The Time-Crunched Cyclist Podcast by CTS

How to Tackle Epic Challenges, with Breck Epic Founder Mike McCormack (#224)

• CTS • Season 4 • Episode 224

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OVERVIEW: The Breck Epic is the premier mountain bike stage race in the United States, and Race Founder and Director Mike McCormack is a legendary for the ethos and environment he's cultivated around the race. He and Adam Pulford go beyond Breck Epic to talk about what riders get out of doing truly epic endurance events, how to prepare for them, how to have fun during them. Don't miss this inspiring and motivating conversation, and then go sign up for your next big adventure!

Key topics in this episode:

  • How Breck Epic works
  • The value of creating a great racing experience for riders
  • Balancing MTB skills and fitness training
  • The effect of Breckenridge's altitude (9400 ft) on performance, nutrition, and recovery
  • Preparing for racing at altitude when you live at sea level
  • Managing race week efforts to maximize fun and success

Guest
Mike McCormack founded the Breck Epic MTB Stage Race in 2009, treating its field to a high-alpine tour of Colorado’s secret stashes, hidden gems and historical ghost towns. Committed to big routes with good friends, Epic’s 220-plus miles and 40k of vertical establish its 6 stages as the gold standard of endurance backcountry riding. With a unique cloverleaf format allowing riders from 25 countries and 40+ states to start and finish each day within a mile of the the historical Victorian mining town of Breckenridge, Colorado, Epic is the mountain bike experience of a lifetime.

Links

Host
Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for more nearly two decades and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.

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Speaker 1:

From the team at CTS. This is the Time Crunch Cyclist podcast, our show dedicated to answering your training questions and providing actionable advice to help you improve your performance even if you're strapped for time. I'm your host, coach Adam Pulford, and I'm one of the over 50 professional coaches who make up the team at CTS. In each episode, I draw on our team's collective knowledge, other coaches and experts in the field to provide you with the practical ways to get the most out of your training and ultimately become the best cyclist that you can be. Now on to our show. Now on to our show. Welcome back, time Crunch fans.

Speaker 1:

I'm your host, coach Adam Pulford. Mountain bikes are my favorite kind of bikes and mountain bike stage racing is my favorite kind of racing. So when I saw a question about how to train for the Breck Epic submitted by you, our audience, I selfishly put that one to the top of the list. I'll get back to the original question here in a minute. But as I was drafting up my outline and talking points for this episode, I got even more excited because I realized I should just do a podcast with my good friend, local Summit County legend, owner, operator, slash vibe, curator of the Breck Epic Mike McCormick. Mike, welcome to the show.

Speaker 2:

Wow, that's quite an intro. Thanks for having me Legends doing some heavy lifting there.

Speaker 1:

Hey man, when you do all the heavy lifting at altitude like you have, curating the vibes like you have up there, you get legendary status.

Speaker 2:

Well, 17 years in, you at least get staying power credit for sticking around that long. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1:

Very welcome. So, for our audience who may not know you, such as I, tell us more about yourself. Tell us what well, we'll get into what Breakout Epic is, but tell us a little bit about yourself. Yeah, sure, well, we'll get into what Breakout Pick is, but tell us a little bit about yourself.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, sure, I'm like everyone else. You know, kids, dogs, mortgage struggle for fitness and self-care and professional productivity A little bit of a tension deficit slash, impulse control problem which is I like to think of it as a strength, not a weakness. You know they can be mitigated with list taking and the slow, slow, desperately slow, creep of maturity. I'm a bike industry veteran. I've worked in bike shops since I was 15, which is, you know, 40 years ago and come up through the marketing ranks, public relations, strategy, branding and 17,.

Speaker 2:

18 years ago we started planning for the first Breck Epic, inspired by an article that Mike Ferentino wrote about his experience at the Trans Rockies, the general gist of which was ripping his Achilles in half, walking up steep power line climbs in a brand new pair of CDs. And I thought to myself in the basement of Clint's coffee shop on Main Street in Breck and Josh Tostado endurance legend wasn't too far away at the time. He remembers this. I was like, you know, we could do that here and you could sleep in your own bed. We could do that here and you could sleep in your own bed. And so you know, I was working for Yeti at the time and that idea was sort of born six big loops that it started and ended in downtown Brett and that was how the bracket epic was born.

