By:  Donald Smith

Hello, my name is Donald Smith from Brighton, MI. I am 13 years old and am in 8th grade. I am currently homeschooled and go to a co-op for electives and other classes. I like homeschooling because it allows me the freedom to ride outside whenever I want. I live right across from Island Lake State Park, so I can ride there from my house. The addiction of cycling hit me when I was 5 years old and my dad had to constantly take me mountain biking, riding a short loop on blue over and over again. My dad has been riding forever and it is something we like to do together…and honestly, I did not enjoy playing other sports as much as I did cycling.

For the past three years I have been racing for the Wheels in Motion MiSCA team and took 2nd place this year in the Advance Middle School category.  This will be my first year on TAMJD. As I was researching junior development teams last year, I thought TAMJD would be the best fit for me. This is because through MiSCA, I found that I knew many junior racers on TAMJD. The team is also local which means I can ride and train with them more often. Having a team to travel to races with locally and outside of Michigan appeals to me as well.  I look forward to being on an organized team to help me continue to develop as a person both on and off the bike.

My favorite place to ride is in North Carolina when I go to visit my grandparents. The views are absolutely gorgeous at the top of a mountain. My favorite race is the Lumberjack 100. The people there are so nice and supportive.  What I like best about racing is suffering with friends!  The main new thing I look forward to this year is doing more national level races.

Since so many people have helped me to become the cyclist I am today, I try to give back to my community. This year I worked with the Poto chapter on several weekends to complete trail maintenance. For the last three years, I have volunteered as a coach for the Lexus Velodrome’s summer camps. I was able to help kids learn how to ride bikes. When the velodrome deflated in 2021, I worked for many hours breaking and shoveling ice off the dome so it could be reinflated. The inside of the dome was a mess, and I spent a day helping to repaint the track.

Track cycling gave me the opportunity to go to Track Nationals in 2021 and 2022. I took 5th overall in 2021 and 3rd overall in 2022.  My mountain bike and cyclocross skills came in handy when there was a crash in front of me at the 2022 Track Nationals. I was able to bunny hop over a rider that was taken out in the crash. Track and road cycling have helped me to learn to ride safely in a group. I have not competed in many gravel races, but it is how I like to train when I cannot ride on trails. I do plan on racing in more gravel races this coming year. Cyclocross is probably my 2nd favorite discipline. I really enjoy all the features the courses include. Going over flyovers, barriers, and stairs makes the race interesting. Cyclocross is definitely not a boring sport.

Some of my race goals for 2024 are to complete the Lumberjack 100 in 8 hours and compete at the Varsity level for MiSCA. I like the longer distance for Varsity and will try to get at least one top 10. Another goal I have is to do more national level races like Englewood. I will also be training to place in the top 3 for the 9-14 Iceman this year.

The main thing I have learned about myself is that I like mountain biking best out of the other disciplines I have competed in (road, track, gravel, cyclocross). Riding in the woods is my favorite. I hope to compete in Mountain Bike Nationals this coming year. Participating in all the different cycling disciplines has helped me become a better overall cyclist.

The post Catching Up with New JD Rider – Donald Smith appeared first on Team Athletic Mentors.

By:  Jay Campbell

If you are a Zwifter, you may have experienced a bit of bike-envy when a glowing-neon-bike came in and out of your view. [A “Zwifter” is a user of Zwift, “… a massively multiplayer online cycling and running physical training program that enables users to interact, train and compete in a virtual world.” -Wikipedia] That neon bike is commonly known as the “Tron” bike and formally referred to as the “Zwift Concept Z1 Bike.” It is colorful and it is fast. This article will divulge some hacks to unlock your Tron Bike quicker.

Author’s avatar on his Zwift Concept Z1 (Tron) bike on top of the Radio Tower climb with Alpe du Zwift in the background. He accumulated 65% of the 164,000 feet of elevation in the final 7 weeks. The hacks enabled increased weekly-elevations of 7113, 6115, 14547, 16710, 15925, 21512, and 24540 feet. Image used by permission of Zwift.com.

There are some basics to “unlocking” the Tron bike that I will not cover in detail. For example, you need to sign up for the Everest Challenge (I wish someone had told me that three years ago). Those basics have been covered by others [https://zwiftinsider.com/tron-bike/].

The main requirement to unlock the Tron is the accumulation of 50 kilometers of climbing…. that’s 164,042 feet. If you rode the Tempus Fugit route every day (52 feet of climb) it would take you 3,155 days. If you rode the Road to Sky route every day (3428 feet) it would take you 48 days.

