Fitness Fiasco
Fitness Fiasco
014 What Worked For Me: Conquering the Iron Horse: Rob's Journey and Training Secrets for Endurance Cycling
Discover the secrets behind conquering one of America's toughest bike races with Rob Silver as he recounts his journey through the Iron Horse Bike Race in Durango, Colorado. This episode promises an in-depth exploration of Rob's grueling yet exhilarating experiences, the race's storied history, and the challenges of navigating 50 miles and 6,000 feet of elevation gain. Learn how a simple sibling rivalry blossomed into a major event attracting both seasoned professionals and passionate amateurs alike.
Rob sheds light on his innovative training regimen that seamlessly blends strength and endurance workouts, defying conventional wisdom. He candidly talks about balancing heavy lifting with intense cycling sessions, and the personal adaptations he made following significant life events, like the birth of his child. By merging real-life challenges with athletic dedication, Rob provides a comprehensive guide on how to stay committed to your training, even when life throws curveballs.
Journey with us through Rob's reflective moments on race day preparations, from riding at sea level to the unpredictable conditions of the Iron Horse Bike Race. His honest recounting of enduring snowstorms, navigating mental and physical hurdles, and the intricate balance of nutrition and hydration will leave you inspired. Whether you're an aspiring cyclist or simply love tales of perseverance and strategic planning, this episode is packed with insights and anecdotes that highlight the resilience and adaptability required for endurance cycling.
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Host Mike - https://www.instagram.com/mikeosunafitness/
Host Erik - https://www.instagram.com/erikbustillo/
Host Rob - https://twitter.com/RobStrength
The Fitness Fiasco Podcast provides general information on health, wellness, and fitness and should not be regarded as professional medical advice, treatment, or diagnosis. No doctor/patient relationship is established through this podcast. Listeners are responsible for their use of any information or resources shared in this podcast or associated materials. This podcast's content should not supplant consultations with qualified health care professionals concerning any existing medical conditions. It is crucial for listeners to avoid disregarding or delaying professional medical advice based on the information provided in the podcast. Remember to consult your health care provider for personalized guidance on your health and wellness journey.
What's up, guys? Welcome back to the Fitness Fiasco podcast, which we could be rebranding sometime soon, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, or maybe rebranded by the time this gets released, who knows? But we're still available everywhere. Podcasts are either under Fitness Fiasco or potentially InFit Lab podcast at this point Awesome.
Speaker 1:And you're doing a great job with posting it everywhere, because when I post on social media, I just say wherever you guys listen to podcasts, so it's easy, as opposed to listing all of them. But most people are on the, the typical big one, big ones, right, like apple and spotify and whatnot. So, um, we're here with rob silver myself. Michael suna, eric bustio will not be joining us today, but, uh, this is actually a good one, because we're talking about rob's endeavor into the cycling world, right, rob? So you just did a. Uh, you trained for a bike race, correct, correct, correct. Can you give us a little bit of a? What's the title, what's the name of this bike race?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the bike race itself is is super cool and it has a pretty good history. It's called the iron horse bike race and it is in Durango, colorado. That is where my parents live, so you'll have, hopefully, if you haven't listened to the podcast part one with my dad yet go listen to that one, because he's a very interesting, very interesting man, very good storyteller.
Speaker 2:So it is. It's a 50 mile bike race, which 50 miles is not far for a bike race, but what makes this one unique is that it's 6000 feet of elevation gain. So my parents in the town of Durango is about 6000 feet above sea level, plus or minus feet above sea level, plus or minus. And the bike race itself goes up past a ski resort, which is the first hard climb, which is about a 9 000 feet elevation. But then it goes up to two mountain passes, coal bank pass and molus pass, which top out at about 11 000 feet of total elevation. So you are climbing, and not only do you have to climb on this one, but you climb up to the first one, go back down, climb up to the second one, go back down a bit, climb up to the third one, go back down. So it's it's not a flat 50 mile race, it is. It's tough, all right, yeah. And the history is really cool that you know the.
Speaker 2:The story is that there were two brothers. One of them was the engineer of a train which goes from the town of Durango to the finish, which is in Silverton a lot of silver in Silverton, hence the name. And if you remember, out of Colorado there was a river that turned orange because of some chemical arsenic poisoning when a mine lost its reservoir old mine you know broke open. That's where this is and the Silverton is about 9,000 plus feet elevation and the train runs between the two. It used to be a mine train, now it's a tourist train Really cool Narrow gauge railway. And the one brother said one brother was the train engineer, one brother was the biker and they decided to have a race.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:And ever since then. You know we're in our 52nd, 53rd edition of it. Right. So now we're at the 53rd edition of the durango iron horse.
Speaker 1:You know durango to silverton iron horse bike race. Very cool. And what's the terrain like? Is it a?
Speaker 2:are you on road bikes, you're on mountain bikes or it's on road, so they actually it's on a may, it's called the million dollar highway and our good friend ozzy actually had, you know, recognized it right away because he rode his motorcycle.
Speaker 2:I remember that comment yeah and so they close the highway for this bike race. So that's the coolest part. It's one of the only ways to get between Durango and Telluride. It's the shortest way it's an hour and a half two hours for that drive, versus three and a half hours the long way, called Lizard Head Pass, but that doesn't matter here. So they close the highway down day Um and you get to bike ride it.
Speaker 1:Is this your first time doing this race?
Speaker 2:So I've done it. So my dad did it the first year. He moved out to Durango and I told him that I would do it the next year if he wants to do it again, and so kind of. And he did, and ever since then I've I've gone out either every other year or a few years in a row, depending. You know, covid kind kind of messed it up a little bit and then I had covid one year, so there was a year or two I didn't do it, and so I've done it a few years in a row. Uh, so I've now done it four times and I believe he's done it seven or eight. Does it get easier now?
