The time seems right. It's now or never. This might be the end. We never know what tomorrow will bring, or next month or next year. Since that is the case, maybe I should start documenting my exploits sooner rather than later.
TRANSCRIPT
It's funny...this week I sat down to think about what I was going to talk about, and I realized I don't actually have a lot of exciting training news.
Which, I suppose, is exactly the point.
I'm still in this maintenance phase. Three rides a week. Two VO₂ max sessions and one endurance ride. That's it.
TrainerRoad is predicting I'll lose maybe two or three percent of my FTP over the next week or so. And I'm actually okay with that. If I lose five or six watts over a month, that's a small price to pay for getting some physical and mental recovery after a long season.
Because the alternative is doing nothing.
And if I stop riding altogether, I know what happens. I lose thirty, forty, maybe even fifty watts. Then it takes me three or four months to earn that fitness back again.
So right now my goal isn't to get stronger.
It's simply to stay close enough to where I finished this season that, when I start my next training block, I can hit the ground running.
Which makes for a pretty boring podcast.
There really isn't much to say.
The workouts are getting done.
Fitness is staying relatively stable.
Everything is...fine.
But then something happened this week that completely took over my attention.
I bought a drone.
Well...not just a drone.
I bought the new DJI Neo 2.
I bought a DJI Osmo Action camera.
I picked up a chest harness so I can record rides from my perspective.
I already had the DJI Mic Mini, so now I can actually narrate while I'm riding or running without sounding like I'm talking through a hurricane.
And ever since these boxes showed up at my house, I've been like a kid with a new toy.
I've been testing them.
Learning how they work.
Figuring out camera angles.
Learning how the drone follows me.
Seeing what kind of footage I can get while riding and running.
And the interesting part is...I don't think this is actually about the cameras.
It's about what the cameras allow me to do.
For years this podcast has documented what's happening inside my head.
You've listened to me talk about races.
Training.
Self-doubt.
Confidence.
Injuries.
Motivation.
Discipline.
All of those things work incredibly well in an audio format.
But this week I realized something.
Audio only tells half the story.
I've spent years saying things like...
"I had an amazing ride today."
"The climb was brutal."
"The ocean was calm."
"The sunrise was incredible."
You hear those words...
...but you've never actually seen any of it.
You've never seen the roads I ride every week.
You've never seen the climbs.
You've never seen the places where I run.
You've never stood beside the ocean where I swim.
You've only experienced them through my descriptions.
And that's when it hit me.
Maybe this journey deserves more than words.
Maybe it deserves pictures.
Maybe it deserves video.
Not because I think video is somehow better than audio.
It's just...
...different.
There are things that video can communicate that words simply can't.
Imagine watching a drone slowly pull away as I'm climbing one of my local hills.
No narration.
Just breathing.
Wind.
The sound of tires on pavement.
Sometimes silence tells the story better than words ever could.
Or imagine seeing the roads that I've talked about for years.
Instead of picturing them in your imagination...
...you'd actually be there.
You'd see where I train.
You'd see what I see.
You'd experience a little piece of the journey alongside me.
And I find that incredibly exciting.
Now...I don't know exactly what this becomes.
I'm experimenting.
I'm learning.
I'm making mistakes.
I'm trying different shots.
Trying different editing styles.
Trying to figure out what feels authentic.
I don't even know where these videos will eventually live.
I'm intentionally not overthinking that part.
Right now the important thing is simply documenting.
Capturing.
Recording.
Because I realized something else this week.
One day...
this version of me won't exist anymore.
I'm fifty-eight years old.
Hopefully my best race is still ahead of me.
Hopefully Germany in 2027 is the peak.
That's certainly what I'm training toward.
But none of us really know.
Maybe Germany will be the highest point of my athletic life.
Maybe it won't.
Maybe I'll surprise myself.
Maybe life has other plans.
I honestly don't know.
But wouldn't it be incredible to have a visual record of this entire journey?
Not just race day.
Everybody records race day.
I'm talking about the Tuesday morning interval session.
The rainy ride when I didn't feel like training.
The quiet endurance ride where nothing special happened.
The run where I questioned everything.
The swim where everything finally clicked.
Those ordinary moments...
Those are actually the story.
The race is just the ending.
The story is everything that happens beforehand.
And maybe that's really why these cameras excite me so much.
Because they're giving me a chance to preserve something that otherwise would disappear.
Five years from now...
I'll be able to look back and remember exactly where I was.
Not because Strava says I rode 82 kilometres.
Not because Garmin tells me my average heart rate.
But because I'll actually be able to see it.
I'll see the roads.
The weather.
My posture on the bike.
The way I moved.
The expression on my face.
I'll remember things that numbers could never capture.
And maybe that's something we all lose sight of as endurance athletes.
We're surrounded by data.
FTP.
Power.
Heart rate.
Pace.
Cadence.
VO₂ max.
Training Stress Score.
Recovery scores.
Sleep scores.
We measure everything.
But the numbers don't remember the experience.
The numbers don't remember the sunrise.
They don't remember the laughter with training partners.
They don't remember the eagle flying overhead during an early morning ride.
They don't remember the feeling of finally reaching the top of a climb.
The numbers tell us what happened.
They don't tell us what it felt like.
And maybe...
that's what I want these cameras to capture.
Not better workouts.
Better memories.
Because this isn't just a training plan anymore.
This is becoming a chapter of my life.
It's my road to Germany.
Or maybe...
my Highway to Hamburg.
I haven't decided what to call it yet.
But whatever the title ends up being, I know one thing.
I don't want to remember this journey only through graphs on Garmin Connect.
I want to remember what it looked like.
I want to remember what it sounded like.
I want to remember how it felt.
And maybe, someday, some of you will come along for that ride too.
I don't know exactly what this is going to become. Maybe it's a video diary. Maybe it's a documentary. Maybe it's just a collection of moments that only I end up appreciating. But I do know this: if I'm going to spend the next year chasing one of the biggest goals of my athletic life, I don't want to remember it only through numbers on a Garmin screen. I want to remember what the roads looked like, what the water looked like, what the climbs looked like, and maybe even what I looked like. Because one day, this version of me won't exist anymore. And I think it's worth preserving while it does.
Until then, I'm not replacing the podcast, not at all. I think audio works formany or you, most of you. It allows you join me on your commute, your own runs, or while doing dishes. Video is simply another window into the same journey.
One where you might see a drone image of me cycling from behind up a steep hill, switching to a first person POV as I race down the other side, followed by me stading at a lookout and waxing poetic on the difficulties of rear derailluers or my favourite flavour of carb drink.
That's it from me.
Until next time, peace.
