Carmichael Chris - The Time-Crunched Cyclist: Fit, Fast, and Powerful in 6 Hours a Week

The Time-Crunched Cyclist, 2nd edition,

is part of THE TIME-CRUNCHED ATHLETE series.

Copyright 2012 by Chris Carmichael and Jim Rutberg

All rights reserved. Published in the United States of America by VeloPress, a division of Competitor Group, Inc.

3002 Sterling Circle, Suite 100

Boulder, Colorado 80301-2338 USA

(303) 440-0601 . Fax (303) 444-6788

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Distributed in the United States and Canada by Ingram Publisher Services

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Carmichael, Chris, 1960

The time-crunched cyclist: fit, fast, and powerful in 6 hours a week /

Chris Carmichael and Jim Rutberg.2nd ed

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-934030-83-7 (pbk.);
ISBN 978-1-937716-20-2 (e-book)

1. TriathlonTraining. 2. Physical fitness. I. Rutberg, Jim. II. Title.

GV1060.73.C37 2012

796.6dc23

2012022856

For information on purchasing VeloPress books, please call (800) 811-4210, ext. 2138,

or visit www.velopress.com.

Cover and interior design by Anita Koury

Cover photo by John Segesta

Photographs in by Don Karle

Version 3.1

O ne of the first judgments I make about a book is based on how it feels in my hand. I want it to be substantial and have some weight, as if the heft of the book is an indication of the weight of its words. And therein lay the challenge of writing a book called The Time-Crunched Cyclist. This is a book for people who lead busy lives, people who wake up early and hit the ground running, juggle one or more jobs with raising one or more kids, all while trying to maintain healthy relationships with friends and maybe a spouse or significant other. Time is in short supply, and the whole point of this program is to get more from less, so it seemed absurd to make you sift through a 450-page volume to learn how to save time.

But Im an old-school guy. Although I have embraced technology and the short-attention-span theater that dominates modern culture, given the chance Ill sit down with a thick, heavy book and disappear for a long while. And when I write, I write about subjects Im passionate about and that make me want to keep explaining ideas and expanding concepts. My challenge with this book was to cut to the chase and respect the knowledge many of you already have about cycling and training, to be brief about the basics. After all, you most likely already have at least four books on your shelves that cover basic material and offer the same old conservative and mundane guidance.

For me, there was no point in adding more of the same to your collection of training books, so Im going out on a limb with this one. The program described in this book breaks some of the rules of traditional endurance training. The workouts are hard, and the rewards are great, even if they are relatively brief. The program has limitations in the length of time that youll be able to maintain top fitness, but it offers great opportunities for getting more out of limited training time. A marketing whiz would say Im better off playing it safe and designing an easier program (20 minutes a day and you dont even have to sweat!), even if it produced smaller improvements in performance. I disagree.

This is a go big or go home kind of world, and you and I seek greater performance in everything we do. As a business owner or employee, youre not just punching in and punching out. And your idea of good parenting goes far beyond merely showing up. Youre not afraid to put yourself out there and accept new challenges, so Im going to step up and give you one. If youre open to new ideas and innovative ways of achieving superior performance, I have a new kind of program that will make you fit, fast, and powerful in the limited time you have available for training.

Its the promise of a new training paradigm that makes me believe this could be the most important book Ive ever written. For years superior performance in cycling and other endurance sports has been out of reach for athletes who have limited time to train. The old model of endurance training is flawed, not because it doesnt work, but because it only works if you have more than 10 hours a week to spend on your bike. I dont have that kind of time anymore, and neither do a lot of the athletes who come to Carmichael Training Systems. But I have found a solution, a new way to train that leverages the largely untapped potential of high-intensity interval workouts to make high-performance cycling accessible to time-crunched athletes. Its backed up by science, its been proven effective by real athletes, and its your ticket to achieving the fitness necessary to obtain the results you desire. So although this book may be lighter in the hand than some, it is dense with new ideas.

The Time-Crunched Training Program will put you back at the front of the pack, where you belong. So lets get started.

C HRIS C ARMICHAEL : To my wife, Paige; our life together is a wonderful and exciting journey and I am happy we are making it hand-in-hand together.

To my children, Anna, Connor, and little Vivian; you all are wonderful, sparkling balls of life for Paige and me.

I would like to thank all the people who make up Carmichael Training Systems for their dedication to making my vision a reality. You all are the best. And to the athletes who continue to prove the effectiveness of the program in this book, thank you for providing the feedback and results that convinced me this program could help an even wider population of athletes to achieve their goals.

Of course, my thanks to Lance Armstrong and all the athletes I have had the pleasure of coaching over many years. I cannot imagine a career more fulfilling than this one.

To my mother and father, who were my first and always my best coaches, you have my eternal gratitude. The same is true for my brother and sister, who have always been there for me.

Thank you to Ted Costantino and Renee Jardine at VeloPress for their support and encouragement on this project from beginning to end.

And finally, a very special thank you to Jim Rutberg, my close friend and colleague. Its hard to believe weve been at this for more than a decade.

J IM R UTBERG : My thanks go to the athletes Ive had the pleasure of working with, especially Sterling Swaim, Taylor Carrington, and John Fallon, who trusted me with their training as well as with the telling of their stories.

This book would not have been possible without the help and support of Abby Ruby, Jim Lehman, Dean Golich, and Mike Durner. Thank you for your hard work making sure the training programs and research were perfect. Thanks as well to Jay T. Kearney for his insight and expertise, and to Brian Delong and the entire staff at Carmichael Training Systems for their support throughout the book-creation process.

Thank you to Ted Costantino, Renee Jardine, and Dave Trendler at VeloPress for your support and guidance throughout. And thank you, Grant David, for contributing your expertise and invaluable viewpoint to this project.