Training Log Archive: BigWillyStyle

From Seward Park up to Madison Park along the lakefront. For my money that is the best cycling route in Seattle.

I have a working theory which states that each athlete, given enough repetitions in any athletic endeavor, will every so often enter what I have provisionally dubbed Power-Up Mode - a fleeting period of time when he or she unexpectedly and inexplicably gains a surfeit of additional speed, strength, stamina, or the like and performs well above and beyond the normal limits of his/her abilities. I hypothesize that modern science can neither predict nor precipitate these episodes; when, where, why, and how they occur remain shrouded in mystery even to the athletes who experience them, and all attempts to manually re-enter Power-Up Mode by replication of conditions end in failure.

There are many things we do not yet know about Power-Up Mode. How long can it last? With what frequency do Power-Ups generally occur? What, if any, are the variance factors from athlete to athlete? It may well be that the majority of Power-Ups are "wasted" during random training sessions (since athletes generally spend far more time training than racing/competing/playing) and go unnoticed beyond "Hmm I feel really good today for some reason." In not pushing themselves to the limit, they are unable to take advantage of their temporary athletic largesse.

However, the laws of probability also state that some number of Power-Ups must indeed occur during full-effort competition; this may be where the proverbial huge PR, the Beastquake run, or the 82-point game come from. Unfortunately, to date the Power-Up theory provides us with little actionable information, but one can hope that further physiological advances will shed greater light on the problem.

C • Hot Hands 7