"THIS THING CAN WORK: CompuTrainer can improve your bike before you know it!"

Success with CompuTrainer!
 by Joe Foster  

    MY JOURNEY INTO ENDURANCE ATHLETICS began seven years ago with a simple desire: I did not want to die.  By age thirty five my weight had climbed to 245, I had smoked much of my life; exercise to me was pushing my power lawnmower around the yard.  My cholesterol and blood pressure were up and my heart pounded when I climbed stairs.  But I wanted to be healthy.  I wanted my wife to find me attractive again.  I wanted to see my children grow up.

    I committed to changing my life by adopting a healthy diet and dumping the nicotine.  With zero background in athletics I read back issues of Men’s Fitness and self-consciously started lifting weights.  I also rode my wife’s bike for exercise.  I dropped seventy pounds and fell in love with the simple joys of cycling.  An occasional flat tire led me to jog, which led to an absurd decision to enter a triathlon.  I knew how to “not drown,” and how to make “forward progress” in the water, but simply did not know how to swim.  I started anyway, extending my two to three mile “long” run and buying my own bike.  I finished the race and was hooked.  I was a triathlete. I had athletic identity for the first time in my life!  Three sprints later I signed up for Ironman Canada and became an endurance athlete.  Through Training, my personal philosophies also evolved and a new view of life developed.  I learned humility and committed fully to pursuit of “personal excellence.”  It was 1997.  

    Three years later, I was a veteran.  My ever-present Challenge: no time.  Increased career and family commitments forced me to question my ability to train for the 2001 Ironman California.  My choices were simple: either withdraw or train smarter.  My training logs pointed out the obvious – that the majority of my training time was spent on the bike.  To succeed, I needed to improve the efficiency of my bike training and reduce the volume.  The solution was buying a CompuTrainer.

    The CompuTrainer allowed me to train when it was convenient (after the kids went to bed etc.).  I was no longer challenged by weather, daylight, stoplights, or cars.  I used the Computrainer to modify my bike position and make changes to equipment that increased my wattage.  Since it is a more efficient system, I cut back my hours in the saddle.  Best of all it was fun – I never got bored.

    Bike training for the Ironman was simple: one ninety-minute, high-intensity session on the CompuTrainer, with a 10k brick and two forty-five minute scripted spinning/form sessions per week.  My long ride was on the open road, weather permitting.  In those cases I rode the Computrainer for three hours using the Ironman course programs.  Tracking performance gains gave me the confidence that I was making progress.  I arrived at the race nervous, questioning such a radical departure from my past, proven training methods.
 
    Nerves aside, I had a delightful 1:03 swim and clicked into my pedals.  The course was a two-loop affair, a mix of flats and climbs – similar to Hawaii only in that it feels “on you” for the entire distance.  Within a few pedal strokes, my fears of having switched training from outdoors/high mileage to highly engineered, compact Computrainer sessions evaporated.  I was racing at a level of conditioning I had never experienced.  I had an absolute field day.  By the second lap I had moved from 45th in my age group to 2nd and ratcheted down my effort to conserve energy for the run.  I launched into a blur of transition.  (First in AG bike split [5:08] was also the 27th fastest overall.)  In the chaos of the transition, I tore open my run bag, slipped on my shoes and exploded onto the run course.  My good friend yelled from the stands, “You’re leading!”  My fifty eight-second transition put me first among the men age forty to forty four, with remarkably fresh legs.  My 3:29 marathon PR held off all age group challengers save one.  With arms raised, I crossed the finish line in 9 hours 46 minutes, realizing a twenty-minute PR for the Ironman Distance.  Amazing.

    Trevor Patterson wrote: “There comes a time when one must risk something, or sit forever with ones dreams.”  In 1996, I risked a change in lifestyle because I feared early death.  That risk led a stressed out over weight, workaholic to a different reality.  And while risking a radical departure in training methods is not large when compared to “lifestyle shift”, I did get something more valuable than realizing my dream of a sub-ten hours Ironman.  I moved “time from training” to “time with family” and that time has more value than gold.

Joe Foster is an age-group triathlete living in Alamo, CA.