Speaker 1:um, you get familiar with it, but I could imagine the same level of training.
Speaker 2:No, yeah, it does not get easier, you know, especially in in my stance, which we'll talk about with the training wise, because I don't train bicycling year round but you understand where the pain is going to be and you understand what you can and cannot do at certain points um so that familiarity definitely makes it mentally easier understood and is this a recreational race or are there, like, pros involved?
Speaker 2:that's what. That's a great question. You know, and that's what makes this race so unique and awesome is that they have simultaneously the professionals go and then you have the citizens go. So, like in years past, you know, so a direct. If you're anything related to cycling or watch the tour de france, you probably know the name sepcus.
Speaker 2:He didn't compete this year because he had covid, but sepcus was very you know, it was his, I think you know, his first time really getting in the limelight was last year on the tour de France, and he's from Durango and his dad is from Durango and his dad was one of the primary reasons that Durango was really able to grow. And so he's him and his family are are Durango legends and he is one of the best cyclists you know. Best American cyclists you know currently Just didn't, you know, have the chance to do the Tour de France this year because of COVID, so I've done the race alongside him.
Speaker 2:And here's one of the best you know that is one of the best cyclists there are right now. That's like saying you're going to go out and play baseball with Shohei.
Speaker 1:Otani, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I was trying to look for the correlation there. Yeah, yeah, like just you, Miami, you can play a pickup softball game. And here comes Jorge Posada coming out to play against you, you're like fuck it. You're playing with Nick and Sergio.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, tough enough.
Speaker 2:But yeah, it's like that. So that's what's really cool is that you get these professional cyclists alongside citizens, and that's one of the reasons why it hasn't become like a major tour stop is because if it becomes a major tour stop for the biking tours and a bike race, they can't have the citizens do it. They're like no, we're not going to do like. This is entrenched in durango culture, right so have.
Speaker 1:They're keeping it traditional with that. Now is is this your first? Is this the only race that you participate in, or did you start off at like c-level races?
Speaker 2:no, this is the only one I've ever done.
Speaker 1:That's insane of course you would pull something. So tell little bit about um. So your motivation is to do this with your dad. Do you guys try to stay together? Do you make the best man win? How does that work?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the, the the first year we did it, we actually unfortunately got got separated, um, because it starts out really cold, right. So when you start it's it's like 20 degrees in the twenties, maybe thirties if you're lucky. So usually you have on a few extra layers, um, and so the first year my dad goes to take off his, his leggings during this climb and I said I'll meet you at the at the first rest drop, and I never see him past me, he doesn't see me waiting for him, and and we get separated. So that was kind of unfortunate. So the second year I made sure that I wanted to um, the second year I made sure that I wanted to prevent that from happening. So you know, I stuck with him for for most of it and then, right at the very end, one of the, you know, most fun parts is your descent into Silverton. So from 11,000 feet down to 9,000 feet, you fly, so you hit 50 miles per hour on the bike right.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's scary, there's cliffs, so you know, you the one missed turn and, yes, you are dead. Yeah, but it's so fun, of course. So, like, at that point I was like, all right, see you down in Silverton and would go. And then the third year, I said sorry, but my training was pretty dialed in this year. I'm going to see what I can do on this one. And then this past year, the fourth year, I actually went with not only my dad and I but also my wife's brother, danny, and his good friend who's now a good friend of mine Dan. So there were four of us that did it and we all went at our own pace, but Danny and I ended up together for a good portion there towards the end of it. So we have some good photos, or good videos that Danny was taking of it snowing on us quite heavily at the top of of this race. And this is in may, you're saying this is in may memorial day weekend.
Speaker 1:It's always the saturday of memorial day, so wild that, uh, we're down here scorching hot and you guys are covered in snow. Um, okay, so it happens in may. When do you start, or do you even start prepping for this thing? I mean, I ask because you're rob silver and you're always in great shape. So tell me a little bit about the training protocol, the cycle, walking into it, like that type of stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, and it's this ties kind of into you know, the snow and the elevation is my mindset. So from a physiological perspective, from what I am aware and I'm pretty sure this is accurate and through my own experience this is accurate it's tougher to adapt to the heat and humidity than it is to elevation. Elevation always gets the the saying of like, oh, it's so tough to do stuff at elevation. Yeah, well, come to florida and play in july. Yeah, like, whatever you're gonna do, like you're gonna die. Like it's the heat and humidity is tougher. You need to. You know the the plasma increase is required in your blood. Plasma increase is required to to maintain high performance in the humidity is so much tougher than the red blood cells needed to to go at at elevation. It just takes longer. Like elevation, you can go in and adapt soon. Humidity takes a season, right, and that's why the dolphins should never lose right.
Speaker 2:They just run a fast paced offense and they should win every game down here.
Speaker 1:But no, that's different story, but either way, so the adjustment process is shorter for elevation than it is for heat and humidity.
Speaker 2:Correct. So I've always said you have the elevation right. I'm not worried about that because I'm going to be training in Florida and I'm going to train in April and May and I'm going to go out and I'm going to do these long rides and I'm going to have the heat and humidity and I'm going to adapt to that and that's going to be the equivalency to your, to your elevation. So I'm not, I'm not worried about that. I just need to be comfortable on a bike. That's always. My thing is is you know, this race it's only 50 miles. You know, tour de france bike riders, they go like the 30 to 40 mile, like 30s on the flat. They're going like 30 mile per hour on the flat. So it's a you know it'd be take them an hour and a half to do this to to do to do 50 miles flat. If not, if not quicker this, the professionals do this race in just over two hours, which is insane that they're going like 20, you know, 24 point, some miles per hour, when they're going way you know elevation
Speaker 2:changes is crazy us. You know our general times are around the four hour mark, right, four to five-hour total time. My fastest has been close to four. My slowest has been closer to five. Including the break times, that's total time. So, going into this, the most important variable is I need to make sure I'm comfortable on a bike for five hours. So that's the most important thing is I need to know that I can be comfortable on a bike for five hours.