Another way to look at this is … How much time would it take to accumulate 164,042 feet at a given speed on a given slope? For example, 10 mph up a 5% slope equals 0.5 miles-of-climb-per-hour or 2640 feet-per-hour.

V_up = V x slope — [Rate-of-Climb = bike velocity x slope]

That Rate-of-Climb would require 62 hours to unlock the Tron bike. From this you can see that getting the Tron bike is not an impossible task if you ride some hilly routes (not Tempus Fugit). But before we talk about routes, let’s talk about the physics.

Your pedal power (watts) that moves your Zwift avatar is expended (for simplification) in three ways: 1) changing elevation, 2) rolling and frictional losses and 3) aero drag losses.

The power required to maintain a specific Rate-of-Climb is easy to calculate.

Equation (i): P_up = V_up x m x g — [power = Rate-of-Climb x mass x gravitational constant]

For example, take the 10 mph on a 5% slope discussed above with the cyclist+bike weighing 70 kg. This becomes:

0.5 mph x .447 (M/s)/mph x 70 kg x 9.8 M/s² = 153 watts (NM/s)

This is the minimum wattage needed to maintain that Rate-of-Climb. More power is needed to overcome the frictional, rolling, and aero losses. Those losses are a function of velocity (the losses are smaller at lower velocities). We will talk about that in a minute, but let’s take one last look at Equation (i) written a different way:

V_up = P_up/(m x g)

To maximize Rate-of-Climb, V_up, we want to maximize power and minimize mass (g is a constant). Hey… that’s watts per kilo! Now you understand the cyclist’s obsession with watts per kilo. For a climber, it is all about watts per kilo. In fact, you can quickly calculate your theoretical vertical speed in feet per hour by multiplying your watts per kilo* by the conversion factor of about 1200. For example, 2.0 w/kg* converts to 2400 feet per hour of elevation gain.

Maximizing power and minimizing weight is so logical, that equations are superfluous, but now you have a feel for what the Zwift engine is doing. To minimize mass you could lose some weight, but I will leave that up to you. You should go to your “Zwift Garage” and select the lightest frame and wheelset available. This has been written about by others here: https://zwiftinsider.com/fastest-bike-alpe/

To further maximize your Rate-of-Climb, V_up, you would like the majority of your power expended on elevation gain and not expended on rolling and aero resistances. To keep rolling and aero resistances small, you want your velocity low, which means picking the steepest climbs possible. Others have discussed the optimal Zwift routes (see https://zwiftinsider.com/easiest-tron/ ), but my experience is that the climb to the Radio Tower is best for highest Rate-of-Climb. The Radio Tower climb is consistently over 10% slope so V is low, meaning that most of your power is going into elevation gain.

Rates-of-Climb (ft/hr) on Radio Tower for various w/kg* are shown below. In most instances, the Rate-of-Climb exceeded the theoretical maximum. I can’t explain why that is happening, but it does confirm that the Zwift algorithm calculates the losses due to friction, roll and drag to be very small.

Table 1. Riding up the 450 foot climb of Radio Tower from bottom of Bowl (more data in Figure 1):

Reverse Epic KOM climb, Bonus Climb (Radio Tower), and “Bowl”. Base Image used by permission of Zwift.com.

HACK #1

2D Elevation of Shorelines and Summits Route. Hack#1 starts at about the 26-mile marker and proceeds in reverse, up the Epic KOM to the Radio Tower. Used by permission of VeloViewer powered by Strava. See full details here.

The best way to get to the Radio Tower climb and still get in some climbing on the way is to select the Jungle Circuit Route. Do an immediate U-turn. Within the next minute you will get an intersection warning. Select to go right onto the Reverse Epic KOM climb. In about a minute you are into good climbing, with no power wasted on flats or downhill.

You will be using the U-turn function a lot in my hacks, so figure out how to use it effectively. I use the down arrow on my keyboard which is easily reachable. The key needs to be held for a second or two before the turn is executed.

HACK #2

Create a custom workout for your climbs and execute in erg mode. This will enable you to maintain a normal cadence and prevent you from overdoing it. A link to a custom workout that works for a wide variety of riders is given at the end of this article. It is mostly in Zone 2. Long aerobic workouts are best for accumulating elevation day after day.

HACK #3

When you get to the top of Epic KOM via the reverse route (~1100 feet of climbing) you will take a right turn onto what is called “Bonus Climb” or more commonly the Radio Tower. This is about 500 feet of very steep climbing. I usually do a U-turn as soon as the slope drops below 10% near the top of the climb, head back to the bottom, U-turn at the bottom and do it again, and again, and again.

