Introduction
THE turning point in my life as a racer occurred in a grocery store - in May 1995, reading a magazine. The article was written by Davis Phinney and it was about asthma. I thought 'that sounds like the problem I have with breathing here in Colorado's dry, pollen infested air. After some homework, I decided Denver Allergy and Asthma was the best in the business. The end result was that my available lung capacity went from 20% to 85% in the dry ( it has always been 100% in the rain or very high humidity ).
In the spring of 1999 I, quite by chance, discovered that "Exercise Induced Asthma" existed, and that I had it.
Below lists how, by forcing myself to have an asthma attack before a race, I was preventing myself from having and asthma attack during a race.
How To:
- Stretching
- Have a routine that locks your head into the following
- At 40 minutes to start, on an indoor trainer, 4 sets of:
- 5 seconds to up-shift and get up to speed
- 15 seconds at maximum warp
=> with the trainer set at more than half of all resistance
- for me this was 53x11 at about 60mph
- 40 seconds recovery
=> immediately downshift to an easy gear and spin and recover >> though not very easy
- Massage and more Stretching
- Get ready to race
- Have a good and safe race!
Beware of cooking the motor:
The above warm-up prevented my having asthma issues during a race. The price paid is that this warm-up burns a match, so a massage after the warm-up will mostly recover you from the effort.