By: Molly Hurford Feb 9

During my 14 hour drive to Athens, Georgia, from New Jersey on Monday, I started thinking a lot about cyclists who go South for the winter for training. As the hours ticked away and I realized I wouldn’t be riding at all that day (or the day before, because of packing/trip prep craziness), I started wondering: was the three weeks I’d be spending in Athens worth the 30 hours of driving and at least three days of missed training? My answer is a whole-hearted yes, for reasons I’ll get to in this article; but for a lot of people, is it really worth the stress of traveling?


Our lovely editor here at Embrocation, Nathaniel Ward, and I had been tossing this concept around a bit in a flurry of emails the week before, because, as he pointed out, New England is pretty divided. Some stand by cross-training, indoor rides, and straight up riding in the cold. Others seek warmer climates. The results are mixed, and there’s no clear “right method” for training for road season, as anyone who’s ever tried can tell you. But still: for most people, travel means time, money and energy, so is it ever worth it?

For a lucky handful, like pros and people like myself who secretly (OK, not so secretly) want to be pro, and work from home and are currently sans lease until March 1, going away for the winter makes sense. Wow, those are specialized circumstances!

In my case, I don’t mind training in the cold in New England. I’ve always done it and never had a problem, other than when driven indoors from blizzard-like conditions. This is the first year I’ve seriously started thinking about road racing though, and after a long cyclocross season, both racing and reporting for Cyclocross Magazine, I was “cracked,” as my co-editor likes to say. Having an escape for February, even if I’m still punching a clock, means leaving behind the day-to-day stuff I let get in the way of long rides, and provides a distraction-free mental break from my “real life” that I desperately needed. Plus, if you drive half a day and commit to staying somewhere for three weeks with the express purpose of training, you damn well better take advantage of it.


So sure, I’ll get the quality miles that I may not have squeezed in if I’d stayed in New England. (OK, I know I wouldn’t have gotten them in.) But it’s not really about the weather, it’s about the mental outlook for me. In Athens, I’m a bike racer with a job on the side. Back home, I’m an editor trying to be a bike racer. There’s a huge difference in how I feel when I wake up in the morning here compared to at home. I’m not thinking about work right away (or wanting to hit snooze 17 times.) I’m psyched to get up because I’m riding like it’s my job; because for the next three weeks, it is.

And of course, besides the pros and freelancers, there are the people looking to try their hand at reaching the next level of cycling and choosing to spend some serious time in warmer climates focusing on training. Case-in-point is my friend Donny Green.

“My situation is a bit special. I was presented with the chance to make a big change in my life, leave my job of four years, and move to new town. I needed some sort of change, but the driving force behind all of this was the serious pursuit of bike racing.”

He elaborates: “So I decided that the best way to train during the winter months was to travel to somewhere warm, and for me that’s Tucson. By doing that I knew I would be able to focus completely on my training with few distractions. As far as it helping, I’m almost three weeks in and I’ve been able to get in more quality training hours than ever before in my life. The biggest factors contributing to my quality of training are the weather—sunny and warm almost every day—which makes it easy to get out and ride, and that I have the freedom and time to focus completely on my training without the distractions of home and work.”

Again, while Donny is getting in better miles than he might be getting in New England, a big part of his impetus for leaving is psychological. He could have stayed home and left his job to train, but to commit to doing that took the dramatic step of actually buying plane tickets and finding housing in Tucson.

As for me, my psyche and I are loving Athens so far. A five hour ride seemed like a good idea for day one, and looking back, it certainly was. And I’ve been behaving like a bike racer, too: eating really well (remember those french fries? I picked the salad instead!), stretching post-ride, getting enough sleep, doing 100 pushups because I have a pushup contest when I get home… OK, maybe that last one isn’t really conducive to being a great cyclist. But the ability to do that is pretty impressive, right?


So, clearly this is working for Donny and I (or at least, it seems like it is. We’ll see come Battenkill). But what does a coach have to say?