Speaker 1:When you say comfortable, do you mean your crotch straddling, a seat comfortable or your aerobic capacity on a bike uphill?
Speaker 2:Both Okay, Both right. So you need to have the muscular endurance to I'm not talking about pedaling. You need to have the muscular endurance to be in that position, that seated crotch position, for five hours, Just like if you're running a marathon. Your upper back needs to have the endurance to hold you up for that period of time. And that's where a lot of people underestimate the importance of strength training, for it is the importance of having those muscles strong enough. And have that enduring capacity in the weight room will really help when it comes to holding that posture during the longer race.
Speaker 1:What do you find more challenging when it comes to the muscular aspect of it, because you're in a hinged flex position, your triceps, it's isometric movement. What do you find? That was the first thing to give out, if you will. Is it your lower back? Is it your arms? Is it the the legs?
Speaker 2:yeah. So the I mean the the impact on the shoulders and triceps is is pretty significant. Um, I they they get tired during the race, but they're not the failure points. But, like, in terms of training, you do have to, you do have to take into account the beat down that your triceps and shoulders get just by holding you up in that position. Um, what I do for and around my legs, for training leading up to it is is something I want to talk about in a little bit detail over on. But during the race itself, what cramps up are usually like adductors, muscles that aren't used to that long volume, and as your hamstrings and quads start to fatigue, the adductors take a little bit more of the load and they're not used to it. So that's, you know, part two of being able to be confident pedaling for five hours. Your adductors need to. You know all the muscles around there need to fail, so they need to be able to take that, take that load on the bike race Okay, good point.
Speaker 2:When it so, then you know. When it comes to my training, how did I prep for this over the period? When do I start prepping for it? I want to really look at the last two years. So two years ago was it now 2024. So in 2023, I did it, and that's when I had my best time. 2024, I did it, but that's where I had our newborn son. That was born in December.
Speaker 1:So we knew it was going to be the X factor.
Speaker 2:But Mel's brother, my brother-in-law, already wanted to, you know, was committed to doing it. So I'm like, yeah, we're, we're going to do it, like I'm going to come out and I'm going to find a way to get it done. So in 2000, when it came to, when it come to organizing my training 2023, my goal was not only to'm just going to count. You know, like this is going to. You want to be a skinny bicyclist? They're super skinny. Look at Lance Armstrong or any of these guys.
Speaker 2:Right, I wanted to be strong, I wanted to be big, I wanted to have a heavy deadlift going into this, but I also wanted to train as hard as I could. So put a huge emphasis on nutrition and recovery. My training you know, I did my training on the bike, which I'll I'll talk. I have two, you know, two to three different variables there, but it was in the weight room. I was still training for strength. I wasn't, I wasn't doing huge volume, but I was still trying to have like the three to five rep maxes, deadlifts, back squats, put those in um to and, and you know, put those in to keep my lower body as strong as as as possible. Like I was like I want to pull, I want to deadlift 400 pounds, and then, a week later, I wanted to to do the bike race, um, and.
Speaker 1:It's so funny how counterintuitive that is to the untrained recreational athlete because they would just pick up a protocol of endurance. They wouldn't even start thinking about deadlifting and back squatting, right Like you say that to somebody that you meet at you know your global gym here and you tell me I'm dead lifting right now, you know a three by five, they're gonna say you're trying to get bigger, yeah, for a bike race, and it doesn't make sense yeah, and it doesn't necessarily make sense from a performance standpoint, but it does, you know.
Speaker 2:neither does you know not training anything at all. Not lifting weights doesn't make sense from an endurance standpoint as well. If you're an endurance athlete, you need the weight room and there's a huge you know fallacy of a lot of you know running coaches for doing not so good you know strength and conditioning programs for their runners, and it's not because they're not trying, they just don't know it's not their field. Like, I'm not a run coach, I'm not going to write a running program. If you're a run coach, you shouldn't necessarily write a strength and conditioning program because it's not your, your area of expertise. Like go go to the experts and so, yeah, there is that huge disconnect. But that you know, that was, you know, in 2023, I was able to do it. I had a little knee injury that was kind of freak nature due to some limb length discrepancies that I had, so that put me back a little bit. Wasn't able to pull my 400 pounds, but I was pretty close. I was pulling, I was, I was trap bar deadlifting 400 pounds about a month prior and then I went to demonstrate a sumo deadlift and my knee tweaked, demonstrate with like 135 pounds, but that I was from a limb length issue, that I have just like a weird sprain, but that didn't affect my training too much, except good did a little bit, but I was able to work around it.
Speaker 2:Um, now for the, for the bike rate, bike race training. A lot of this dates back to, you know, about 10 to 15 years ago. A lot of endurance, maybe more 20 years ago, a lot of endurance stuff was all about volume, volume, volume, volume. And then there were some counter schools of thought that was like you don't have to have the, that much volume, you can do everything in shorter intervals. And that got a lot of, you know, just doing intervals for longer races got a lot of traction but didn't really have a lot of results. But then, kind of taking that hybrid approach of all right, I have to do some stuff long, but I also have to do some sprint training in there. What's you know what's the least amount of long I can do to get ready for it. So my schedule was always like in January, I start thinking about it, right, go for a couple of rides in January. So always like in January, I start thinking about it right, go for a couple of rides in January.