Speaker 1:

I did not know it. It started with that background of the trans Rockies as the kind of the, the, the, the seed that was planted. That's interesting.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, aaron McConnell, um and and and after that you know Dean and Dre at BC bike race who think we all sort of inspire. It's kind of like a truck and specialized and Sram and Shimano. It's kind of like a truck and specialized and Sram and Shimano, like like it's vital that that those other pieces are out there to to keep our own competitive fires lit and to help us not be derivative of them or reductive in any way. But our own thing and like all those events have matured into their own thing, like they're different things for different people and I like those guys. They're good at what they do. The work is hard. I have a lot of respect for what they do. But, yeah, we were inspired by what Aaron was doing and thought that we could put our own kind of unique spin on it, which involved sort of less travel, less portage, um, which isn't better or worse, just different. Yeah, um and so. So, yeah, that's a cloverleaf, that's us.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm going to get in that, cause those points that you mentioned are actually are super important when it comes to how to prepare for this thing. But let's, let's read the original question, cause that'll cue us up for our kind of our talking point, so we can stay on a topic here for our time, crunched athletes, and make sure we don't, uh, go rabbit hole in too deep here.

Speaker 2:

So you got the wrong guy. Oh man, go ahead. When I reached, out to mike.

Speaker 1:

I was like this ain't gonna be 30 minutes. We'll do our best here, folks okay, me too here's your original question.

Speaker 1:

Hi, adam, I enjoy listening to your podcast very much. My question is actually two. I'm registered for the next year and I'm wondering what sort of training tips you have for prepping for a mountain bike stage race. I also live at sea level in maine and I wonder if you have any tips for dealing with the altitude. I turn 40 next year, so this is a gift to myself before I start the next 40 years of life. Thanks so much, indira from Freeport Maine. How cool is that?

Speaker 2:

That's a great guess, that's super cool, I I love reading all of that and there's so many things to unpack in her question and you know different permutations of what the answer might be.

Speaker 1:

I'd say first, let's go back to what the Breck Epic is, because it's super important. It's at altitude, so people know that. What is the altitude of Breckenridge, by the way? The altitude of Breck is 9,600 feet.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so we'll let that one marinate for a second, but just so everybody knows it's very high altitude, okay, yep. That being said, the cloverleaf concept, right. So you, what I love about Breck Epic and this is what I tell all my athletes when they're looking for a stage race I go. It is the best, because you stay at some ski lodge, you ride your bike down to the start. There's I don't know, bacon and whiskey already there, and music and all the vibes that you want.

Speaker 1:

Then you, then you race your bike, ride your bike whatever your pace is for three, four, five, six, seven hours back country mountain biking. And then you come back to Breckenridge. You got a whole platter of the most delicious food you could want. You scarf it down at the finish line. Then you pedal your way back to the ski condo, throw your bike to the side, take a shower, take a nap, and then you go to the pre-race meeting for the next day and you rinse and repeat over and over. I think that's beautiful, mike. However, you came up with that concept for not portaging, not transferring, not going over God's green earth, which you could in Colorado, but it's all in Breckenridge. Brilliant. How did you arrive to that concept?

Speaker 2:

Well, we started the firecracker in, I think, 2000. And it was a 50 mile race. And people told us, you know, in 2000, you're crazy, nobody wants to race 50 miles. And we're like you know why don't we see? And they said, nobody wants to ride the bikes on the 4th of July. I'm like you know why don't we see? And that sort of implied challenge was could we make it work? Which is, you know, powerfully motivating. Um, you know all those people who say that it can't be done, is is puts a chip on your shoulder. You know, watch this right. I mean, you know anyone in charge of a company or an event also has that this thing is not going to go down. I, I will work harder, I will sleep less, I will out, hustle anyone to make sure, cause my name's on it, you know. And I want people to have a good time. You don't want people to come to your house and not have the beer they like in the fridge. Um, and that's what the Epic is. It's inviting people to our community and treating them like guests in our house, like we want you to come ride your bike to see our secret stashes in our house. We want you to come ride your bike to see our secret stashes.

Speaker 2:

We're lucky enough to have this magnificent trail network that's interconnected. The width and breadth is just spectacular. There's nothing like it in terms of size and connectivity in the world. It's sort of a legacy item of turn-of-the-century environmentally invasive mining practices. That's the backbone of the trail network, getting to hard places, because that's where precious metals were. The community has done an amazing job of cultivating that over the past 40 years and the care and feeding of that trail network is the joint effort of the tri-headed open space cabal of Breckenridge Open Space, summit County Open Space and the Forest Service. It is the gold standard for intergovernmental collaboration. We have a global relief format because we you know we aren't smart enough to figure most things out. We've been lucky more than smart, um, and we're lucky to have had, you know, a spark of an idea that combined the ingredients in our particular cupboard in a new way and to combine them at the right time when big back country races were kind of disappearing and still are like.