Al Donahue, perennial New England hardman and race winner, and head coach of Cycle-Smart, elects to stay in New England over the winter months, and is arguably one of the top cyclocrossers and road racers to come out of Western Massachusetts. But he knows that New England in January may not work for everyone:

“Going away can be good if you do it right, and doing it right is very case dependent. Timing, and what you do on this trip are key factors. I have seen plenty of people go away and come back no better; but done right, a rider should come back with invaluable training that can’t really be replicated in the cold. Believe me, I’ve tried for the last 10 years. Riding inside is even worse, I have done base outside all these years with no more than three hours per week inside.”

Next time I write, I’ll have been in Athens for over two weeks, and I’ll be able to give a better opinion as to if it’s working. And I’ll be talking to more coaches and more pros to find out what they think about traveling for training. If it’s good (or bad) enough, I might even include my coach’s thoughts once he gets a look at my training numbers and food diary from down here.

By: Molly Hurford Jan 25

While reading my normal roundup of weird nutritional articles, I stumbled across one that made me feel both better and worse about my eating habits. I’ve written a lot about proper nutrition, but I’m also the first to admit that I’m no saint about following the guidelines set by every sports nutrition book I’ve ever read. Sure, I’ve gotten better, but I still indulge in cookies, fried food and, of course, the occasional beer (or three).


So to read an article in the LA Times titled, “Charles Barkley, Weight Watchers and why athletes eat badly” followed by an NPR article called, “Baseball Clubs Pitch Players A Menu Change-Up,” well, it made me feel like it wasn’t just me with the healthy eating problem. Unlike my housemate, I don’t naturally come by a deep love of fresh fruits and veggies. Sure, I like a salad. But I really like French fries.

And apparently, that’s part of growing up. As the article on Barkley’s bad eating habits points out, “Players gravitated toward food from their childhoods, foods associated with their social class or their country of origin.” So, being from a meat-and-potatoes background, where dinner always ended with dessert and milk was chocolate or nothing, it’s hard for my sweet tooth to be satiated by an apple.

In a study published in Appetite, titled “Nutrition and culture in professional football,” authors claimed that, “The players’ personal eating habits that derived from their class and national habits restricted their food choice by conflicting with the dietary choices promoted within the professional football clubs.” So even though I might read about sports nutrition, talk to nutritionist and my coach, and know that steel cut oats makes more sense than, say, take-out Chinese food, I’m probably more inclined to choose the take-out because it reminds me of pleasant Friday nights with my family as a kid.

And then, when you add in how I feel after a four-hour ride, my food preference goes from bad to downright crappy. But hey, if Babe Ruth could eat a dozen hot dogs before a game, why shouldn’t I get a cookie, or six, after a long ride?

As the Babe Ruth example would indicate, this isn’t exactly a new problem. In fact, a 1988 study in Physician and Sports Medicine titled, “Nutrition Education for Elite Female Runners,” states that, “A survey of the dietary habits of 115 elite female runners revealed that some did not eat wisely, pointing out nutrition education needs for these subjects in the areas of sweets, vitamin and mineral supplementation, intake of red meat, body weight and body image, eating disorders, calorie intake, and amenorrhea and stress fractures.”


In the International Journal of Sports Nutrition, the article, “Nutrition assessment of athletes: a model for integrating nutrition and physical performance indicators” makes the obvious, but necessary, statement that, “Athletes, like all people, have special nutritional needs based on their age, lifestyle, health status, level of physical activity, physical conditioning, and type of sport. The diets of many athletes are inadequate due to overly restrictive eating habits, nutrition misinformation, dietary fads, and/or obsession with weight and food.”

In fact, when the Appetite study looked at what a group of football players consumed in a day, rather than being fairly similar from athlete to athlete, “The study found a high variability in individual intake which ranged widely from 2648 to 4606 kcal/day.”

And even when they are ingesting the appropriate amount of calories, a study entitled, “Nutritional practices of athletes: Are they sub‐optimal?” suggests that those calories aren’t being ingested in the correct forms, even if the athlete is avoiding cookies or cake. “Compared with the recommendations of sports nutritionists and exercise physiologists, the majority of athletes consume a diet which might be considered significantly deficient in carbohydrate.”