Speaker 2:So this is yeah. So we're five months out. So it's yeah, january, start to think about it. Do a couple of rides just to get comfortable, cause again it's having that posture on the bike and we're talking an hour to you know nothing longer than an hour. Wake up in the morning, go for an hour bike ride, try to pedal hard, get that experience under you and then in. Then in February and March is where I start to ramp up.
Speaker 2:And this will be a lot different in 2024, believe me, with our newborn. So in February and March, that's where I start to do intervals and I'm like I'm going to try to at least do one day a week where I'm doing intervals on the bike and that is anything from 400 meters, 800 meters a mile, five minutes, 10 minutes, four minutes with various rest intervals in, just to have variations of pedal hard, take a break, pedal hard, take a break. Try to do that one day a week.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry. What's your RPE during these intervals? Are you going at a 10, your balls to the wall in these intervals, or are you pacing yourself, depending on the amount of sets and rest ratio?
Speaker 2:yes, yeah, yeah. So it's more like I'm trying to. I'm always trying to go hard, right, the goal is always to do stuff at the highest intensity possible, but it's over with that whole, the whole session in mind. So if I'm like I'm gonna, I'm gonna go, and I do a lot of this in the gable. I do a lot of the intervals in the gables, either around granada golf course or country club prado, um, because I know the distance is there and I live by there.
Speaker 2:Um, I will, you know, if it's, if I'm gonna do something like I'm gonna do half mile repeat so, which is about two minutes on, and then I'll be like then I'll recovery for 30 seconds to a minute and do it again, and I don't have a the strictest plan I'm, you know, I kind of can fly by the seat of my pants on a lot of this and be more accurate than most programs ever will be, but that's, you know, a little cockiness on that aside.
Speaker 2:So I'll be like okay, and then after three or four of them, I need an extra two minutes to recover and then I'm going to do it hard. But my goal is like so I'm going to always have my goal roughly and it's going to disrupt my session, right Cause I want my session RPE, to be as hard as possible. It's always about trying to increase that intensity of of the session. I'm not doing it at the volume where I necessarily need the easier you know to to tone back. So I was only doing that one time a week and then if I got a second.
Speaker 2:Yeah, once a week was about it and then if I get the second session that's where I'm doing I'm gonna slowly try to get more time on the bike. So it'd be like all right. You know, my intervals was 45 minutes because I didn't wake up quick enough, right, or that's just what it was. It took me 45 minutes and my legs were spent and I'm good. Now the second session on saturday, I'm just gonna go out and I ride for 60 minutes. If I feel good, go 90 minutes and just try to push the pace right, just try to go at that higher pace. And I would repeat that, as much as I could through February and March, make the intervals a little bit harder, just feel myself, get in better shape and make that second bike ride. If I could, a little bit longer, a little bit faster.
Speaker 1:Now, are you doing any other cardio aerobic activity outside of it? I mean, you're doing Stairmaster, you're doing stationary bike, you're doing rowing or anything like that during your training, or this is it?
Speaker 2:I'd always thought about it, but I never really ended up doing it, just because managing that recovery while still trying to lift weights was starting to become too hard. I did want to run stairs. You know, I wrote stair running into my program one time and it just didn't manifest itself, manifest itself, um.
Speaker 2:I put rowing intervals into the program one time and just didn't quite man itself, manifest itself into what I was able, able to do and manage recovery, which manage recovery is is very important and you know for for this year 2020, and then I'll get through through April and May. April and May is where it really ramps up.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:A good February and March. Make April and May means you can. You know April the two months prior. That's really where it starts Right.
Speaker 1:Right, that's seven weeks. You know, third week of May, right? Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, like you know, push comes to shove, I can start training for it on April 1st and I have a plan to get there Now. If you have a good February and March, it makes that April and May much better. Like you're now you're you're now you're training to complete it. Um, and I, and I keep that same, that same format. I try to do two rides a week. The one on the weekends now needs to start getting longer.
Speaker 2:All right, so I basically either straight linear progression, go from, go from an hour and a half on a Saturday or Sunday and, and by you know, two weeks prior, I'm trying to go out there and hit an 80 mile bike ride which will take five hours, you know, plus. So it's just what do I need to do on april 1st to take now to have a a 20 mile? You know, 20 mile ride takes under an hour and a half. And again, this is a forgot to mention this I'm I'm all about the little mind games. You know this is from from my wrestling days. How can I be mentally tougher than my opponents? I don't have a road bike.
Speaker 1:Jesus, you have a mountain bike.
Speaker 2:No, I have a single speed. Oh my God, I have a single speed commuter bike. Jesus Christ, yeah. So I'm like in Miami.
Speaker 1:Tell me this isn't the old bike that you rode up in when you got the job.
Speaker 2:I wish I still had that one. I wish I was like in the mountains. You know you're in that low gear most of the time. Why should I give myself the luxury of being able to switch gears in Miami, like, no, I'm not going to have that option. I'm going to go buy a single speed bike and I'm going to train for this on a single speed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right For sure.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I've done everything on a commuter single speed. It's got the thin-ish tires, but it's still. It's not a race bike, it's not a road bike, right?
Speaker 1:So yeah, that's insane. Only Rob well, I would say the Rob Silver types, because I used to run the hill and the Orange Boy at 1 o'clock in the afternoon as opposed to 7 am or 7 pm, because I wanted that unbearable heat to make it easier when I walked into camp.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and then like another thing for the mental mind games I never wear headphones. Why should I give? Why should I give myself no music?
Speaker 1:the mental excuse nothing, right, nothing, it's just you and your thoughts.
