedding. Is anybody there?
Speaker 2:all right, all right, all right. Well, welcome everybody to yet another episode of the data chronicles. My name is ed, also known as the dad hat, all right. So, guys, as uh, as you guys already know, uh, last episode a couple of episodes I have done where we are going into having a person who is in a different sport than the one I love, which is baseball.
Speaker 2:Uh, we had our good friend, uh, mike sellers of the up to chat podcast, do a little bit of uh, training. Uh, well, training me into what is called tennis. Uh, that went. I don't know how that went, but anyways, today I got a good friend of mine who is a well used to be a semi-pro athlete in the world of cycling and she is going to teach me all about this, and then I will probably retain none of it, and then I'm going to be feel bad about myself because I don't have to rewatch the episode. So that's a good thing that it is recorded. So, for all of those of you that are watching, thank you so much. Make sure that you go on the YouTube channel and hit the like and go ahead and make sure that you subscribe as well. But now that we got that out of the way. Katie, how are you today?
Speaker 1:I'm good. Hopefully I'm exciting enough. You remember something out of this episode.
Speaker 2:I Good, hopefully I'm exciting enough. You will remember something out of this episode. I will remember everything because I watched the tour of the fronts. I watch it every time. I was telling a friend of mine I said I was having you know, I was going to have you come on, and they're like, oh, that's cool. I'm like like yeah, cause I watched the tour. I even watched the tour of down under the Australian one.
Speaker 2:Uh, those are exciting stuff. So I want to know, from your point of view, someone, who, who does the I'm sure you still, you know, get your bike out and all that.
Speaker 1:Yep. I want you to teach me about cycling. Okay, okay, where do you want me to start? Cause there is a an entire massive world of cycling that I feel like most Americans don't know about because it's not a huge sport here. I'm sure every European under the sun knows everything about cycling because it's huge over there. It's like football and baseball over there is cycling. So, where would you like me to?
Speaker 2:start. Well, let's start with you right. For example, how did you get into the sport? How did you?
Speaker 1:get into the sport. Okay, so a long time ago, back in grad school. I won't say how long ago it was.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, let's not get into that. No, no, absolutely not.
Speaker 1:That will age me. I was into triathlons because I had been a runner throughout high school and a little bit in college, did track and field for a year and then decided I'd rather go study abroad. So that didn't last long but I kept running. And then I decided to get into triathlons in grad school because I had swam a little bit when I was younger.
Speaker 1:But in my first few triathlons I found out that I was really good at cycling and I did not know that you could race just bikes. Like I said, it's not a big thing here in America, true. And so I found a cycling club at the University of Oklahoma, which is where I was going to grad school, met a bunch of awesome people who really helped me get into the sport and just started riding with local groups around Oklahoma and at the university, did some collegiate racing, raced collegiate nationals my first year, and then it just took off from there and I loved it so much, never looked back, just kept growing in the sport for I don't know, the better of 10 years or so. Wow, yes.
Speaker 1:So it all started in grad school.
Speaker 2:So you're just like, yep, we're just going to go ahead and you know, I'm just going to pick up a bike and then, oh, I'm really good at this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know, what's funny is that my parents didn't think that I would be sticking with this sport because it is so just not a huge thing in America.
Speaker 1:So they didn't want to help me purchase a bike at the time because I was a, you know, poor grad student basically, and or undergrad, or yeah, and so I used my dad's kind of cruiser style bike for like my first couple of races and then, when they saw I was actually decent at it, then I got my first bike off of eBay, which was too big for me. I didn't know anything about bike sizing and just rode it till I figured out the sport and got different bikes throughout the years. It actually fit me a little bit better that I could race.
Speaker 2:That's insane. That is also really good, like I mean, like if they weren't going to be making a movie, I was like, was like yep, I just started with a cruiser bike and then off we went, that's how it started yeah, it was uh funny when I rolled up with that bike at the triathlon.
Speaker 1:People were looking at me like this girl has no idea what she's doing oh my god, but hold on.