Speaker 2:

There's not a ton in mountain biking and, um, we're certainly not the prettiest girl to dance in the bike industry. That that's gravel, right, which is great. Gravel has reinvigorated cycling, but this is a different experience and the terrain, the it's not technical. You've ridden it. There are one or two spots, but it's difficult and the difficulty part of which is the altitude really kind of waves, the recreationalists to the side.

Speaker 2:

You need to be fit when you get here, but you don't need to be an elite athlete, you just need to put in your miles and I think that selectivity everyone who's here is committed. This is a life experience and, like you don't luck your way to the finish line. You got to earn it and there are people who say it's the hardest thing they've ever done. I'm not sure if I buy that, but it's hard enough. You know it's an off-road monument. It's one of off-road cycling's seven summits. You know it's like there's a handful of them and we're lucky enough to be one of them and, uh, we're not the best at. You know a million different things, but not being the best is really motivating.

Speaker 2:

I want to make better hats than chemo. He thinks exactly the same. I want to make better hats than chemo. He thinks exactly the same. We have spent years trying to compete at different levels before finally arriving at. We just need to be the best us. We need to make sure that you, adam, you, indira, when you arrive, have a great time. And so, sorry, sorry, closing the circle here and I'm sidebarring myself into oblivion. Um, we started the firecracker with the very basic premise of we're going to do everything humanly possible so that all you need to do in Dara is bring your bike. We're going to worry about everything else. Everything you need is like going to a great restaurant it's there waiting for you. Your needs have been anticipated and met. Come, ride your bike 30 or 40 miles a day, and that's it. Recover, rest, come back the next day, rinse and repeat.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So that last part super important in my opinion, because, man, when you, when you go bike racing, and there's enough anxiety, there's enough worry, there's another, there's enough logistics going on, where, when I worked as a team director, my job, my task, my mission was to minimize the stress for the rider as much as possible so they can just focus on the race. And that's what Mike does as a, as a race director, and every time you show up, like the hospitality shines through, like it's people forward. But again, it's come back. It comes back to how he sets up the race and in that way and how I described it, like you, you've got a lot of things taken care of for you.

Speaker 1:

However, you start racing your bike at 9,500 feet, you climb your face off, yeah, and it is super hard, especially for sea level. Man, I've ridden and raced rec epic three times. I've done the three day, I've done the six day, I did in the six day co-ed duo, wow yeah, and I keep coming back for more. I mean it's silly fun. And one, one thing I will say is, like you said, it's not overly technical and I agree with you on that, but that's also like really dependent on your interpretation of technical.

Speaker 2:

Cause some people.

Speaker 1:

They'll go to Breck and be like whoa, what I? What is going?

Speaker 2:

on here.

Speaker 1:

Right, I rode my gravel bike in my, in my road bike and they you didn't say it was technical and oh my gosh. So for those people who don't ride their mountain bike on a regular basis, my recommendation is ride your mountain bike on a regular basis on single track with rocks, with roots, with all the things Right. And then for those like super rowdy single track people probably climb more and do more more fitness writing, because you're going to need it up there.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's like, uh, going on a ride with a Moab local who's lived there for 20 years. Oh, it's an easy ride, it's an outback, you know, and you just realize that their frame of reference is alien compared to yours, like someone who lives on the North Shore. But you're right, get used to the geometry of your bike. Ride single track. The climbs are long, so are the descents. I think one of the things that surprises a lot of people from the East Coast is the speed of the descents. You get cooking and for miles out of the crack. And we learned that early on that some East coasters who were really, really good at technical riding were freaked out about how fast they were going, not that it's an insurmountable skill, but because it's just a new experience. So, getting comfortable on your bike, like you, this it's um and uh. There are several components, like there's fitness, like that's an obvious one for everyone. Nutrition, gut health is a big part of this. Um, recovery, like there's so many aspects. Um, and at 9600 feet you know the fact that it feels like you're breathing through a straw. It's hard not to take that personally that, that that you know the physical universe we occupy is conspiring against you, but it's conspiring against everyone equally. And it's tough not to feel it personally cause you're the one trying to breathe but everyone around you is trying to do the same thing. Have to feel it personally because you're the one trying to breathe but everyone around you's trying to do the same thing. Uh, and so that is the world telling you slow down, acclimatize, figure out where your thresholds are and you know, don't go there.

Speaker 2:

On day one you talked about anxiety in, in the start or leading up to a race, and like that's the good part, right, the bus is coming, the bus is coming. So you're so jacked up on in the corral at stage one and like that's why, like we've had a couple of rain shortened courses over the past 10 years on stage one, weirdly, and it was important to get those fields off and get, you know, 12, 17 miles in their legs just to burn off that top layer of jet fuel and to get past that anxiety stage. There's a lot of pieces to this. Fitness is one, being on your bike is one, like getting used to longer days, longer climbs, yeah, and then, like, the other pieces are your bridging components, like if you can string together a minor symphony or three chord power rock of uh you know, let the chords hang together of fitness, recovery, nutrition, yeah, uh, you're going to have a great time and you're going to go home with a belt buckle and for six days of your life you will have lived.