Speaker 2:Yeah I want to enjoy the pain.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna be here and enjoy the pain, holy shit which a lot of this I learned from a wrestling coach, uh, from university of minnesota, jay robinson. He had his wrestling camps that I did when I was a sophomore, going into junior and junior going in. No, sophomore going into junior is when we did the intensive wrestling camp and that thing's legendary. Um, you know, and, and Jay Robinson, if, if anyone can has a connection there, I would love to interview him for this. He's kind of disappeared since he uh got kicked out of Minnesota for a little Adderall scheme that was going on with the wrestlers, but I would love to love to sit and talk with him because he probably had the biggest impact on my life outside, you know, for such a short period of time with him.
Speaker 2:But yeah, that was, that was. It was like I'm not going to have headphones because why would? My goal is to just immerse myself in this, in this pain of riding the bike and being, you know, in physical exertion. I'm not going to try to distract myself. Be in the bike and being, you know, in physical exertion, I'm not going to try to distract myself.
Speaker 1:Be in the moment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah and so yeah, I'm you know the whole time doing it. I'm you know in my thoughts.
Speaker 1:Let me ask you this the 2023 pre-baby five hour rides on Sunday. I think about that in my life now Sundays, right, that's when you were doing it? Yeah, usually, usually. Sunday, sometimes maybe Saturday Family day? Yeah, Were you by yourself? Was Mel going with you or no? Hey, babe, I'll see you in five hours. I'll be back for lunch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I would wake up. I mean, the heat and humidity is one thing, but at the same point you got to kind of you can't be out in the sun for five, six hours, so you know towards more. So I don't remember exactly what time I started 2023, but now, with our baby, I was waking up at 4 am to do these rides.
Speaker 1:I was like I'm you know, beat the heat. Plus, you're a family man.
Speaker 2:Correct.
Speaker 1:I need you here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I would tell my brother-in-law and friend, dan be like hey, is anyone going to join me at Black Point, marina, at 5 am, like I'm going to leave the house at 4. On a, I'll be down Sunday. Yeah, I'll be. I'll be down. I'll leave the house at four 30. I'll be done at black point by 5.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no one ever joined me. Of course it's a. It's a. It's a. I mean we wake up on early Sunday mornings to come and record. I can't imagine to go for a five hour back ride.
Speaker 2:You know most people are going to, but before I wasn't doing it as early. But yeah, I was still hitting the road at 6 am and being off by 10 or 11, I think I learned the hard way the first year to not be out past 12. I would start sometimes at 7 and be done at 12.
Speaker 1:You're worried about heat exhaustion, heat stroke. Yeah, you just start the sunburn.
Speaker 2:This is becoming too tough to recover to and I don't need to be out in the heat then, but just being out in the humidity from 7, 8, 9 in the morning through to 9, 10 is enough.
Speaker 1:Let's stop there. I want to check the camera, sorry.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, I'm just going to keep this playing right now. Do we start it? Yeah, I'm like this isn't going to be that long of a one and I'm like shit man, I'm talking about so much stuff.
Speaker 1:We're talkers bro.
Speaker 2:Yeah. What's good and hopefully the camera.
Speaker 1:It'll give us good little clips, you know, since we're more zoomed in it'll be a little bit more clear, the visual, if you will so where are we at right now we're talking about that glad.
Speaker 2:I remember the single speed that was uh holy shit, that's insane.
Speaker 1:I'm listening to you talking and I'm like this seems pretty motivating. I might want to do this fucking race one day. I signed up for the Dolphin Challenge a couple years back and I was in talks with the dolphin people about some stuff.
Speaker 2:And I'm like yeah.
Speaker 1:I just did the 100-miler. They're like Mike, I don't think you know what you're getting yourself into here Like you just can't just go and do 100 miles on a bike.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Me. You know my arrogant self Okay. And we're back and we're back All right. So let me get the all right. So we're seven weeks out training. You ramp it up two times a week on a bike, right? Yeah, so weight training correct.
Speaker 2:So again, for you know, a similarity between that I've I've kind of got this this over the years is, you know, I you can do it two times a week. I would. I was not really, maybe once or twice I was able to do three rides in a week. Over the four years I've done this right. So again, that's a difference between like difference in terms of the efficiency that I needed to bring into my training, versus someone else who can go out and do four or five rides or runs a week. It's like, in two times a week I can do this. One needs to be short and tense.
Speaker 2:The goal of those intervals is as hard as possible. Whatever you're doing, they need to be hard, you need to push yourself Right, and so that's what I did. Is, how can I ramp up my intervals to make them as hard as possible? And probably through April I did intervals and then by May you know, then that second ride was almost more a recovery ride or, you know, maybe a time trial where I would just go hard for 45 minutes or an hour and and and that was it can kind of, you know, tone down those intervals into may, because in may my weekend rides were three, four, five, six hours long. You know, getting up to that 80 mile, trying to get up to that 80 mile mark and you chose 80 miles.
Speaker 1:Uh, specifically because you're trying to equate, for because the race is only 50 miles, the time, the time the time, just time on the bike, Right, that's what it ended.
Speaker 2:I don't think I ever hit 80, but I came close. Just you know time on the bike, Like Mel's. Like where are you? I got to get home. Yeah, yeah, Like yeah, I'm coming home.
Speaker 1:So let me ask you this, I just you're are you you increasing your calories in order for this hugely?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so in 2023, before the child I was able to put more time into recovery. So my weightlifting was still total body. You know, I wanted to get the the. My weight training was still total body. Get the legs strong, um, you know, squat, jump, all that stuff as long with upper body. I was probably drinking three to I was drinking maybe two full 32 ounce things of of kefir, um, a day.