Table 2. Riding up and down Radio Tower (the complete loop):

A “custom Zwift workout” could consist of alternating blocks of “climbing” and “descending.” You want to expend energy on the climb and save it on the descent. Make the blocks longer than it will actually take you to climb or descend, then make use of the “Tab” key. The “Tab” key skips to the next block. For example: create two blocks of 15 minutes @ 80% ftp and 2 minutes @ 40% ftp. If you get to the top in 9:09 (at 80%ftp), U-Turn, and hit the Tab key to skip to the descend block. When you are done descending and are climbing again, hit the Tab key to skip to the next “climbing” block.

HACK #4

Do you remember your physics lessons on potential energy conversion to kinetic energy? Usually, the teacher released a ball at the top of a ramp. The ball accelerated as it descended. Maybe there was an up-ramp abutting the down-ramp. The ball ascended the up-ramp, stalled, descended again, then oscillated between the two ramps. Without frictional and rotational losses, the ball could oscillate forever as potential energy is converted to kinetic energy and back, much like skateboarders with their half-pipes. If you could find two opposing ‘ramps’ in the Zwift world, could you accumulate more feet of climbing by oscillating back and forth than by doing a long climb like Radio Tower?

Equation (ii) for a frictionless ramp shows that a doubling of the slope will double the Rate-of-Climb. Doubling the height of the incline (making the ramp longer) only increases the Rate-of-Climb by 2^1/2.

Equation (ii): Rate-Of-Climb = (g/8)^1/2 x s x (H)^1/2 — where H is the vertical height of the incline, s is slope and g is gravitational constant

For example, a ramp of 11% slope and a height of 21 feet gives a Rate-of-Climb of 3637 ft/hr. [Note this is approximately the conditions of the 1.59 w/kg* experiment in Table 4, which had a Rate-of Climb of 3792 ft/hr.]

There is an interesting “Bowl” (two-sided-ramp) at the start of the Radio Tower climb. Both sides have maximum slopes greater than 12%. I tested this “Bowl” at several w/kg*.

Table 3. Rate-of-Climb in Bowl vs. Radio Tower Loop:

To my shock, I accumulated almost 60% more feet in elevation per hour by cycling back and forth across this bowl than going straight up and down the Radio Tower! To get that rate-of-climb using equation (i) would require 3.9 w/kg (for me that equates to 265 watts or 126% of my ftp!) At 1.59 w/kg the results were even more astounding: a 90% increase in Rate-of-Climb! The lower speeds at lower w/kg correspond to less aero and rolling losses. Conversely, if you do this Bowl at higher w/kg, you will experience less advantage, but it will still be worth implementing the Hack.

HACK #5

There is something very interesting about Equation (ii) … “mass” does not appear in this equation! This would indicate that riding the bowl should not be adversely affected by a heavier bike? In fact, high speeds are attained at the bottom of the bowl where aerodynamics come into play. You can take advantage of this by switching to a heavier aero frame and wheels when you get to the Bowl. Switching bikes in-game is easy to do. [See www.zwiftinsider.com/change-bikes-quickly/]

I confirmed this in a test with two different bikes in the Bowl. [Note…My choice of equipment was limited by what was in my garage (many frames and wheels are level-locked).] The Time Trial bike’s Rate-of-Climb was over 7% more than the Climbing bike … over 300 extra feet per hour! To achieve either of those Rates-of-Climb on a normal uphill would require around 4 watts/kg!

Table 4. Aero vs Lightweight in the Bowl

CONCLUSION

Unlocking the Tron Bike is one of the coolest achievements on Zwift. These hacks can get you there quicker. Using Figure 1 you can predict how many hours it will take you to get there. If you can maintain 3 w/kg, your RoC on the Radio Tower climb is about 4000 ft/hr. You can accumulate the 164,000 feet in 41 hours. Interestingly, if you can only maintain 1.5 w/kg, but you spend your time in the ‘Bowl,’ you have about the same RoC.

Figure 1. Rate-of-Climb for different scenarios

In the process of learning about these HACKS and why they work, I hope I have refreshed your understanding of some of the physics of cycling. Knowing the science can help you bike smarter.

==============================================================

*All references to “w/kg” include the weight of the bike and are not directly comparable to “w/kg” reported on the Zwift data screens which only includes the weight of the rider. To convert, multiply the Zwift number by (cyclist kg)/(cyclist+bike kg).

