I know the secret to running/cycling fast, just don’t tell anyone are you ready … it is body weight. It doesn’t matter how many intervals, tempo runs you pound if you still have the puppy fat you are not going to move with any celerity. Lance Armstrong knows it, Jan Ullrich still hasn’t seen the movie or something because he battles to drop the pounds before the Tour.
This is what excites me the most about this season. It is my new body weight. Last July for the KneeKnacker I weighed 160, I widdled down to 155 for the Grouse Mountain Run in Oct 5 and now I am down to 146 pounds over a 6 foot frame.
So you maybe saying that is sick and disgusting you must be dieing or something well not really, I am a thin boned guy by default I probably weigh 5-10 less than a thick neanderthal type person. I lost most of the weight from my upper body, I played football and hockey for many years this required considerable weight training, I continued to lift for general fitness up until about 8 months ago, now I just do core workouts no weights, this has lead to the slow loss of the weight training bulk, which is basically dead weight when it comes to running/cycling.
So if the theory is correct I should be able to drop massive amounts of time from my races because of the new body weight once I build my power up from the track workouts, long intervals etc. Some say you can drop 3 seconds/mile/pound loss. Lets take my KneeKnacker time of 5:32 at the time I weighed 160, today I am 146 so 14 pounds lost, the race was 30 miles that is 42 seconds per mile savings, that is around 20 minutes of my time so that would bring me to 5:12 good enough for a secound place finish in last years race.
Here are some good articles on weight and running/cycling:
Lance Armstrong makes the Tour climbs look easy. Ever wonder how he does it?
Getting it right: weight relative to height in distance running
If you want to win some more races, lose some weight
Lose weight – run minutes faster