(Mystical Music)
(Upbeat Techno Music)
- Competing in sports has been part of my life since school
sports days in Scotland, about quarter of a century ago.
Over that time,
I've learned a few things that have helped me perform my
best and using new technology.
I've been able to see the hard data to back this up
in this vid.
I'm going to be racing at the biggest downhill event in the
UK and using the tips in this video to help me try
and score a decent result.
One of the most important things for anyone looking to
perform at an event or even pursuing a personal goal is to
not overdo things, building up to the event.
This means being smart with your energy levels
not over training
and trying to be organized to limit stress.
I spent the week leading up to the event,
just bashing out you bit laps.
When I had the time to keep the skills sharp and the body
ticking over.
The past couple of years,
I've been using whoop to guide me through my training
and it's been incredible at tracking my sleep and
quantifying that for me,
as well as helping me gauge my output through a metric that
they call strain. Think of this as
like your total energy output for the entire day.
I find these metrics to be invaluable,
to help me gauge what I do and how deep I dip.
So leading up to the event whoop was telling me how much
strain my body was building,
and then calculating how much rest I needed to stay healthy
and suggesting when I should go to bed and wake up each day
before national champs. Life is pretty hectic though,
with a baby, a job, a training schedule,
but I tried my best to make it work. Next step,
And one of my top tips was to arrive early to the events.
So I could get a good night's sleep to maximize my
preparedness,
but life is messy and well let's get to the race.
I didn't get good sleep last night.
For those that know me, that will be no surprise.
I got here at one in the morning and got to bed and I was
planning and having a lie in,
cause I was looking at my stats.
The Whoop strap and it was saying, to perform today
I was gonna need a good 7-8 hours.
So I was like, I'll have a lie in, get my sleep done
And everything would be grand. And then about 7AM
There was noise happening outside,
and people were getting up and kettle's were whistling
And I woke up and then I was just
really excited because I really want to ride this track.
So I was like, girl, we get going.
I had been checking the stats,
My recovery is only 43% today, which not ideal.
So I'm going to have to make sure I take it easy today,
don't go out and just bash out a hundreds of runs.
Because I'll just ruin myself for race day.
So yeah, still a good, we can still make things work,
but good sleep tonight. I'm going to head up, check out
the track. I didn't even have time to walk it.
So I'm just going to be cautious. Run down, have a look.
See what's going on.
(Soft Rock Music)
Is there something to look at this section?
The main lane was a pretty big wiggle.
That's the main line down there
I reckon you could go inside right next
to the pool and wait for the next time
(Soft Rock Music)
Two runs in, first run
Terrible felt awful after it just didn't know the track.
All this really slapped me in the woods
and I just not no idea.
Second run, better
start going a bit quicker, but it was late.
The track tempts you in so fast, its so straight and fast
And then suddenly it's just like random little turns up here
and they all look the same and it was the tape. Oh no, no.
It's the Tape left.
So I've heard straight on in a couple of minutes.
I want to do lots of runs,
but if I do lots and lots of runs I'm going to be ruined for
tomorrow. So I'm going to do is take a dudes off the GoPro,
have a watch and a how many to remember the track
before I go out for some more.
(Soft Rock Music)
Oh yeah, speed's coming back.
Good run. Still a couple of mistakes,
but most of the lines of dialed now
tried a few creative ones that run, they seem to work.
No, that's good.
I was fatiguing pretty hard though.
So I'm going to call it.
Can you see this?
I don't know if it's gonna focus
I am melting, it's like 30 degrees.
This heat plus not being properly rested. It's going to,
it's going to do me in.
(Soft Rock Music)
That's half day in, wanted to get in bed by 10
or close enough
with a sleep coach is racking in.
I need to be asleep.
After the strain today it's
recommending I get like at least 10 hours of sleep before
if I want to perform tomorrow
and I would like to perform tomorrow.
Let's do it well rested for tomorrow.
You joined me this morning for a little bit of bike prep
put in some fresh brake pads.
If he wants to get too worn down,
the brake field gets big and inconsistent
so crashes in for race day.
Decent sleep last night,
looking at the graphs and data
you can see when you compare to the past week,
I actually did good to bed earlier than I usually do.
And I did get a bit more sleep than usual.
Usually I'm between five and six hours sleep,
but I got seven and a half hours last night.
I recovered 46%,
which just means I am in my average band of recovery.
If I was deeply in the red,
I would know something was up like I was getting ill or
coming down with something hung over or just seriously off.
But ideally I would have been solidly in the green,
but with the nerves of race day
and everything it took to get here with travel, unpack,
and pack and food prep and all that.
This isn't surprising,
but it certainly doesn't mean a bad day in the horizon for
me, just that I've still got some work to do on my pre-race
routine to hopefully get in that green for future events.
Sleep is important folks. So head up two runs.
I got a couple of cheeky lanes to try and let me go into see
them in race.
(Hip Hop Music)
Good run, good run
first spill run of the weekend and didn't feel too
tired or anything,
which for a first run is no that's exceptional.
So tried not laying in the stumps. Beautiful.
And it didn't come into it fast.
I need to try and do the same lane, but hit it quicker
that is a result in me trail. Mix.
Ingredients are raisins, almonds, walnuts, peanuts,
crispy m&ms and I found a bag of marshmallows
they'd been in there for about four years.
We have to all it.
Oh, and hazel nuts
(Hip Hop Music)
- Seeding run done, it doesn't really count for much.
It's just the orders for the race. Later on today,
I went for a safe run, safe but fast run,
even though it was safe and wasn't really pushy.
And I still thought it'd be really fast.
Maybe within I don't know 5 to 10 seconds,
the fastest time, maybe it was 15 seconds back.
So I've been going through the run of my head and it's just,
everything needs to be a lot quicker, like, eh,
so it was daft, but I just need to up the pace everywhere
My target, my, my ceiling time, there was a 43
I want to try and get 35. That's my goal.
I'm going to go for it. I'm going to go fast and yeah.
See where it goes.
(Hip Hop Music)
I didn't get my 35 but It was about, it was about.
So, it won't be a top 10 maybe top 15, fingers crossed.
So I after my seed, my goals were just to recap yeah.
I wanted to get within 10 seconds of the winner and I
wanted to get top 15.
I nearly got within 10 seconds of the winner,
I was 11 seconds behind Matt Walker.
He, that's the guy who won it and I got 15th.
So sick, mission accomplished. Oh yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Like subscribe comment if you want.
I'm not your boss, do what you want
Thanks for watching.
(Hip Hop Music)