I’ve written about it before, but part of the reason for a lack of healthy diet for elite athletes is actually the fact that, well, they’re elite athletes. In “Nutritional practices of elite athletes,” the authors explain why: “The nutritional intake of elite athletes is a critical determinant of their athletic performance and ability to compete both physically and mentally. However, their demanding training and travel schedules in addition to a possible lack of nutritional knowledge may prohibit them from maintaining an optimal dietary intake.”

There’s clearly a disconnect between what we should be eating and what we do eat, as athletes. Or at least, what most of us eat. As the International Journal of Sports Nutrition study suggests, “There is a growing need for sports nutrition counseling and education to help athletes improve their eating habits.”

So what does this mean for an elite athlete? Simply put, it takes a village. And by village, I mean help from nutritionists, coaches, and family, friends and teammates helping keep your healthy eating habits in line. Or, as a study focusing on triathletes trying to follow a strict dietary plan, “Based on this study, athletes need help to achieve their sports-related nutrition goals, especially during intense training.”

Of course, for better or for worse, a study done on elite road cyclists had some good/bad news: “In general, it is possible to consider the professional road cyclists as a homogeneous group with a similar nutrition intake, eating habits, and nutritional needs throughout the more demanding periods of the season.” Hear that? As per, “Comparison of dietary intake and eating behavior of professional road cyclists during training and competition” in the International Journal of Sports Nutrition, us roadies are all alike. I’m guessing that means most of you also have a secret chocolate stash under your mattress.

That all said, who wants to be my “keeper” for road season? Or at least hide the cookies…

*Ice cream photo courtesy of Väsk

By: Molly Hurford Jan 16

On my to-do list all week, number one has been occupied by writing this column. Obviously, I need to write about Nationals. After all, I was in Madison for a week straight, watched almost every race, attended almost every event, and actually raced the Elite Women’s race. But honestly, sitting down and typing it up in any coherent way is almost too much. So, in the vein of Wallace Stevens, I give you Thirteen Ways of Looking at Nationals

I. New England Takes Over the Race
When I got to Nationals in Madison, Wisconsin, after 20-odd hours of driving from Rhode Island to New Jersey to Ohio to (finally) the Cheese State (that’s what it’s called, right?), I realized something: I didn’t have to leave in the first place.

Why? Because apparently, New England picked up and moved to Madison when I wasn’t looking.

Looking at the results after the dust has cleared, ten of the races were won by New England natives, including one Mr. Jeremy Powers of Easthampton, Massachusetts, and there were countless other “wicked fast” athletes who made it to the lower spots on the podium. Nationals felt like almost every other weekend race I’ve been to, and when announcer Richard Fries took over the mic on Thursday, I was almost dizzy with deja vu as he started reeling off facts and figures about upstate, NY racer Emma White’s season, as he has at nearly every race I’ve been to this season.

And of course, it wouldn’t be a New England race without at least a few spectators shouting at racers to, “Go hahhhhder, kid!”

II. New England Takes Over the Rest of the World
In fact, during the week I was in the Midwest, I saw more of my Boston friends than I typically see when I’m in … Boston. Women’s cycling event at night? Massachusetts’ Mo Bruno Roy is the guest speaker. Cyclocross Night? Justin Lindine and I hid amongst clothing racks in the bike shop and gossiped.

In bars at night, you could hear “wicked” and “f#!*in’” being tossed around casually, making me pause and glance around to reaffirm that I was not, in fact, at a sports bar in Boston. (Give Dylan McNicholas a beer and suddenly that New Hampshire accent comes out in full force.)

So does that mean New England needs to be renamed New Belgium? Well, that’s at least part of the reason I moved here to begin with.

III. The Dane
Let’s talk about the things that mattered at Nationals this year. And by things, I mean beer. And afterparties. Those two are inexorably linked, especially considering the place to be (and by that, I mean the place I went three nights in a row) was The Great Dane in downtown Madison, and they consequently provided beer at the race as well. We became acquainted.