Speaker 2:So you did triathlon, but did. Did you ever do duathlons?
Speaker 1:I did a couple.
Speaker 2:Yes, all right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I did triathlons for a couple of years. I did two half Ironmans. I did some duathlons, triathlons of various distances.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I did a few of those.
Speaker 2:So the half Ironmans is the 70.3, correct? Yes, okay, look at me.
Speaker 1:Yes, you know everyone who's into the Ironmans are very into it, but I did it. I wasn't as so into it as maybe some of the other triathlete communities. I did not get the Ironman tattoo on my leg.
Speaker 2:We'll just say that oh God, see, that's's it, you're out of the cult already I know I was out of the culture at that point, yeah, so it's like triathlons and then like, uh, crossfit, like that's what they're saying about that. Those two sports, it's like it's very cult, like like, once you're in, you are in. Yeah, yes, yes very true so?
Speaker 2:so let me ask you this then all right, so you know, right you're, you're doing your triathlons, you're doing your two athlons and all that stuff, and like you get your first bike, which didn't fit, uh, for you which also, by the way, I did find out later on in life the same thing that, like you, got to get properly fitted for a bike, because if you don't, you're going to be suffering, correct. But how did you like, how did you get discovered technically, I guess that's my question is, like you know, to go into being a professional, semi-professional athlete.
Speaker 1:So back in Oklahoma, when I was living in Oklahoma City, I was on a team called DNA Racing. That was a really well-known team kind of throughout the Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas area, and it was mainly a men's team but we had a small women's team and I have to say that the guys on that team and just the people who arrived with the team and the community really helped me develop a lot of my core skills as a cyclist and helped train me from being, you know, a beginner, what we call category four cyclist, all the way up to category one, two cyclists, which is more of like the pro fields. And once I got to that point, it wasn't long after that that we moved to South Carolina and I no longer had this awesome team that I was a part of and I was desperate to find another really good team to ride with, and so I went to a lot of the local races around here where I had stopped some of the really good women cyclists online to figure out where they were going to be racing.
Speaker 2:There I'm going yeah.
Speaker 1:Yes, I'm going, I want to meet these girls, I want to meet these teams and I want to go and beat these girls so that they ask me to be on their team. And that's exactly what I did. Um, I there was a couple of races. It came down to like a field sprint out of a smaller breakaway group and I just made sure to make my stance and then talk to them afterwards, and it went from there. I just got on a team that I stayed on for a few years after that.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. You're like I'm going to show you, watch me the alpha. Here I go.
Speaker 1:Try to yeah, you succeeded. Yeah, it was a good time.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. I love that. So, so I remember because I'm going to ask you a question here but I remember one time we by the way I don't know if you guys know this, I well I didn't say this, but katie and I we used to work together at another company, right, katie left before me, I left afterwards. But I remember in one of the the trips that I went down to I think we were doing a, one of the events um, you brought your bike with you. I did, I remember that. And then you're like no, I can't eat, I gotta eat a certain amount of food that I have to eat and all this other stuff. And I was like and then I gotta go, because I gotta go in and get on my bike and I gotta train. I remember that very vividly. You had it in your, in the back of your car seat, in yourly.
Speaker 1:You had it in the back of your car seat in your car.
Speaker 2:Yep, I had it in the back seat of that company car because they wouldn't allow me to put a bike rack on it, which is hilarious, so I took the wheels off and shoved that thing in the car because it was a small car, but I made it work. It was a very small car, and why would they not let you put a bike rack? It's beyond me.
Speaker 1:I don't know, it seems silly.
Speaker 2:It's one of the many things about that place. Anyways, all right, you decided okay, I'm going to go in how you say it, suck these girls and I'm going to get them to know me. They're going to become my BFFs forever because we're going to be on a team. So did it happen Like? You know? How long did it take for you to go from racing against them to racing with them as a team?
