The proof is in the pudding

Today I did a time trial for training. I completed the time trial in 1 hour 4 minutes. My previous best time on the same course was 1 hour 16 minutes. That's a %17 increase in speed in 7 months. The difference between my biking & running speeds last year compared to this year is shocking! I've put on more speed in the last 7 months than I did the ENTIRE 5 years before that. What is so amazing to me is how little my training has changed in the last 6 years. Ok, the first 4 years I trained, I trained for long distance races, so the point could be made that the first 4 years of my training was long & slow training, & now that I'm training for the shorter distances I've gotten faster. But that doesn't explain why I got many many times faster in the last 8 months of sprint training than I did the 16 months of sprint training before that. I am going to tell you my secrets. There aren't many, & they aren't complicated.

January of this year I started a strength training routine. That has made HUGE differences in my speed. Before this year I thought as the traditional cyclist did: strength training is bad, it'll make me gain weight, make my legs feel sluggish & unable to move as fast, thus slowing me down. I was dead wrong!!! I do a relatively hard day of strength training for the legs & core one day a week, & 2 more moderate days of lifting on whatever muscle groups are my weak point.

The only other thing I'm doing this year that is different from other years is I am paying ABSOLUTE & STRICT ATTENTION to my post workout recovery aids. Those are:
-taking 32 grams of protein, 2 cups chocolate milk, vitamin E, vitamin C, multi-vitamin, & glutamine after every workout, before I go to bed, & 1st thing when I wake up (the chocolate milk is only eaten after workouts, not before bed or when I wake up).
-do my speed work on a treadmill. It forces the body to run at a faster speed than I could on track, and the body gets used to running fast, and then replicates it in races.
-ice bath after any speed day
-forcing myself to get more sleep. More sleep has helped both my speed & my metabolism. I've gotten faster, & even more importantly, I've lost a ton of fat from my body. 32 pounds of body fat to be exact.

That's it. That is every secret I have ever learned.