IV. The Beer
Madison is certainly into the IPAs, Belgians and Pilsners, for starters. Sure, there were a few porter and stout offerings, but frankly, they fell a little flat. Muddy flavors, not enough carbonation, just not on point. But the Imperial IPA that I finally gave in and tried was stellar: bold, crisp, and perfectly carbonated every time I ordered it. So when in Madison, stick to the light beers. At least, from what I experienced.

V. The (Other) Beverage
Anyone who’s read this column knows that I’m a teensy bit obsessed with coffee. (See: The Power of the French Press. ) Therefore, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out the one thing that I heard quite a few New Englanders complain about during the week: the coffee of Madison. Apparently, after lengthy discussion with an Ohio-native who straddles the line between being “East Coast” versus “Midwest,” Midwest coffee is weaker in general. Think tea-colored coffee coming out of the urns. Combine this with Madison’s overly chlorinated tap water, and it’s a recipe for disaster. Upon filling my thermos up the first day with (gasp!) hotel coffee, I thought said thermos was emitting some kind of weird metallic taste. So, I did what any sane person about to go sit outside for eight hours straight and report on racing would do: I bought a new thermos. Nope, that didn’t help. Filling it with coffee from an actual coffee shop? No such luck, still had that weird taste.

Caffeine- and sleep-deprived, I was not a happy camper, railing on and on about coffee. And maybe it was the deprivation that caused me to temporarily forget, but I had my secret weapon stashed in the truck. Yep, I travel with my French Press, coffee from Whole Foods, and, after another trip to the store, a few gallons of drinking water. Suddenly, the day just got a whole lot peppier.

VI. The Spectators


VII. The Crashes
In cyclocross, the one thing I’ve learned this season is that to be scared of crashing is to go slow. In this race, since it was the last race of the season, I was filled with a grim resolution to do one thing: to crash. While at first glance, that seems like a ludicrous plan, it actually had a lot of merit. I would go into the race with the knowledge that I was going to crash, it might hurt, but ultimately, I’d be crashing because I wasn’t riding slow, or overly cautiously. And even from the whistle, my normally tentative start was replaced with what I’m sure didn’t look as intense as I imagine it, but what I believe was sheer ‘no guts, no glory’-style sprinting, dodging around women in front of me as I moved up from my almost-last-row starting spot. Because it’s Nationals, and what better time to give it everything and worry about the consequences later?

By the way, the consequences were as such: I fell. A lot. But I went as hard as I could, and I’m happy with that, even if my body wasn’t quite as thrilled post-race.

VIII. The Pit


Karma will come back and reward those who pitted for others; the ground in the pit was so slick and muddy that racers were falling just trying to trade bikes. The pressure washers were constantly running low on water, and what water they did have was serving to make the area in and around the pit more of a deathtrap.

IX. “When the blackbird flew out of sight”
The hardest part of the elite race? Being caught behind a crash right after the pavement, and putting a foot down in order to get around the people who had already fallen. Not falling, but watching as the front of the field steadily powered away, knowing how hard it was going to be to catch back on, less than a minute into the race.

X. The Game Face


XI. The Parents
A tableau here: the 10-12 Junior Men’s race is complete, the winner, a pint-sized kid by the name of Andy, who crossed the finish line and beelined for his parents. His mom, crying and smiling and hugging him. Him, grinning ear to ear, going to hug his grandmother, who’s pushed over in a wheelchair. Me, interviewing him while random family members and friends gather around to congratulate him and he says in a very manly way, “good race,” to the second place winner, who also can’t be more than four feet tall, as he slaps him on the back.

XII. The Weather
Who would have thought that Madison would be warmer than New Jersey? While in Madison, I was catching up on my Internet-ing one day in the Media Center, and seeing all of my Northeast friends complaining about the negative-ten-degree weather. These are the people who didn’t want to go to Madison because of the cold, so admittedly, I was a little tickled by the fact that I was sitting outside in 40 degree weather under sunny skies.

Of course, as one person pointed out, this is going to come back and get us next year when, upon returning to Madison, we’re greeted with Arctic conditions. Which leads me to…

XIII. A Preview of Next Year, Courtesy of Wallace Stevens
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.