Speaker 1:It took two specific races where I was racing by myself, just in a blank kit, and one of them was a circuit race, which is where you're on a smaller course that you do multiple laps around, so it was like a twelve and a half mile course. I remember right that we did four or five times. And then another one was a uh criterium race, which I like to call a NASCAR on bikes. This hides high speed, high speed, cornering shoulder to shoulder, like on a really small circuit, usually within a downtown area. It was in North Carolina like a half a mile circuit, um that I made the break with these girls. I did not win that race, though, but I at least stayed with them, and then after that, the following year is whenever they asked me to be on the team.
Speaker 2:All right. So let me ask you this let's backtrack a little bit, because you said something and I want to make sure that I explain it to everybody, all right. So let me ask you this let's backtrack a little bit, because you said something and I want to make sure that I explain it to everybody.
Speaker 1:I know what this term is, but what is a kit? Oh yes, so a kit is your, your cycling race suit.
Speaker 2:And it can be a one piece, it can be a two piece, but it's skin tight, like basically to be as aerodynamic as possible yeah, gotcha, I remember I seen that it's like you know, when I'm seeing the two of the fronts and because this is you know what I what I watch every, every year, um, is they have these very skin tight, like I mean it is tight, like I mean it is a part of you. Um, and what I did not really understand until recently, when I bought my couple of bike shorts, is the padding on the shorts. Thank you, jesus, for those things.
Speaker 1:The chamois yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let me tell you, Because I was never used to that. And then when you start cycling and then you don't have that, it's not fun.
Speaker 1:It's not fun. The chamois saves your life and if you have a properly fitted bike saddle which you've set on, is also will save your life, and the more uncomfortable the saddle looks usually, the more comfortable it is.
Speaker 2:Which is wild to me.
Speaker 1:It is yeah, you don't want to be sitting on this big cushy saddle. You're going to be rubbed in all the wrong places.
Speaker 2:You got to have a saddle that's skinnier and usually a little bit firmer, so it's only hitting your sit bones. I never knew that. And I'm watching and I'm like everybody's like oh no, no, you need this big thing because you got it, you want comfort. And then everyone's like no, you really don't.
Speaker 1:That's what the shammy's?
Speaker 2:for not the saddle. No, you really don't. That's what the shammy's for, not the saddle See. Thank you for teaching me things here. I like that. Okay, so you did that. And then you described two races right. One of them was a criterium and the other one was a circuit. Yep, how many racing types are here in the U? S that people can, you know, watch?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great question. So we have all kinds of racing. I would say the most well-known race, that's truly like what we would say American style racing, is criterion racing, which I said is like NASCAR on bikes, is in usually an hour to 90 minutes, full gas, like high speed, high cornering, or high speed cornering elbow to elbow, lots of elbow checking. And then there is circuit racing which, like I said before, a longer circuit that you do multiple times within a race. There is a time trial which is just point a to point b as fast as you can and that's a solo one, correct yeah, or the team one, you can do two you.
Speaker 1:You can do a team time trial, but most time trials around here are going to be solo on a time trial bike, similar to like what a triathlete would do in a triathlon. And then you have a road race, uh, which for the women at the pro level here in america. Usually your races are anywhere from 50 to 80 miles and it could be one large loop, it could be maybe a couple of loops, but that usually involves a lot more um mixed terrain, a lot of climbing here in america and some of the bigger road races that we would go to um, but those are the main races you can do here gotcha.
Speaker 2:All right, then the average speed on on the stage one. What's the average speed for that one?
Speaker 1:uh, for like a road race yeah, a road race depends on the terrain so if you're um mountain climbing, because there's a a race not far from here in the carolinas where you climb up like a 2500 foot climb at the very end of the race and that might be a little bit different than a road race that has a bunch of rolling terrain, but in the women's pro field, in a road race you're always going to be averaging at least over 20 miles an hour. If the course is more flat, a lot of times it's been upwards of 23 miles an hour, yeah, um for, like I said, 50 to 80 miles.
