MTFU Training

Whilst i was out on my post-work tootle through the hills of Herts this evening, it occurred to me that it might be quite funny to put together a catalogue of all the most wide of the mark training advice i've ever been given. I decided that, given the in joke between me and Andrew that we were one day going to set up a training consultancy in the style of "the clamp" (god rest his poor axed-by-the-comic soul) and call it "MTFU Training Inc.", that might as well be my title for the day too! Incidentally, if you're not familiar with the term "MTFU", wait about half an hour on the singletrack forum and you'll see it used in a context that should make it clear! So, in no particular order, here are the core concepts of MTFU training....

1. If you're riding after work, and it's still light when you get home, you're not done yet.

2. Miles in the rain count double.

3. Miles in the sleet/snow might count triple or quadruple, but they'll also make you pretty ill...

4. The best moisturising facepack you can get is Cambridgeshire mud (more on that later) so riding in winter offroad will give you the complexion of a newborn.

5. All you need for a 3hr ride is 500ml of water and a couple of espressos.

6. Stretching weakens the muscles, so if you feel tight somewhere, just tighten the muscle opposite - you'll end up super-strong and in perfect balance.

7. If you want to loose weight, ride before breakfast until you bonk.

8. Cheese is the ultimate low-gi food, so it must be good for you.

9. Riding slowly only trains you to ride slowly, so base training's a waste of time - you should ride hard all the time

and finally, advice given to a couple of Scottish mates of mine by an old duffer in their (Glasgow) cycling club... "water's for f***ing puffs, toughen up!".

I'd love to be able to say that all that was said to me with a wry smile and a wink, but alas some of it was deadly serious. In fact, i have to say, it's one of the things that makes training for bike racing so difficult, the bewildering array of advice you get on how to train from well-intentioned fellow cyclists.

In true MTFU style, Rachel came to meet me for a spot of offroad riding after work yesterday; the weather forecast suggested showers in the morning, and then a nice dry afternoon for a bit of a harder ride in the woods. Oh how wrong it was - the deluge began shortly before i left work, and only stopped after we got to the end of the offroad section of the ride. The rest of the time, it was biblical. I couldn't see through my glasses, but i couldn't see without them because of all the lumps of mud flying about, and more than once i ended up ditching it into the crops at the edge of the bridleway. By the time we headed home after just an hour and a half, we both looked like creatures from another planet. Like this in fact



And if you though Rachel and our bikes looked bad, you should have seen me...



Finally, i also have some thanks to give - firstly to Just Riding Along. I bought a pair of maxxis rendez tyres to use for training on last summer (mud tyres, last summer, make sense?) but never got round to using them. After i took them out for their first outing a few weeks ago, i realised that there was a wobble in the tread on one of them, and dropped them an email on tuesday evening. Not only have they sorted everything out, and posted a new tyre to me, but they've also refunded the postage i paid to send the original back to them without me even asking! Now that's what i call customer service.

Secondly, Jerry Turner has, as ever, done a super job of rebuilding my roadie training wheel with a new mavic ceramic rim, and is rushing in a replacement headset for my mountain bike to replace the rather haphazard mess i ended up with when trying to fit a semi-integrated headset myself. Were it not for his efforts, there'd be no chance of me racing at the Midlands race on Sunday!