Speaker 2:

You know you will have lived. You will have visited some of the continent's greatest backcountry cathedrals. That's what you get. And you're going to be there with 400 other people who are pulling for you. They want to see you succeed. All races are like that. Lead feels like that. Steam loads, like that. It's family at their best.

Speaker 1:

They're like that and we are too. Yeah, you get that, that family vibe going, and that's what's my opinion the the spirit of mountain bike is really the spirit of bikes, because everybody's trying to steal our stuff in um, but that's it, I mean oh, that spirit of it's.

Speaker 2:

It's like a joke in our camp. Like why didn't you wear your t-shirt, your spirit t-shirt? Oh my gosh. Um, like we can't go more than like 60 minutes before someone just sort of spouts off. Spirit of epic nice time giggling.

Speaker 1:

Oh, just ride your bike we don't need the spirit of anything. I wanted to throw it in there because it's so popular right now. But spirit, all spirits aside, um, that you know. Getting back to the original question, getting super fit right, we've talked about that wildly important and I'll bring in some, some like boring points of some training. But it's not going to be my normal percentages of ftp and you know eight week builds and all this kind of stuff. I've regurgitated so much of that on other podcasts. This one's going to be a little bit more abstract. So, indira, bear with me on that one.

Speaker 1:

But that time on the bike, that time on the mountain bike. And perhaps if you rank yourself as like am I? Am I strong, medium or weak, skill wise on the mountain bike, I would say rank yourself. If you're weak, maybe you find like a mountain bike skill instructor, so you shore that up, so it's not a weakness come race day. Anytime that you invest in skills, it will. It will carry you on for the next 40 years of your life and you're like, that's skill riding.

Speaker 1:

Talk about anxiety. You talk about like, like, moving fast through single track, like people come to me and they're like you know what I don't race, you know I don't don't do this, I you know. So I don't have to go fast. I'm like but you like going fast and they're like, I do like going fast, yeah. Yeah. When you have this skillset and you have the confidence and you have the ability to go fast, it is fun. And when it's fun, man, it's Life is rad. And that's why you're doing Breck Epic, that's why you're doing any race, anybody listening to this, that is why you ride your bike, that is why you sign up for events. So put some effort, put some time, put some money into that skill aspect of it, and I won't preach any more on that, but that's skill. So let's check that one off, mike. Feel free to add anything to that.

Speaker 2:

I think that's one of the things that mountain biking gives you are those moments of flow, of being in the moment, and we see it with skiing, snowboarding, any sport where velocity is a component, and there's a great line here that I think my friend Jason Blevins wrote. He writes for the Colorado Sun right now, formerly Denver Post. Why do you like to ski fast? And his response was why does a dog hang its head out the window?

Speaker 2:

And going fast on a mountain bike is this convergence of grace and power and intent, and it's beautiful and you're a moving piece of art, like not to overstate things. And uh, you know it's not a religion, um, but it's those moments that we're all seeking, just, uh, carving through a corner deliberately, with purpose, with, with science, you know, behind you and the skill clinics like you referenced are, man, you could take one second out of every corner. Think about how much faster you'd be. And there are 7 000 corners in any day of the break, epic right and 7 024 yeah yeah, and like those are just also building blocks of confidence, knowing, oh man, I nailed it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, um, I love, yeah, it's you get that in road biking and gravel and and um the mountain biking delivers, yeah, right, um trees right, you know, by your handlebar ends.

Speaker 1:

It's just amazing that way yeah, and to that point, like any podcaster can sit here and say skill instruction, okay, cool. But like I live in maine, I live wherever where there's not mountain bike trails. I looked up freeport, by the way. Not a ton of mountain bike trails around you, indira. So like you're gonna have to get elsewhere maybe to put some time on single track. I've been to windham for a few world cups. I've got some rad tracks out there, for sure, and then just North of you. But like, talk to some friends, look for local um, local trails where you can um rip on the weekends, but you might have to drive.

Speaker 1:

The other thing I was going to say is check out my podcast with CTS coach Josh Whitmore. It's all about mountain bike skill instructions and you can go to the website, pmbia, and I'll put this in the landing page. But that's the best certification for a mountain bike skill instructor and they're all over the world, all over the nation, a lot in Canada, some in the United States. Josh Whitmore is one of them, so I guess myself is as well. So I guess myself is as well. But you can book skill instructions on PMBIAcom and you can. You can find more information there. So quick plug for that organization, but I can't say enough about, like, refining skills, so I'll leave it there for now, mike.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, get on your bike, ride some single track, use what you have. Like nothing here is going to surprise you in terms of technical terrain, so just get on what you can. Bring fitness, bring a little bit of skills, confidence, and then the other stuff is gut health, recovery, nutrition.