Speaker 2:so it really depends on the train, but it can also depend on the wind that's insanity to me, though, because, like, I can average maybe 10 to 12 miles an hour on my bike, and I just threw up when you said, oh, 20 to 23 miles an hour is on average the big pack makes a difference too.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of people yeah, yeah you will do.
Speaker 2:You have done something that I'll never achieve and I'm so jealous right now, just so you know that's awesome. Um, okay, what about the nascar on two wheels?
Speaker 1:yes, how fast do you?
Speaker 2:the criteriums. Yes, um how fast do you usually go there?
Speaker 1:oh gosh, I would say um, the fastest crit race I did was one in um chicago, where they have 10 days of crit racing back to back and, uh, pancake flat and the women's field average pretty darn close to 26 miles an hour and the men's field was averaging like 30 miles an hour up pretty close, god, some of the course, if it's not technical and meaning, you know there's not a lot of tight cornering, it's kind of open, super flat and you have a group of like 50 girls that are racing. I mean mean you can fly on a bike, you can fly. Oh my God, I would not say that was normal. You know you're going to be averaging more 23, 24 miles an hour on other courses it's still fast, but that one I specifically remember being particularly fast.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it's super fast, first of all, and then second of all, it's like you crash and there's not a lot of padding there. Actually, there's no padding because you got the your kit on.
Speaker 1:But that, oh lord, have mercy I don't know if you can see, I have yeah, I've got a plate and 12 screws in this wrist and my forearm from a pretty horrific crash I had 12 days before my wedding because I was dumb enough to raise right before my wedding, Right before your wedding. Not smart. I don't recommend anyone do that. Don't do it. Oh my God. Yeah, that was interesting.
Speaker 2:And you walking down with a cast on Nope.
Speaker 1:I walked into an orthopedic surgeon a couple of days after the race, when they actually were open again, and told him my situation. He felt so bad for me. He did surgery on me that same day. He promised I'd be in a removable cast the day before my wedding, and I was so I didn't have to wear one. But still don't. I don't recommend racing that close to a big event in your life.
Speaker 2:No, my wife just actually just had surgery on her wrist. So like I mean, we're going through that Cause she has, she has a plate. Uh, through that because she has, she has a plate. Uh, not fun, no, not fun. No, she's like the all, the, the, the pt that she has to do and all that. And you were like a I mean, how long did it take you from that injury to get back on a bike?
Speaker 1:because I mean, that's, that's a lot of stress put on the, on your wrist and your forearm yeah, I mean, I probably rode before I was supposed to, but I would ride the trainer inside and once I got in a cast where it was just my forearm and my thumb and you know my hand was kind of like this I could grab my handlebar. So I rode outside great for a while, but I still did it and I think I got my cast off maybe six weeks later or so.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the tan line from that was hilarious when I got that cast off so you get a tan line from your kit and then a tan line from your wrist?
Speaker 1:yes, I look ridiculous.
Speaker 2:That's wild. Good, I mean. I mean good for you. That's some dedication right there. I I love it. Okay, so you said you know the people that are listening here. Why were you considered a semi-pro instead of a professional athlete when you're doing all of this?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a really good question. So most of the teams here in America, when you are racing at what they call the pro category one two level, at what they call the pro category one two level, a lot of those women would really be considered more of like a semi-pro because we aren't paid a salary. But we have all of our travel costs paid for. We have race support that do everything for us, meal prep for us, do everything for us, meal prep for us, drive in your team car during the race so they can give you feeds and food. Mid-race you get all of your gear given to you. You know bikes, wheels, tires, kits, nutrition anything you can think of was given to us on the team, but we weren't paid a salary. Now, if you are to be on what they would call a UCI continental team or a UCI world tour team, that is a step above where our team was at here in America and those athletes are given salaries and also have all the other benefits that we had, plus more.
Speaker 1:So, those would be considered like your pro athletes, whereas most people here in America you could consider more semi-pro.
