SportTechie is launching a new series in which we will seek out the views and opinions of the athletes who use and are powered by technology. As part of this series, SportTechie sat down with Alison Tetrick to find out about how technology affects her training, racing, and overall job as an athlete.
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Alison Tetrick is a pro road cyclist and a star of the growing gravel racing scene. In 2017, she racked up wins at Dirty Kanza (a 200-mile gravel race near Emporia, Kans.), Gravel Worlds (a 150-mile race near Lincoln, Neb.), and The Queen’s Stage Race (a three-day event near Ketchum, Idaho). She won Gravel Worlds a second time this summer.
It’s really good for me as an athlete to learn to go as hard as I can
She has a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry, with a focus in molecular biology, and, before turning pro, Tetrick worked in a molecular pharmacology lab at biopharma giant Amgen. Her response to a crash in 2010 that left her with a traumatic brain injury and broken pelvis was to go out and gain her master’s degree in clinical psychology.
Nature Versus Nurture
“It was easy for me to correlate biochemistry into exercise physiology because you understand the science behind things. You’re just taking it outside of the cell and moving it into larger bodies, like the human body.
“Something I geeked out about initially in cycling was it’s an endurance sport. I played tennis in college, which is much more skill based. I’m not saying that cycling is not skill based, but there’s a lot of physiology in cycling, like nutrition and your VO2 max, and how you train. I feel like there’s this very cool, direct relationship with the amount of time you train and your performance—or how smart you train.
“You could practice tennis every day and you could still lose to somebody who played 30 years longer than you. In cycling, or running, or any of these other endurance sports, if you can do an appropriate training plan, and capitalize on knowledge and science, I think it’s really kind of at least easier. A more immediate gratification for the time you’re putting in there.”
Big Data
“I started bike riding and racing pretty much in the same month. Since I’m a data junkie, I just went all in. Because everyone had power meters, I needed a power meter on my first bike.
“Before that, as a runner and tennis player, I used a heart rate monitor, so I already had a good idea how my body was for running. Cycling’s a little different, it’s about 10 beats lower because you’re dealing with a little less muscle movement. Running you’re using your upper body and cycling you’re more stable, you’re just using your legs … I just started correlating that. Started to find my zones that I knew from running. Just kind of being a scientist and making those graphs [in Excel].”
“In running I knew what I did for a half marathon, for a 10k versus a 5k or a mile. I graphed those out where my heart rate was, and then I could take them to the bike to understand what was an all out effort on the bike.”
“[But] as you get older you’re a little able to let it go a little and go off a feel. Maybe your numbers aren’t as high as they were when you were younger, but you’re so much smarter and you’re conserving more energy. You’re not having as much anxiety, you’re more prepared, and you also understand that winning isn’t everything. You’re able to let go of some of that attachment, and get better performance.”
Genetic Calling
“I’ve had good results from all sorts of different sports. I’m an athlete-minded, Type A, smart individual, and very driven. [But] I would have loved it if somebody at like 10 years old [could] tell me what was my sport of calling.
“I don’t know. I don’t think it was tennis, and I don’t know if it’s cycling. Cycling’s my passion now and I’m world class at my sport … But I think it would be kinda fun if somebody could say ‘Hey, this is the sport you should have done.’ We love riding our bikes so we’ve chosen bike riding, but what if someone said at 10 years old ‘You should sign up for badminton. This was what you were supposed to do because you have this femur length and your tibia is this long and you have this muscle fiber.’ Wouldn’t that be cool?
“Kinda cool, but kinda not.”
“I did the Helix DNA analysis. It told me I was basically a Neanderthal. I don’t know what that means. I was like ‘Thanks guys, I’m not royalty.'”
Queen of the Mountain
“I used to do these 20 minute efforts. Three by 20 because you’re the scientist and that’s your testable, repeatable thing. But on Strava it’s actually really good for me as an athlete to learn to go as hard as I can over the top of a climb and try to get the QOM because that teaches me to race to the top and not just to that 20 minutes and quit. I’m using the data—the numbers and the app—to teach my mental strength to push past where you want to stop and sprint to the finish.
“It does kind of create that sense of desperation versus ‘Oh, I have 90 seconds left in this 20 minute interval.’ That never happens in life. You don’t have 90 seconds left. You don’t know how long [a race] is going to take.”
Social Media
“As a professional athlete, you’re trying to keep sponsors interested, keep your results promoted. There’s a lot of things that go on behind the scenes. People like to have a connection to somebody and understand what they’re going through. A lot of time athletes are up on a big platform and a pedestal, and people aren’t feeling connected to them. [On social media] you can share your story, what you’re going through, what a day in the life is like.”
“It’s authentic, it is you. You can showcase what you’re doing. A lot of this stuff happens in a bubble, and especially in these smaller sports like cycling. Things like Dirty Kanza blow up because people are sharing their stories and sharing what’s going on.”
“Ultimately for me it’s important to grow my sport because that does help my sponsors, helps my industry, and of course something I love. It’s a win, win if I can get more women on bikes, more people active and more inspired in general.”
Life Balance
“The other part is to not get too addicted to it and make sure you have a life balance. Your entire life doesn’t exist on social media.
“[At Dirty Kanza 2018] I left my Lezyne [bike computer] connected to my phone, and I forgot to turn my phone on airplane mode. As I was coming in finishing the race, I was getting all these text messages and Facebook updates, everything on my fricking computer as I’m trying to navigate.”
“It was just blowing up my thing. ‘Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. So and so likes so and so,’ you know? I literally yelled ‘Stop it. Stop it.’ People thought I was crazy, I was talking to my computer on my bike.”
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