Speaker 1:

Totally. Yeah, you're not hooking gaps at Breck Epic folks, but I'm just saying, anytime I can get somebody to think about their skill versus their FTP, I start with that first. But let's, let's talk about FTP because, uh, first we talk about fitness. Okay, so fitness in the training peaks world or you know, any sort of um gamification world of fitness, chronic training load or CTL, we kind of call it fitness. I would say, indira, like you want to build that to be kind of as high and stable as you can over the next. You know, if you, if you start now, right, build over the next three, four months. But I'd say from a timing standpoint and this is where it gets a little like nerdy or coachy is around mid May. That's when you really want to start shifting more toward the zone four and five. So that's like high threshold VO2 max and you really want to start that big build of FTP for eight to 10 weeks. The reason I say that is because the race is mid-August, mike, 10 through 15. Is that right? Yeah, exactly yeah. So that's about eight to 10 weeks out.

Speaker 1:

And listen to some of my podcasts on extensive threshold development and intensive threshold development.

Speaker 1:

I'll link to those as well, but you want to weave through that extensive and intensive threshold, then intensive and extensive VO2 max work, and it all it is is three to four weeks of build recover, build, recover of VO2 max work, and it all it is is three to four weeks of build recover, build recover. And what you're doing is you're kind of zigging and zagging your FTP and your VO2 max up. So you're working on the biggest bang for your buck, which is the glycolytic energy system that helps you climb more, that helps you be more resilient, that improves your durability, and when you get to Breck, when you get to altitude and long hill climbs, that's the energy system you get to breck. When you get to altitude and long hill climbs, that's the energy system you need to maximize before you get there on race day. And there's there's a lot of fancy stuff that we can talk about, mike, but like am I right in doubling down on like hill climb ability and threshold work for prepping for the your race? There's plenty of climbing.

Speaker 2:

It would be hard to say you're wrong, and the limiting factor is oxygen. You know, sea level athletes typically have a different type of musculature than a mountain athlete and it's slight but significant. It's not like the HDULs, you know the troglodytes and then whoever the people were that lived above ground. It's not those huge physical differences. There are physiological differences in those athletes because of their training environments. The limiting factor here is the oxygen. You have big muscles that you're going to want to fire and maybe not enough oxygen to be able to fire them consistently over long periods. So I don't have a technical understanding like yours. What I do know is that the advice we give people is pretty accurate. On stage one. You're not going to win the race here, but you can lose it here, and so it's an exercise in finding out what your thresholds are in this environment. Here you can lose it here. It's an exercise in finding out what your thresholds are in this environment and approaching them with a great amount of respect. To know that recovery here is harder. It's like being hungover when you're 50 as opposed to when you're 30. It's a different ballgame, which is why 50-year-olds, or 55-year-olds in my case, don't play the hangover game anymore. When you get here, you need to figure out how your body's going to work in this environment, and that involves a little bit of on-the-ground testing during stage one and stage two, figuring out how hard you can push and still survive.

Speaker 2:

Most people who come here are fit enough. They may arrive in subsequent years with greater fitness because they want to do more. And it's really common for people to finish and, you know, say I'm never coming back and then 10 minutes later they're like you know, I could have carved seven minutes off. Here it's about leaving everything on the field and over a week you have a lot of opportunities. So you have to know when to press, when not to press, and putting in that work, that threshold work and building up, is a great way to add your bets and to arrive here ready to put on your best performance. And then also there's another overlay of you make plans and the universe laughs at you. So get here, Don't arrive overconfident, Don't arrive with a really, really light wheel set or tires without sidewall protection. Be fit, man. Fitness trumps a lot. And then understand how to apply that judiciously, especially in stage one and two, and figure out how your body's responding to here.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. And so on the altitude side of things, as we just like stitch the fitness to altitude is, I will say there is no correlation between like how you like it. I've seen people who are super fit perform poorly at altitude. I've seen people who are maybe not the most fit but they they perform better at altitude, the only. So fitness does not equal you will go good at altitude. It's really about the pacing that, like Mike talked about, typically the less fit person will not be, as they won't be full of hubris to the point where they will go all out on day one, right, and so that's when the altitude starts to really pull somebody down. Is that high intensity on day one and then it's just like real bad from there.