Speaker 2:Gotcha. Okay, that's pretty cool because you still got a lot of gear. Oh yeah, I mean it was awesome.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to lie. Oh yeah, I mean it was, it was. It was awesome. I'm not gonna lie, because if you get all your flights paid for staff to really take care of you like you are a real pro athlete, just without the paid salary, I mean it was phenomenal. We traveled all over the us. Our team got to race in europe, I mean places. So we I mean we had a great time on our team.
Speaker 2:That's cool. I'm sure you racked up a lot of uh mileage, though you know frequent flyer miles oh yeah, for sure, um heck, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was fun good, all right, all right, so let me ask you this then. All right, so, and then we'll go into uh, nutrition here in a little bit here, but, and in the training and all that, but, um, so you're the day of the. Well, I guess I should back up because you know, obviously training comes first and then the day of the race. Yeah, like, what does that training look like? When you are, when you make the team, you're being asked what are the demands, because I'm sure not everybody lived close enough to you to be part of the team, or am I? Am I assuming incorrect?
Speaker 1:Mm. Hmm, yep, our team. So it was technically based out of Charlotte, north Carolina, but we had athletes that were in North Carolina, south Carolina, pennsylvania, colorado, minnesota. We had girls from various places throughout the years that I was on the team, various places throughout the years that I was on the team. And our team was more of a Tour de France style racing team. So we were mainly focused on stage racing, which that's what the Tour de France is. It's a long, 21 day stage race. We would do some criterium racing too, just to it's good exposure. We'll say here in America if your team shows up to these big crit races. But we were mainly focused on stage racing. So the training for that is going to be different than teams that were focused on criterion racing. Criterion racing and the training for each athlete is going to vary based on what your strengths are.
Speaker 2:So for me.
Speaker 1:I was a sprinter on the team, oh, okay yes, uh, I had a decent sprint whenever I was not sick, which happened frequently. Sadly, the last like two years that I was on the team, so my weaknesses were climbing the mountains long, long power.
Speaker 1:So just on the pedals nonstop, as much power as you can for an extended period of time. Non-stop, as much power as you can for an extended period of time. And that is necessary at a lot of the stage racing, because we do a lot of climbing in stage racing and you also have to be decent at time trialing in order to make the time cut.
Speaker 1:You can't be really slow and make it through each stage, just like in the Tour de France. So a lot of my training was focused on what we call functional threshold power, which is the total power you can output for an hour, or like 95 percent of what you can output over a 20 minute period. And I tried to increase my functional threshold power and therefore my ability to climb as well as I could. And then I would also do sprint training so that I wouldn't lose my sprint whenever the team would need me for that.
Speaker 1:Because there are some stages that are sprint stages and I would do my best that I could have for the team, but a lot of my training would be focused on climbing and threshold power.
Speaker 2:Gotcha OK so and correct me you know if you know at any point here and correct me you know if you know at any point here.
Speaker 1:So a lot of the teams that you know.
Speaker 2:Obviously you want to win the whole race but you concentrate on trying to win as many stages as possible, and every stage is different, right, Because you can. One of them is designed for a sprinter, another one it's a climbing stage. So there's a lot of stages in racing.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, that's correct, and you so, depending on the composition of your team, you could be a team that is going for stage wins, individual stage wins, because maybe you don't have the best chance to go all in to try and win what's called the general classification or the overall winner of the entire, let's say, three or four day stage race. Or you could be a team that maybe has a star individual or a few star individuals that do have the capability of winning the general classification, and so you may strategically win certain days, or especially the time trial, because that's always key if you're going to win the general classification and your entire team may be backing that one rider who could win the overall race, and you could be racing a totally different race in that stage race compared to a different team who's just out to win stages there's so much yes it's a big team sport
Speaker 1:very much a team sport yeah, people don't understand that.