CUSTOM ZWIFT WORKOUT

I have created a workout that leads you through the HACKS. You can download it from here:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/tefhztfep6vvivw2xus45/Jungle_Circuit-Tron_Hacks-V01-02.zwo?rlkey=x0wyynfi8mrm2qpydg2bl8fi3&dl=0

After you have downloaded it, save it to Documents/ZwiftWorkouts/[YourZwiftID] and then start Zwift. [If you are having trouble, video instructions are here: Importing Custom Workouts – Instructions | Zwift] This workout is called Jungle Circuit-Tron Hacks-V01-02 and will now appear under the “Custom Workouts” category in the workouts list. It is designed to be ridden in “erg” mode on the JUNGLE CIRCUIT route in Watopia.

Do not be alarmed at the “length” of the workout. It is made to suit a wide variety of riders. You will be “tabbing” through some of the long blocks. If you are a less powerful rider you will be instructed to “tab” (skip) many of the blocks. Most riders will get the full experience in 60 minutes.

You will need access to a keyboard to use the workout effectively. Here are the keyboard shortcuts to know:

The post The Zwift Tron Bike: HACKS TO UNLOCK QUICKER! appeared first on Team Athletic Mentors.

By:Katja Opfer

My first season on TAMJD got off to a bit of a rough start when I broke my thumb at my high school ski team’s training camp in early January. While my ski racing season ended before it even began, this meant that I had a lot of time to train and build up base miles in Zwift. Breaking my thumb reinforced my belief that everything happens for a reason, because having all that time to train set me up well going into the cycling season and it paid off. My fitness was better than ever before and I had a great time at the team’s spring training camp in North Carolina, where I got to do some amazing rides. I also had the opportunity to participate in V02 testing at Athletic Mentors headquarters with some of my teammates, which was a great learning experience.

Barry-Roubaix Race

Going into the first race of the season, Barry Roubaix (18-mile), I had fairly low expectations for myself since it was my first gravel race. To my surprise, I won first overall female and set a new female course record on the way to helping TAMJD win the team competition for the third year in a row!  My success in this race opened up the world of gravel racing to me and I went on to place second overall female in the Cowpie Classic Short Haul (36-mile) and also won overall female at De Ronde Van Grampian (25-mile). I had never done any gravel riding before this year, but it became an essential part of my training every week and provided something different to change it up.

A lot of my training and preparation this season was focused on the Mountain Bike National Championships in Bear Creek, Pennsylvania. This was my chance to see how I stacked up against girls my age from all over the country. The course was super intimidating with more rocks than I had ever seen on a mountain bike trail in my life, and some pretty nerve-wracking features to tackle. With my limited experience on techy terrain, plus being one of only a few racers on a  hardtail, I felt like I was thrown into the deep end. I spent many hours practicing on the course and built up my confidence a ton by the day of the XC race. My result of 28th out of 74 proved to myself that I could compete against these incredibly fast girls and gave me some ideas of what my goals should be for next year.

My last race before MiSCA season was the Ore 2 Shore Soft Rock, which was one of the most fun and challenging races I did all year. The 28-mile course located in the U.P. was beautiful and had a fair amount of long climbs and fun descents on many types of terrain. This race was very competitive, and I really left everything I had out on the course with a sprint finish to win first place overall female. This win was a big achievement for me given that it was such a close race.

MiSCA season felt a lot different this year because I went from only racing the 6 MiSCA races last year to doing over 20 races this year. Winning all 6 races as a sophomore in my first Varsity season, after sweeping JV last year as a freshman, was pretty unreal. This year MiSCA was really about the atmosphere and the friendships. It’s not very common that you are friends with all your competitors. Even though we are on different scholastic teams, many of us are on TAMJD together and we invited the other Varsity girls to hang out with us after the races too. This dynamic made the races a lot more enjoyable because I was cheering on my friends and teammates.

Iceman Race

My last race of the season was the Iceman Cometh Challenge in Traverse City. Being the indecisive person that I am, I waited until practically the last minute to switch to the Pro category. After careful consideration of my season so far, and placing 2nd overall in Pro women at Peak 2 Peak two weeks before, I decided to switch to Pro at Iceman. Even though it was my first time racing Iceman, I felt confident that I could race in the Pro category after pre-riding the course. I had a great start but unfortunately I was involved in a crash around mile 4, which most likely took me out of the running for top ten. I gave everything I had to bridge up to the lead group, but couldn’t stay with them and got dropped halfway through the race. I was still able to finish 12th in a stacked field of 26 Pro women. I saw this race as a chance to prove myself and was really frustrated that it didn’t work out the way I wanted, but what can you do? I’ll be back next year, that’s for sure.