Speaker 1:

So on the altitude side of things, my best advice is Indira or anybody doing Breck. If you can do an altitude camp, if you can get to Breckenridge, if you can go to Leadville, if you can get to even Colorado Springs, where I used to live for 10 years, and do three days of riding on the mountain bike, you'll learn. That's actually. It's practice for your brain. There's not to get overly complicated, but there's a lot of flips and dials and triggers and things in your brain to help regulate the natural EPO production and oxygen signaling in your body, and so any exposure you have to altitude is really good native altitude, by the way, really good preparation for altitude races?

Speaker 1:

I am not. I have not seen any altitude devices such as like breathing devices or anything that does that same signaling or gives really good benefit outside of an altitude tent. I'm not going to get into that either, because in Jira I would not go the altitude tent route. For an amateur bike racer, a weekend warrior, I don't think altitude tents are applicable or enjoyable. So let's not go there. But an altitude camp where you can maybe bring the family or just be good to yourself on your 40th birthday, whatever the case is like, get there and put some time in, because it's going to help that pacing that Mike is talking about. Your. Your perceived effort of seven or eight out of 10 at sea level may correspond with X power. When you go up to altitude it's going to be X minus about 20%, but the perceived effort is still seven or eight and so you got to learn how to climb at that seven or eight, especially when the power changes at altitude. Best way to do that, get up to break and do a little pre-ride.

Speaker 2:

Even if you just get here the day before and and go out and you know, turn your pedals over and figure out how your legs are responding to some extended climbing, and then also understand and this is more of an intellectual exercise that the adrenaline coursing through your veins during stage one and kind of for the rest of the week it sort, it ebbs as the week goes on. It's dangerous, not in a physical sense, but it gives your body an overstated confidence that at some point you're going to have to cash the check and make sure those funds are in the bank. And so you know that's a really layered observation that people want to go fast on stage one because it feels good and people also get out over their skis. It's like anything. You know going on a new bike ride, you know taking your whitewater raft down the river, approaching things with a healthy sense of respect, um, with confidence, but respect that doesn't sort of leak over into fear. Um, adam, you know this.

Speaker 2:

This race race is approachable. It has its its own challenges altitudes at the top of the list, the fact that it's it's six days long, it's mountain biking. There are some deep road connectors, but this is riding your bike on dirt. It requires a mountain biker's skill set. If you grew up in the Midwest and you took vacations to Colorado to ski in the winter, the day after you get back from Colorado, you are a different human being on your own scale, because you have been put into situations that demand more of you. Um, and this is one of those um you, you will be a better mountain biker when you arrive back home, wherever home is, because that's what this terrain and race and six day dynamic requires.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, let's talk about that six day dynamic, because I think that's a. That is a beast in itself. And there's one thing that you said like 20 minutes ago probably, at some point it was like race fuel and recover, and there's no like stage racing is is um, unique like that because you have to live for the next day. We talk about pacing, we talk about fueling this kind of stuff, then recover, get good sleep and then do it over and over and over. That is an art, in my opinion, and every athlete should learn how to do that. A training camp or a facade training camp, a long weekend where you ride Endura, here is a good example. If you are a low mileage rider, go four hours on one day, three hours on the next, three hours on the next, do it. He'll Do it.

Speaker 1:

Hill climbing on your mountain bike, put in some efforts, that kind of stuff, but like a mix of intensities. But four, three, three. Start there and then you can build from there. You can do like five, four, three, six, five, four, Okay, and what you're doing is you're teaching, you're giving your body these training impulses, You're you're forcing your body to go for a long period of time on your bike.

Speaker 1:

Come your body to go for a long period of time on your bike, come back, wash your bike, take care of your, your food shower, take care of yourself, but getting durable at all the other things that's not even race related so that you have the capacity to get to, uh, Mike's pre-race meeting for the next day, where they go over all the fanfare and all the important stuff that you need to know logistically for the next day and you do a fantastic job of that. There's a lot that goes on, even though a race like this kind of takes care of a lot of it for you. You get really tired from all the other stuff, but do it in your training, like prep in those three day blocks four day if you want to, gets long for a time crunched athlete but the more little blocks like that of volume and or even hard intervals, but to learn how to take care of yourself. That is a vital artsy athlete thing that you need to do before any stage race.

Speaker 2:

So much in in the realm of fitness. I think you know you look at weight training and and the first thing that any weight training coach will tell you is the importance of recovery to allow your muscles to repair themselves. We look at the data on Leadville. We have, anecdotally at least, the overwhelming number of Leadville failures, for example, are nutrition-related People who just cratered. Failures, for example, are nutrition related People who just cratered and getting yourself acclimated to long rides how your body responds to certain nutritions. Like some stuff works for some people and it doesn't work for others. That's why we have an eight bag system, Like we have, you know, for the past 15 or 16 years.

