Eat Your Brussel Sprouts

Georgia and I went out to Horsetooth yesterday for a final intensity session before the first World Cup in Houffalize this coming Sunday. Goodness gracious, there are not too many things that can make a fellow feel slower than trying to follow Georgia up a 20+ % grade at race pace. We climbed up Towers Trail for 10 minutes, traversed Loggers, and came down Sawmill, which is a pretty technical descent. It was perfect for spotlighting my current major weaknesses - steep climbing and technical descending.
After getting over the initial bummer of being immediately dropped, I was able to settle in and maintain a good pace and a full effort up the climb and then push my comfort zone on the downhill. I definitely felt that I made some small improvements – which I hope will add up over time into big improvements. All in all, it was a very productive day.

Practicing the things that you feel incompetent at rarely tops the list of fun things to do. If “bread and butter” is a metaphor for things that you excel at, then working on your weaknesses is like eating brussel sprouts. They taste sick, but you know they must go down the hatch because they will improve your health. That being said - to truly become a well-rounded racer, working on your weaknesses is one of the best uses of your time. The long-term goal would be to improve to the point where a given skill is no longer a weakness at all. Maybe it even becomes a strength.

Think about it - what if you improved yourself to the point that you had no weaknesses? What if you ate those nasty brussel sprouts until they tasted delicious?

You might still be better at some things than others, but imagine if there was nothing that specifically holds you back.
There would be no race courses that "don't suit you," no pigeon-holing yourself as a certain type of rider, and far less opportunity for making excuses. (I will save my “excuses” soap-box for another time.)
Here's my point - if you just go out and race your bread and butter events all the time and only do the things that you know you are good at, you are missing out. Putting yourself in a situation where you feel incompetent is a hard and sometimes embarrassing thing to do - but it is certainly a very important part of the process of becoming a better athlete.

SO - to begin, think of the weakness that makes you cringe the most. Next, figure out specifically what it will take to improve in that area. Then, bring along a patient attitude and some elbow grease and get after it!

The Recovery Ride Conundrum

Good question: Just curious, it seems as though you prefer rest days to be completely off the bike; do you ever have your athletes do recovery rides instead/also? I've found recently that having a week of recovery with only 1 or 2 rides is not working out for me, as it ends up taking a week of riding to get back in the "groove". This week, however, I'm trying out a rest week that involves the same number of rides as usual, but mostly at recovery pace.

The basic goal of a recovery day is to allow your body to heal from the stress you put it through in previous days. If you allow it to recover, you will gain fitness. If you don't, you will remain in a state of fatigue and actually lose fitness. So, what should take place during a recovery day to allow for this fitness boost? Well, there's a bunch of things - quality sleep, good nutrition, hydration, minimizing stress, stretching, and a recovery activity, or active recovery.
Active recovery is a good idea because it increases blood flow throughout your body which moves nutrients around faster and hastens the process of recovery. I consider active recovery to be "walking pace" activity. It can be done on the bike, it can be done on foot.
A lot of this depends on how much free time you have in your day. If you are trading an hour of sleep for an hour recovery spin on the bike, I would say get the extra hour of sleep.
Recovery days are as much a mental rest as a physical one - so I think that it is important sometimes to step away from the bike and think about other things.
So, let's say its the week leading into a big race. I would probably have you on the bike every day - esp as you get closer to the race - as it will keep your legs open. But some of these days might be a 30 minute spin at 15mph or less and the only goal is increase blood flow and get some junk out of your legs.
If you're further out from an important race or important day of training, I prefer rest days that are totally off the bike. Its important to save up as much motivation as possible for the hard days, so if that means staying off the bike on recovery days, then that is the best thing to do. If your hard days are as hard as they should be, you will quickly develop a great appreciation for the rest days.

As you point out though - too many days off the bike leaves you feeling like garbage. So, assuming you are in race season, I would recommend no more than 2 consecutive days off the bike.

My advice would be to remember the goal of recovery days. Putting in an extra hour on a recovery day to bump up your total hours for the week is faulty logic. Quality over quantity - and quality recovery is equally as important quality training. Thanks for the question!