S1E1: My Peak of ‘Mount Stupid’

Having previously been a part of the enjoyable Education First training camp in Italy, Lombardy, I kinda knew what’s gonna happen and was easily able to come up with some specific goals for this new upcoming camp in Spain.

But I did have slightly different expectations for the camp in Girona, though. I expected this camp to be more insightful, educational, and also physically very, very hard. Two weeks before flying to Spain, I watched my boyfriend, Daniel, taking it very seriously and training on the Zwift trainer like a crazy person — 4 hours of training on the in-house trainer in ONE DAY nonstop! Meanwhile, I had not sat on a bike in the past few weeks; excuses for the others were that it’s my offseason. The truth is that baby, it’s cold outside and I cannot stand cycling inside; the explorative magic of my favourite sport puffs away. It sure gives you the superpower to stop time when you’re pedalling on Zwift, watching your iPad with an ugly drawing resolution of the exotic Watopia road, all sweat, pain for a long time, only to find out that it’s only the first 5 minutes behind you, not 25 minutes as you thought it would be. The only other sport that gives you the same superpower to stop time is planking. 🥵 But stopping my own intense cycling training plan didn’t seem highly strategic before the upcoming challenging coaching week with the EF team.

The marketing director from the EF team, also Daniel, told me already that the Lombardia experience is like 150% dimensionally different from what we can expect in Girona, and Zack Morris, our coach, was already preparing some gamification for the Girona camp and a points structure that he was excitedly secretly sharing beforehand. I knew I could expect something like a race simulation and tactical training that I find particularly useful, as I have only experienced 3 races, Gran Fondo/L’Etape, in my life and did not know anything about nothing. I was the typical “Watts are watts” girl that you probably do not want to draft behind in your race because if you do — you probably get lost or will be confused about the inconsistency of my ride and get yourself hurt. 🤕

Setting realistic goals 🎯

Now, let’s get back to the important stuff — coaching. You should always set yourself a specific goal and then expect everyone else to address it during the coaching session, in this case, the coaching camp, right? Right now, I already know what will happen at the end of the training camp story. So, if I were to set my goals all over again, I’d start with something simple: let’s say, for example, “To survive the training load.”

However, our coach wanted us to be more ambitious. Zack wanted us to be super pumped about highly ambitious goals. He wanted us all energized and motivated to do these painful interval training sessions. So on his camera on our first day, I said, “I want to qualify for the world championships.” 😳 I still find myself grinning and facepalming myself in suspense just by putting this goal into writing. Because in a more humble, radically candid real-world scenario, I am just a beginner, a cycling baby. I started my proper training this year in June 2023 and bought a power meter in July. I still struggle with fixing a flat tire and have to walk home barefoot when it happens. My bar here is pretty low, so any information that I’ll learn will be new and will mark massive progress in my level of cycling, which is now at 0 or minus twelve… especially when comparing myself with the folks, the legends, that were attending this year’s camp with us. But huh, that does not sound ambitious, confident, or concrete.