Speaker 2:Like well, I didn't at first. I'm like, why is this dude like you know, all the way, like he did all this work? Now he's gonna fall all the way to the back of the palatine and just gonna stick there for the rest of the time and it's you know, to me it was like you know, um, uh, mark cavendish, like he's the one that came to mind because he's a printer, uh, and like he was like in the front. You know, they brought him up. They brought him up to win the sprint stage and then you just fall him so far behind on the climbing stages yep, that would be me a lot of times too, or um, I was not like a pure sprinter.
Speaker 1:Um, I could climb decently well, and there were definitely some races where, in the last year that I was with the team, we had two girls who were phenomenal cyclists, who could definitely win the GC, and they did, and I would go all in for them at specific times in the race. Let's say, if there was another team's gc rider who was threatening our gc riders capability to win, um, and I would sacrifice myself to do whatever the job was at that point let's say, close the gap if they were breaking away from us. Um, or sacrifice myself as much as I could up a climb for someone so that they're saving energy behind us. Um, yeah, I mean that that's truly like. It's a. It's a big team sport and people don't understand that. Um, how much work goes into one person winning a big stage race like the Tour de France, and the people who are off the back barely making the time cut because they went all in for them are the reason why that one person is on the podium that's insanity, yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:at the same time, right, because everybody thinks like, oh, oh, cycling, individual sport Not really no, no. If you don't have a good team around you, then you're done for.
Speaker 1:You are done, yeah, at the pro level. If you don't have a good team behind you, you're not going to go anywhere.
Speaker 2:All right, so let's talk about training. All right, so let's talk about training. What is that? You know we're going to concentrate on on the stage, because that's what you're. You know you mostly did, so talk, talk to me like what a typical training look like for for the team.
Speaker 1:Mm, hmm, so you don't talk about like for me specifically or when we would have like team training camp.
Speaker 2:So both right. So for you, because I know yours was different than a lot of the other.
Speaker 1:You know, because everybody had their own specific thing, that they needed to train on, and then, when you guys got together as a team, yes, so a typical training week, I would say like a light training week, would be 15 hours on the bike and then a heavy training week could be over 20 hours on the bike and then a heavy training week could be over 20 hours on the bike and um and you spread this out throughout the week.
Speaker 1:Yes, those hours, seven days. And in order for you to, or in order for me to increase my functional threshold power, your aerobic capacity has to be really high. And so a lot of our training is going to be what we call zone two training, which is a relatively moderate intensity level but it helps build your aerobic capacity and your ability to move oxygen efficiently throughout your body. And then you would have say, two days a week where you're doing really high intensity intervals, whether it's specifically training for me, the functional threshold power, hold power, or working on your VO2 max or doing sprints, and so you would have, you know, two days a week or so that were spread out throughout the week we're in. Between those high intensity days, you'd be riding a lot of zone two to work that your heart muscle basically.
Speaker 2:Interesting.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:So every day was a totally different training for you. Just because you had you were working on different things right, and Mondays were always my recovery day. Just an easy ride.
Speaker 1:Easy hour Yep.
Speaker 2:Okay, all right, so that was that. Was that plan uh put together for you? Did you put that plan? Was there a coach or a team manager that put that plan together?
Speaker 1:Yes, I had a wonderful coach, Emma.
Speaker 2:And at the time she was my coach.
Speaker 1:she raced for TIPCO and EF Education First. Hey, I didn't know that. Yes, she was the road race US national champ a few years ago. She was absolutely wonderful. She was the coach I needed, because she is a climber through and through, and so she knew how to help me become a better climber, which is why I loved having her as my coach.
Speaker 1:That's great, she would plan everything out for me in this program called training peaks. I could log into see what I need to do that week. I could upload my ride to it showed me all of my stats. She could see all the stats we could communicate back and forth in the program um and she was super key for me being able to race big stage races.
Speaker 2:That's cool. By the way, that team is still going on the EF education first. That's pretty cool, I love their career Yep. That's awesome. So like you log in, you know you got your training. I was like all right, what do I need to do? Oh, here, I go. I got to do this today.
Speaker 1:Oh, some of those workouts I mean.
Speaker 2:I would tell her.