Speaker 2:Wow, and that was my, you know plus you know, having more toast and normally I'm very like protein heavy, like still pretty paleo food, you know, paleo plus plus carbohydrate sources is more or less how my wife and I eat, um and so then I was like a lot more toast, a lot more pancakes with breakfast, you know, and then drinking, you know, a quarter gallon to half gallon of fermented milk yogurt every day, because you need all the calories, plus carbohydrates, for the new endurance endeavor. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Did that? Did your nutrition protocol or calories also go up as training went up? So come April, may, did you also increase your calories. I didn't track it that much. No, no.
Speaker 2:I just eyeball everything but my weight, like I was yeah, that's where I'm going with this so that in the two years the first year I did it like you I could like I got slim, like I went from, like I'm normally, like. Mid 160s is natural for me.
Speaker 2:I was like 155 when I did it I didn't like it next year I was able to maintain, and then that third you know this 2023, when I was still able to do the strength training and everything I was trying to get heavier. I was like I'm trying to buck the trend, let's get heavier while we do this. So I did. I was able to, normally at 165. I got up to like 172, oh wow. So I did the race at 172. My legs were so big that they burned holes in my bike shorts because my thighs my thighs were rubbing each other.
Speaker 1:No shit okay. So yeah, my inner thighs were bleeding by the end of it, not because they were touching which, yeah so, aesthetically speaking, you looked more jacked, you look bigger and I had my best time and you had your best time on. On the body fat percentage, do you think you went up or down?
Speaker 2:I was probably up a little bit okay, but not too much okay not too much.
Speaker 1:Um, let me just talk post-training or post-race. You obviously decreased significantly the amount of time that you're on a bike because the goal is over, it goes to zero, it goes to zero.
Speaker 2:Okay, screw that.
Speaker 1:You also reduction of calories, because you don't need them anymore, right?
Speaker 2:Maybe Okay.
Speaker 1:You said that your legs. Did you lose size in your legs again?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I started losing a little bit just because I wasn't force feeding that much food.
Speaker 1:The stimulus creates what seems to be, Rob, as a big cyclist right, and then the stimulus subsides and then you go back to baseline, if you would Correct. Okay, so you said that what I'm interested in now, being a father of a four or five and a 15-year-old how was some of the differences between 2024 with the baby and 2023? Clearly, there's a huge like we said earlier X factor here that plays into it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I mean, from the training perspective, the biggest thing was, I know recovery is going to be impacted. Yeah, so in 2023, I still, as I've said a few times total body did lower body training. In 2024, I did no lower body strength training because I was not able to manage that recovery.
Speaker 2:I don't know if it was because the slightly disrupted sleep and our son is an amazing sleeper, so our sleep wasn't that bad but like I could tell that that my legs, my knees, were not happy. Maybe it's because I had to ramp up the volume too quickly, but my knees were saying, hey, you can't bike ride twice a week, um, and lift weights and lift lower body weights. So I so it was about early april, maybe a week or two in april, which is more or less when the training started for real this time. So it's about after a week or two in April, which is more or less when the training started for real this time. So it was about after a week or two of training. I was like I can't do any lower body weightlifting this year. I'm getting my volume from the cycling.
Speaker 2:And that and that was a huge change that really it made it so I would not be as big. Unfortunately, I'm no longer as strong as I was prior, but it allowed me to maintain that intensity and level of training on the bike that I needed and to be healthy going going into it so you did better in 20 time.
Speaker 1:Wise, you had a better time in 2023 that you did 2024.
Speaker 2:Yeah 2024 kind of. I kind of got messed up because I had like a stomach bug or something two weeks prior. So that mess, that messed up my capacity, what I was able to do on on bike race day, like there was a point where I was like I don't know if I be able to do it, but we already had my brother-in-law and friend and dad doing it, so I was going to do it. But you know, on bike race day in 2024, when we started going on the start in the beginning, I was like my leg muscles were saying no, you, you haven't had the calories in the last two weeks because I was barely able to eat for three weeks. I went to mel and I went to hillstones our first night out with the baby and I had a full rack of writ or had the, the half rack of ribs there and and just, I got home immediately.
Speaker 2:Got home that night and was like something's weird and then like out of you know, just couldn't, barely could eat for two or three days like zero calories in, everything was coming out right away.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's not the way that you want to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like urgent care, like my friend, our friend who's a physician's assistant was like oh, you should. You should get a CT scan. It could be an appendix.
Speaker 1:I'm like stop scaring us, like there's no pain there but either way, it was one of those situations.
Speaker 2:So that kind of impacted the final result. But, yeah, I knew I was not in as good a shape in 2024, but I was in better shape than what my you know what it ended up being. That was just unfortunate. But yeah, it was the lay off the lay off the weights and focus on the training for the lower body weights. I was still bench pressing heavy. I was still pull up, doing a whole lot of pull up, so I was still loading my body through that, you know. But the lower body was not. It was not there.
Speaker 1:You know, this is where your, your expertise as a fitness leader comes in, where somebody else might've just pushed through that because that's what they did the year prior, not understanding that the recovery portion. There is this huge two-month-old X factor that plays a significant role in your adaptation to this new stimulus and if you don't, a common practitioner, recreational athlete, would just try to push themselves almost to injury, if you will.
Speaker 1:Or not do any weights at all, or not do any weights at all, or not do any weights at all, and where you were able to find a happy balance, understanding that my knees, my joints, my body systemically might not recover as quickly as I want to. So I'm going to eliminate this portion I may or may not Because you still didn't know that, leading into the race, you could have performed better. I'm curious about race day, right? So race day, I've never done an endurance race of any. I'm lying. I did a 5k with one of our CrossFit gyms one time and, uh, I think we just pulled up from the keys and ran it. But tell me a little bit about race day preparations. Um, any food that you took along with you? I doubt it was so short. I don't know if you did or didn't.