In summary, I view my first year beyond the horizons of MiSCA to have been very successful. Having a structured training plan provided by my Athletic Mentors coach Terry Ritter definitely helped me train productively to accomplish my goals. Next year I am setting my sights on more national-level races, possibly including gravel and marathon Nationals, and hopefully I can break into the top 20 at MTB Nationals. I also plan on doing some longer gravel and MTB endurance races after doing so well in the shorter versions, including Barry Roubaix, Cowpie, and Ore 2 Shore. I am excited for my second year with TAMJD and am looking forward to all the racing in 2024!

The post Adjusting Expectations: Katja’s First Season with TAMJD appeared first on Team Athletic Mentors.

By:  JoAnn Cranson

Are you like me and getting a good night’s sleep can be a challenge? “Why can’t I sleep like I did as a teenager?”

As we age we produce less of a growth hormone which allows us to not get into as long, deep sleep like when we were young. With this in mind, there are a number of things we can do to set us up for better sleep:

• Limit caffeine. Everyone is different, but I find I can’t have caffeine after 2 pm. (The half-life of caffeine is around 5 hours.”  Meaning if you took in 200mg of caffeine, after roughly 5hrs, half of that (100g) will have been excreted.  But some people metabolize caffeine
  faster or slower than others!)
• Keep a bedtime schedule as consistent as possible. This helps our bodies to know when to start slowing down and when to start waking up.
• Your bedroom should be dark and cool for better sleeping.  Consider using a sound machine.
• Really do your best to reduce your stress and try to slow your brain down when it gets close to bedtime.
• Stop screen time at minimum an hour before you want to go to sleep. Even if you use blue-light glasses, it doesn’t matter.
• Don’t drink alcohol before bed. You may feel like this helps you fall asleep but it hinders good sleep throughout the night.
• Stop eating 2-3 hours before bedtime.
• Make sure you are hydrated before going to bed.
• Some medications are prone to interrupt your sleep.
• Exercise during the day has shown to help you sleep, but not right before going to bed.
• Lower light levels about an hour before bedtime.  Make sure to get natural light in the mornings.  This helps regulate your body.
• Magnesium – I take 30 minutes before bed.   I take Magnesium as di-magnesium malate, magnesium citrate and magnesium glycinate blend to get all the different benefits.  7 out of 10 adults are deficient in Magnesium!

In training, it seems like we are so focused on our workouts, racing and nutrition we forget how essential sleep is for our recovery and overall health. We need 7-9 hours of sleep a night. Not getting enough quality sleep raises the risk of many diseases and disorders.  These range from heart disease and stroke to obesity and dementia.  Sleep prepares your brain to learn, remember and create.  As you sleep you can reduce inflammation, pain and increase metabolism.  According to the National Institute of Health “The brain has a drainage system that removes toxins during sleep”.  

There has been MUCH emerging work in the form of pre-eminent sleep and the impact on our lives. Researcher and author Matthew Walker has a lot of good information.  Click on this link to listen to one of his talks.

It is important to understand the 4 stages of Sleep to help us realize we need all these stages each night.  Here is a link to a great article from VeryWellHealth by Kendra Cherry.

Are we choosing to get less sleep because we go to bed later and get up at 4:30 am to workout with only 5-6 hours sleep?  If this is the norm for you, you may want to reconsider.

With all these things in mind, we need to prioritize our sleep.  It is a choice to be intentional about setting ourselves up for a good night’s sleep.  For me, some nights I win and some nights I lose.

The post Where Oh Where Has My Sleep Gone? appeared first on Team Athletic Mentors.

By:  Kellen Siems

My name is Kellen Siems. I am 14 years old and a freshman at Hackett Catholic Prep. This is my second year racing for Athletic Mentors. I competed in many triathlons and 5K races this past spring and summer.

I started off the triathlon season with the sprint distance at the Grand Rapids Triathlon, moving up from the supersprint distance last year.  I then did the Cereal City Triathlon for the first time. I was back doing the Shermanator.

My favorite triathlon was the Michigan Titanium Olympic relay. My sister and brother were on my team. Brie swam, Sean biked, and I ran. I made sure to train hard because I had not run a 10K in a while. We were able to cross the finish line together and ended up winning third place.