Speaker 2:

Goo energy products out on course. So it was a Roctane Recoverite. Gels Chews and Uriel Carlson is sort of our in-house nutrition performance specialist. She's raced with us. We have that great picture of her in a Superman hoodie hanging out big on the top of Wheeler because she's also a coach. Her insight into nutrition at this altitude is amazing. Also, she's a fantastic human and you know she's an ambassador for Juliana.

Speaker 2:

But knowing how your body responds to food and being able to process it efficiently and on day four you're not going to feel like eating and you desperately need to eat, and eating becomes your job. It becomes a dull, joyless affair, but essential, and you need to. If the goo energy stuff works for you, we got a ton of it, we got it taken care of. If it doesn't bring your own stuff Like, our aid bag system allows for you to have everything you need at every aid station. We have your things there waiting for you, and so don't go off the reservation in terms of using our stuff because it's convenient, Bring your own stuff. Bring your own stuff, have a plan.

Speaker 1:

Quick, quick shout out to you guys on that, mike. So I've been doing a lot of bike races and I've ran logistics for bike races and I've raced Breck Epic. I don't think I've seen a better job of the individual race bag hand up scenario. So, like a pro racer, they always want like stuff fast, right, you like roll up and here you go at breck epic you can put whatever you want in your in your bag. You can put in a flask of whiskey and a jar of pickles if that's what you want up there, okay or some new energy gels or whatever sparklers.

Speaker 1:

whatever you put it in, you drop it at the beginning of the stage and they bring it to whatever aid station you want it to go at and he gives you instruction. Right, they have a spotter for the number, they get it organized, they have it ready so and they have it open so that you can roll up. You still have to stop everybody should stop, by the way get whatever you need to take a minute and then carry on and then they bring your aid station, the aid station bag, back to the start and it's like flawless, like it's, but it's such a huge help. But also, anybody like racing this thing also knows that you, you have your own specific stuff out there too, and it's very important. So to get long winded, that goes into the long ride. Preaching here, and this is the time crunched cyclist podcast, so everybody's like scrapping for three hours, four hours, maybe, that's like the longest ride you've ever done in your life. Breck Epic, you're going to have to go longer than that. Okay, in training, uh, if you can go longer than four hours, that is ideal. Maybe you can't, but in my opinion you should have a lot of those and you should practice what Mike is talking about in the way of like getting your food dialed at our not only one, two, but three and four, because stuff changes. And then that's why I'm saying do a training camp of it three, four days deep, because stuff changes again. Now, freeport, maine, it's going to get pretty cold there, right Like.

Speaker 1:

So what about indoor training? Cause there's a lot. There's some options out there, including, by the way, soft plug for TP virtual uh training. Peaks just came out with their own uh virtual training platform which I played around with only a little bit and I had a couple athletes on it. I've got to do more on that before I can really talk to it. But the virtual riding platform to get more time in the saddle over the winter for Indira, that's going to be probably the moneymaker when it comes to building fitness over the winter. Would you recommend people doing indoor stuff as well in prep for Breck Epic?

Speaker 2:

The only bad answer is to not do anything. You know, tim Faya, breck local, won a cyclocross national championship and he hadn't been on his bike until the day of the race. You know, he just he was skinning up the mountain, that was it. That was his training. You know, Matt Kelly won a world championship in Pope Rod in late 90s right, I think 1999. And he was on a trainer in his basement. He hadn't been on a bike in months and he went out and announced his presence, brought home the first cyclocross gold medal ever.

Speaker 2:

And yeah, do something, because spring's coming and you want to at least be in maintenance mode until you get there. Riding a trainer for four hours is hard, it's a mind-numbing exercise. So, yeah, it's just like nutrition. Figure out how you can goose the system, how your body's going to react, figure out what you need to do on a trainer to maintain base fitness and then have a plan for coming out of hibernation and that's it. Do something. The help that you provide athletes is amazing. The Training Peaks people we're actually working on something with them right now and Dirk Friel, who's sort of the founder of Training Peaks he's a grand, exalted water buffalo here at the Breck Epic Lodge. He's done the race a bunch of times. He's great. There are plans, there's hope.

Speaker 2:

This is meant to be a life experience that isn't limited to just the six days, on course. It's meant to be called a year of your life, where you've put a goal in place and you know the importance of setting goals and how those benefits leak out into everything else that you do your mental health, your physical health. You're just your mental health, your physical health, you're just a better person with a carrot in front of you and there's all kinds of people who can contribute to that ecosystem. You're case in point. Your business, your reason for existing, is helping people achieve these types of goals. So assemble your team, get good advice it's like parenting Listen to everybody, use the resources at your disposal and then make your own choice, like what works best for you. Ultimately, you are the CEO of you, incorporated something to this point.