Speaker 1:she was so mean, they were so brutal, but worth it in the end. I mean some of them. You know it was almost expected that you would fail, but it was done on purpose. Yes, yeah, yep, and if you made it through, then that means the next time we just weren't going hard enough, got it and you progress, like in your training, and so you keep upping the power and, yeah, some of them were brutal, brutal workouts.
Speaker 2:That's funny, that's funny. Yes funny, that's funny. Yes, so it's meant to literally just like, just beat you down and not but not in a bad way, but like in a way in which you would definitely have to work and you're on your own. So like I mean yes, let me ask you? This is something that I've always wanted to know, okay, and and when you guys are racing, are you able to listen to music? Are you guys listen to music, or it's just straight up you and your thoughts and then you're just racing?
Speaker 1:yeah, so there's no, no headphones allowed when you're racing. That would be super dangerous if you couldn't hear what's going on around you. Um, there's a lot of uh, a lot of yelling. Sometimes that happens in the races. A lot of not nice words.
Speaker 1:You might hear a lot of elbows, getting in your rib cage sometimes to move people out of your way, um. But I always felt, um that my training that Emma would give me was so hard some days that if I could do it by myself, just with my thoughts and solely focusing on how awful my legs were feeling or how my heart felt like it was going to beat out of my chest, if I could do it myself, then when I'm in a race around people and my adrenaline is through the roof and I'm thinking about so many other things other than just my legs wanting to fall off, I always felt like I could perform really well and do anything I was doing in training, plus more at a race okay, I got you, got you.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, because there's a lot going on in those pelotons sometimes.
Speaker 2:I was just going to say because I've always wanted to know exactly what happens in those pelotons, because you watch it on TV and you watch when you go to a race and you see them and like what is actually going on. Obviously, there's a lot of in a not so nice in a nice way. Just there's some nudging out of the way.
Speaker 1:But there's some nice talk too, because you know, sometimes in the long races when you're on a super flat section, there's not a whole lot going on. You're just cruising really fast and no one's going to be breaking away Because, let's say, the wind's just really inhibiting that. I mean, I've had some nice conversations with friends on other teams that I hadn't seen in a while. But you know, when the going gets tough, sometimes that stops real fast. And if people are doing things you don't like and they're disrupting your race and you need them out of the way, then there are choice words that come out of people's mouth. There's both.
Speaker 2:I would pay so much money to just to experience that, just to see that happening, right Like get out of my way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, pretty much a lot of bombs oh yeah, it's, you know, it's in my vocabulary.
Speaker 2:I use that one word a lot. I had to watch it, though, Cause I have a. You know, I have a six year old, and she is a human recorder. Oh yeah, so she will repeat every single thing.
Speaker 1:I've learned. I will learn that pretty soon, cause my girl I just had she's two months old, so we're not we're not to that stage yet, but I do know I'm going to have to watch myself pretty soon but you will yes, and let me tell you you're gonna have a lot of fun yeah
Speaker 2:hope you guys enjoy so far part one of my conversation with my good friend, katie. When it comes to cycling, that's right, cycling now. Next week we are going to finish a conversation. We're going to touch on training. We're going to touch on training. We're going to touch on nutrition. What is life after cycling? Right, as once you're done cycling as a semi-professional, like here in the United States, what life looked like after that? So, stay tuned for that episode. Like I said, it'll come out next week.
Speaker 2:As far as the data chronicles, make sure you guys are following me on all socials. You know what. Do me a favor, guys. Give it five stars, rate, review it, all that fun stuff, share it with someone. Um, that way, people are able to go ahead and enjoy it as much as you can, right? The honest truth is also, is that, uh, the more that it goes into other people, right? They get to enjoy the episode and the podcast, just like you. Guys. If you are able to watch it on youtube, go on my youtube channel, where I do put the video episodes. Now and as well as every tuesday and thursday nights at 9 pm eastern time, we have the dad hat chronicle sports show. Until then, guys keep grinding and always support the minor leagues, see ya.