Speaker 2:No, you have to bring food. You're bringing calories, so race day, we'll walk through race day. How many people would you say? There are a lot, it's a couple thousand maybe.
Speaker 1:Shut up that big, I think. Let me see I got to look up this race. Pull it up here.
Speaker 2:It maybe not that much. Let's let me go to writer.
Speaker 1:That's exciting. That alone, that adrenaline alone, is exciting. Let me see if I can just copy the website.
Speaker 2:Okay, put it into chat gpt and have chat gpt count. That is um, unless it says it somewhere. Obviously I'm just trying to do you know I was telling you off camera that that I.
Speaker 1:I had signed up a couple of years ago for the Dolphin Challenge, the Miami Dolphins Challenge, and they raise money for cancer research. And in speaking with some of the, I knew some of the administrators there and I told them I'm going to sign up for the 100-Milers and they have several levels. I don't remember what they are but they were adamantly, you know, pushing me against it. Hey, mike, you know 100-mallers, that's not. You know where you want to start off for your first bike race ever and I'm like you know, come on, I'm a CrossFitter, I'm an ex-athlete. They're like I don't think you understand the demands of what it takes to be straddled onto this. You know iron horse and and just be in that position for that long. I think the race starts here in Coral Gables and you ride all the way up to to Dolphin Stadium in that Dade County Brower line.
Speaker 2:But you know, being in any.
Speaker 1:I don't want to say ignorance is bliss, because at this point ignorance would have been incredibly detrimental. I ended up not doing it because my daughter was born. That this just came to me, that's right. This was five years ago. My daughter was born that weekend, so I had a very good excuse to bow out of that race, but I did. I signed up for the 100 modelers. You know, obviously. You know they kept the money. I used it as a donation, but this is something that's always been on my radar of bike riding.
Speaker 2:I'm not a runner, so bike riding would be the next best thing. Yeah, no, I don't mind, so I just GPT. Let me down. It was too much to analyze, I just put it into an Excel sheet to count the lines and format it a little bit there. So yeah, it was over a thousand in the citizens, wow yeah, so that is huge.
Speaker 2:I was thinking just a couple, you know, maybe 200 people, a thousand in this, over a thousand and then probably a couple hundred professional professional cycles very exciting, if not a few, more than a couple hundred good for them, so yeah, um, so race day is race day in terms of of what you're bringing um again. We're we're doing this around four to five hours, and it can be very cold in the start. Um, so this past year was actually the warmest start, or was the cold, I don't remember.
Speaker 2:This past year was both the warmest and coldest I've ever been on this ride because the snow came down heavy and hard at the top um, when we were going down into silverton, which is that flannel where you're going 50 miles per hour. I did not get to enjoy that, because this was a heavy snow is making the road wet. It was kicking up this, like you know, frozen rainwater into your feet, your feet were soaked, your hands were soaked, your body was soaked.
Speaker 2:It was it kind of it was an experience. It was my son's first snow storm. You know, memorial day weekend he's in his first snowstorm up at Silverton getting snowed on 9,000 feet, um, but yeah, so you start, you start early and and the race you know, sometimes with with my dad who's, you know, push these mid seventies, we start before and a lot of local Durango people actually start before the race actually starts because they do close, they do have a cutoff time, um, and none of us have ever really been a threat of the cutoff time. But I think it's just that peace of mind, especially for my dad to, you know, know that he has the time to, to get up these passes before they say, Nope, no more people, we got to put you on the back of the bus to, to, to finish up. So when you do start early, you get the benefit of the peloton of professional riders passing you, all right, so it takes us.
Speaker 2:You know, four hours is a good target for the citizens, professional riders, two hours. So they're going twice your speed Flying by you. We're going straight uphill, wow, and you're just, you know, going along hard. These guys make it look like they're going flat. They are flying.
Speaker 1:Eagle killer. Yeah, just like you're like what the like how?
Speaker 2:is that possible? Just, it just puts it in perspective, the difference between like a hobby and a professional, and and nothing is quite like here, just seeing these guys, and then you know one of them has been, if not more.
Speaker 2:Now I've been on, you know, been on the tour to France doing legit professional cycling, yeah, and, and it's, it's, you know, a site, site to hold. So over over that, over this long period. The general rule is you need to consume calories about every 45 minutes, right? Those gels are pretty common. That that's my chosen food. Are going to be the gels, but then I also will throw in a peanut butter sandwich, peanut butter and jelly sandwich. If I need something thicker, maybe another bar in there.
Speaker 2:There's water along the route. There's pickle juice if you have cramps, so you can always refill your water bottles. You don't drink that much because it's not hot, humid, so you can really do it with one water bottle and just refill on everyone. But I usually take two and have the Gatorade or have the Element, the electrolytes, mixed in, and I think I went through four or five Elements that year because my legs were always on the verge of cramping because of the sickness, the stomach sickness, the two weeks prior. So I went through all of that. I think ChatGPT now is giving my response on how many names there are, but XL beat you to it this time, damn right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you have. You usually have a. You know, the professionals, the locals, they don't. A lot of them don't need jackets or like layers or anything because they're crazy. You know, usually I have a long sleeve and then I have I have a long sleeve like base layer under armor, underneath my bike jersey, and then I have a like a long sleeve bike jersey over it that I wear in the beginning. So I have the two layers of sleeves, usually take the long jersey off after the first climb and do the rest of it. This past year got cold with the snow, so that was Now, how grueling is it?
Speaker 1:Is there any moments where like this sucks, I quit, or you just, I mean with your mentality. No, but could you see a recreational athlete For a?