Speaker 1:

The benefits of health and fitness and peddling are not measured in podiums. For the mass, vast majority of people and the vast majority of people I coach, the vast majority of people who have done Breck Epic I would say that is the case. Finishing is great, but that process and that journey, man, that's what, that's where the money's at and it will pay so many dividends on your investments. And that's where I say to Endura living in Freeport Maine, whether it's cross country skiing or indoor riding or hiking or something like train to train year round. But then come back to like that May time period. That's when you get more specific and you start really honing the FTP and the VO2 and get on the single track and all this kind of stuff. That's when you get specific. But like Mike said, man, just get really fit and keep going. The worst thing you can do is nothing.

Speaker 2:

You are the CEO of you, you are the functional expert of you and we all have resources at our disposal of you and we all have resources at our disposal and something like the epic. You know, when you arrive on day one, you've already made it. You, you have worked your ass off just to get here. The race itself. That's the gravy. And like completing it, you gotta be fit, you gotta be mentally tough, you gotta be a little bit lucky. Your equipment needs to hold up. There's a lot of variables like that.

Speaker 2:

That night sky is is constantly evolving. But make no mistake, if you've done the work that gives you the courage to show up on the start line, your heart is nails. You belong here and, excuse my French, let's fucking go Like, let's ride our bikes together fast and long and with our people, and, you know, let the chips fall, do your work and see if it worked and if it didn't saddle up again. That is one of the beauties of life we get a bunch of do-overs for stuff that matters yeah, that's so true, that's so true.

Speaker 1:

Well, mike, we, we are. We're getting long here. I think we have answered in Dira, and very roundabout ways it has is typical with Mike, but I'll give you the final word here. Uh, what else should Indira or any other Epic curious listeners know before they actually sign up for Breck Epic?

Speaker 2:

Know that we're fans of you, that we respect the commitment and the effort that it takes to get here. The the commitment and the effort that it takes to get here. The epic started as a love letter to backcountry mountain biking. Through a tighter lens, through the trail network of Summit County, we want to show you our favorite rides, and some things are going to go well and some things are not, but we're all going to be in the soup together and, man, we're pulling for you. I cannot wait to meet Endura in August. It all going to be in the soup together and, man, we're pulling for you.

Speaker 1:

I cannot wait to meet Indura in August. It's going to be awesome. And I will say, folks, for those viewing on YouTube, viewing on YouTube I have this just sitting out all the time, mike. But for those who are fit enough, resilient enough, lucky enough to complete the Breck Epic, you get one of these giant, egregious, silly belt buckles that will just make your day look at that.

Speaker 2:

Look at that. You have to buy 7,000 of these from Alibaba. Buddy bottom this. So they they're the smaller ones, they're four belt buckles and he had some custom foam made.

Speaker 1:

I'm gonna send you one um, you should, you should definitely do it, but I want to say to you, I'll probably get this edited out, but on the back mic, on the back of this, like shimmer, shine, it says breck epic mountain bike stage race 2017. Bad motherfucker, so that was the trophy that year. True true statement? Was that a custom piece? I just want to guess.

Speaker 2:

I guess so, like they all say that on the back of a joke about Pulp Fiction, which is also great insight into. That's who you are now Like when you do something like this. You are hard as nails and you should, no matter where the rest of your life goes. You did this and you take that with you, and those belt buckles are meant to sit on your printer or your desk and remind you. Your day might not be going great, but you did that and you can get through anything.

Speaker 1:

Couldn't agree more people. That's why we do silly epic things like what Mike has created up in Summit County. So this has been a huge honor for me to talk to you just on a random Thursday or whatever it is. And I do have plans to come back up to Breck Epic now that I live on the beast coast, where everything is slow but lots of lots of oxygen. It is. And, uh, I I do have plans to come back up to Breck Epic now that I live on the beast coast, uh, where everything is slow but lots of uh, lots of uh, oxygen. I'm going to come back up and suffer like a dog up there at some point. But, um, mike, thank you so much for spending time with myself and our audience today to enlighten them on Breck Epic, but really like life and how to do life better.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much for having me on. It's been fun to talk, yeah, man.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for joining us on the Time Crunch Cyclist podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show. If you want even more actionable training advice, head over to trainwrightcom backslash newsletter and subscribe to our free weekly publication. Each week you'll get in-depth training content that goes beyond what we cover here on the podcast. That'll help you take your training to the next level. That's all for now. Until next time, train hard, train smart, train right.

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Adam Pulford

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