Breathing is Fundamental

`So today marks day 2 of the summer of bike to work. The weather is finally cooperating. This morning started off bad when about a mile into the ride, I discovered that I had not placed my water bottle on the bike. This is not a trip to go drink less and I was too far in to the ride to turn around for it. $1.82 for some Gatorade. Oh well.

So the one thing that I picked up from my rides last year was that it is a bad idea to run full tilt the entire way. It's more about maintaining a decent average speed. Earlier I would race downhill as fast as I could, or burn rubber on the flats only to be burnt out when the big hills came. Now I let gravity do the work on the downhills, then maintain a higher pace on the flats. Then when the hills come catch a good gear and for God's sake, breath!

You need to establish a good deep breathing pattern to keep a good flow of oxygen to the legs. A lot of people breath incorrectly and burn out. Either they breath too shallowly or too erratically. This wastes energy and results in early fatigue. So the lesson today is practice regulating your breathing when cycling.