Speaker 2:lot of people. Yes, yes, for a lot of people. Yes, and you, and you see it, you see people walking their bikes up the Hills. Especially when you don't like, when we take, when we, when we start early, we don't see a lot of those people. Um, when we don't start early, you see, you know those people that you know. The first year I did it. I remember riding past these people who are walking their bike up up one of the Hills and someone saying like, like, come on, you can do it.
Speaker 1:And they're like, we came from Phoenix, it's lower elevation, and I was like bro, I came from Miami Like shut up, and I'm not even a biker, Right yeah.
Speaker 2:Of course Like so yeah, it's.
Speaker 1:You know I'm going to correlate this just with a side story. We went to Red Rock you know the famous amphitheater in Colorado, and walking up those stairs to get to Red Rock, jess and I very active CrossFitters, uh winded, but at each, you know, there's maybe seven or eight landings on the way up. There's people, some of them, throwing up on the way up there because the elevation is so out of shape that we're looking at each other going. Jesus Christ, these people can't even make it up the steps. Like it's brutal.
Speaker 1:So I could you could, you know, yeah, so so the the mental aspect of it, which you have no problems with. It is difficult for a recreational athlete that thinks that they just want to participate in a in a pretty cool historical race uh, not understanding what they're getting themselves into, especially when the elements have something to say about yeah, and the route itself is tough.
Speaker 2:So the, the, the first climb up to the ski resort, up shalona hill, is the steepest, um, but it's the first half. So you're not, you know it's. You have that mindset of of it's not hard because it's in the first half and then at that point you're, so that there's three, those three main checkpoint, those three main climbs. The second climb is not the highest, the third climb is the highest, right you finish on the highest. But the second climb, so from the ski resort down a little bit and then up to the second climb, is steep. It's long, not the longest, not the steepest, but it's steep and long and it's the second one. So you're already tired and it's through the trees and you just can't it. Just every time you make this bend and if you don't know the mileage, you're like, oh, it's gonna be there, oh, it's gonna be there. So the, the climb up coal bank is the mind fuck right that's the.
Speaker 2:That's where you know you prep people, I prep people ahead of time. I'm like this is where you need to know. You just got to put your head down, you just got to pedal through this because this is where you're gonna be like, oh, my god, how much longer. Like, oh, my legs are starting to cramp. Like, like I have another climb after this. Get through the second one, because then the third one, yeah, it's gonna be hard, but you're, it's the last one and that's always it right, you can always do that one more, and when there's not one more after the one more, you're good. So the, the race itself, the route, the geography of it does make it a good mental challenge to say like, hey, I you know, if you're not prepped for the difficulty of the second climb, if it's not, uh, depending on your skill level, you're gonna struggle now.
Speaker 1:Does rob silver have headphones on? At this point.
Speaker 2:Absolutely not, never Stop. Only once have I played music when I'm biking, and it was prepping for the— I'm assuming most people there do.
Speaker 2:A lot do, but not too many. For safety reasons, bicyclists shouldn't really wear headphones, but now they have the bone ear headphones so you can hear everything around you. So that is changing a little bit. I think not as many people would as you expect, but there certainly are people that do. I've only played music once and that was on my long ride here prepping for this one, and I knew I really needed to get over the hump. So I put a Freebird on and put my phone in. I didn't have headphones, I just put my phone blasting in the bike jersey playing Freebird for the last 20 minutes of that ride, two times through Great talk.
Speaker 1:So let me ask you this Is this a new tradition for the Silver family that you guys will continue to do, or do you have other goals, other races that you want to participate? Have you guys discussed any of that?
Speaker 2:My brother-in-law is trying to get me to do a few more with him, thinking about doing like a sprint triathlon here or there and stuff you know. But we'll see I have too many, you know, fitness interests. I got to kind of narrow down what I want to do. So but doing doing a sprint triathlon here and there, it'd be good Still lifting heavy.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's all about how the joints and everything respond and managing all of that, but definitely going to try to continue this with my dad as much as possible. He did say this past year was probably his last one without an electric bike. So now you can go to the electric bike. So they're not. You know it's not. You still have to pedal and it's still. I don't know what the percentage is of how much you have to pedal it yourself, but you know he's going to be 77 for the next one and just that little bit of extra help will be all is necessary to is that a division within the race, or that's just like Citizens is open, it's open, you can do it everywhere, you go everywhere.
Speaker 2:People do it on a unicycle. Yeah a dude on a unicycle starts at like 4 am, 5 am to do it. Just the experience alone. Tandem bikes with kids.
Speaker 1:I'm sure the scenery there is gorgeous when it's not pouring snow on top of you.
Speaker 2:I mean I think it's all beautiful yeah I'll try to put some of the pictures up that go along with this. They're pretty, pretty crazy, especially the professional photos very cool, rob man.
Speaker 1:What a great experience. I think you motivated me now to at least start off somewhere. Slow, I might do the. I think the the dolphin challenge 5k um is a good place to start, but um wonderful experience and and I appreciate you sharing with that, with us, with our new episode of how I did this. I don't know, yeah, I gotta find a title for these types of episodes, but that's very cool these experiences that you had that with us, with our new episode of how I did this.
Speaker 1:I don't know, I gotta find a title for these types of episodes, but that's very cool. These experiences that you had, that was good.
Speaker 2:Thank you, man All right. Thank you for listening to this episode of the fitness fiasco podcast. You can find more information about the topics covered today and in any other episode on our website, fitnessfiascocom. If you're looking to connect with our hosts, you can reach Eric on Instagram at Eric Bustillo, that's E-R-I-K-B-U-S-T-I-L-L-O. Mike on Instagram at Mike Osuna Fitness, that's M-I-K-E-O-S-U-N-A-F-I-T-N-E-S-S, and Rob on Twitter at Rob Strength. Thank you,