When I first heard about the relay we decided I was going to do the running portion. When I got the news that I was running I had to start training. Training consisted of me going out over the summer and running three to six miles. Some days I would head to a track to do short hard interval runs to improve my speed. When I finished every workout I made sure to stretch to help prevent pain and discomfort later. I also made sure to drink lots of water before and after every workout.

The post Why Running appeared first on Team Athletic Mentors.

An interview with program director: Terry Ritter

What were some highlights of year four for the program?

We were able to win a number of local road races in the Elite class, on both the west and the east side of the state (Waterford and Grattan), with multiple juniors. 3 of them did the 2023 Iceman in the PRO class, with Jonathan Meyer getting 13th overall. Jon also raced in his first PRO criterium field at Tour of America’s Dairyland (ToAD). Charlotte raced up a junior class at ToAD and took 2nd in the 17-18 field for the 5 day omnium. Jack Kozlowski took 3rd in his Cat. 4 omnium as well. We also took a few wins in the Elite field for a couple of gravel events in Michigan, and had a few of our juniors score top 10 overalls. Katja Opfer (10th grade) won the MiSCA Varsity girls series, netting all 6 wins, while Charlotte Rosinski (10th) was 2nd and Lauren Schultz (12th) was 3rd in the series. James Meyer (11th grade) won a race and finished 2nd in the MiSCA Varsity boys series. And we had a split squad for Barry Roubaix, with 8 of our kids doing the Fayetteville USAC MTB National. The remaining 2 boys and 5 girls were able to win the team competition at Barry for a 3rd straight year and win the boys and girls overall. We also won the 15-18 Junior State Cyclocross Championships with Eli and Charlotte.

How was this year’s team ambitions different from last seasons?

This was the first year we graduated a significant group from the program as September came, as we had 5 seniors in our 15 riders. Watching them progress from just a few years ago (and one of them from 4 years ago) was rewarding to see. This older group helped set the tone and we attended 2 National MTB USAC events as well as USAC MTB National Championships in PA. We also took 9 kids to ToAD, which was awesome. The seniors took a lot more responsibility in some areas which is part of what they experience on TAMJD. They left a good expectation for the younger riders.

Any news on the success of TAMJD alumni?

Three of our seniors, Jonathan, Hunter Post and Spencer Blaz, got cycling scholarships and are attending Fort Lewis College in CO, Kings College in TN and Lees McRae in NC, respectively. Elizabeth DeFauw, a past rider of ours, went to Bissell and is attending Marion College in IN this season. The fact they are competing in MTB and road while at school makes us all proud in the program. But the big news was Kellen Caldwell, who graduated from TAMJD 3 years ago, winning the College National Road Championships! I coached him the whole year until his performance there and a 5th at Green Mountain Stage Race caught the attention of a national level development team. Kellen is chasing his dream of being a General Classification rider for a professional team someday.

What are some changes you plan to implement for the coming season?

This off season we plan to have a monthly ZOOM meeting with the parents/kids to share some important information about various topics, like nutrition and sports psychology. We feel this will help the riders prepare for more success in 2024 and also keep them engaged throughout the downtime. We are also going to do some VO2 testing on most of the same subjects from last year this winter to see what growth they have made and get a better grasp regarding changes seen with the junior physiology. We are always tweaking the coaching offering and will also get a more detailed schedule for the season out that will help parent’s plan and also allow more group rides, which the kids enjoy. We’ll also be looking at maybe doing MTB Marathon Nationals and Gravel Nationals.

If you could dispel one myth about the program, what would it be?

Many coaches that I talk to from MiSCA teams feel our success at TAMJD is due to all our kids training together. That’s an important part when it happens, but is also pretty rare. The fact they are offered personal coaching through Athletic Mentors, which most take advantage of, is really where the secret sauce is, I’d say. The other thing is that we set a bar and do our best to keep the kids on task so that they can learn about meeting expectations they agree to. All of this is wrapped in an environment where we get them to feel comfortable trying new things in cycling (road, gravel, CX), and that keeps it fun and gives us more options as a team. Many people within MiSCA are surprised at how well our kids do on things other than MTB racing.

What are you most proud of looking back on the past four years?

We’ve had juniors here and there that we’ve worked with in TAM for a long time, but putting together a dedicated junior development program has been a challenge. MiSCA changed that by offering a lot of young MTBers, but we still had to work to do what we felt would make them most successful and also keep it fun. That was selling the values of personal coaching and trying different cycling disciplines. Both of those things have shown to be very beneficial for the kids goals and their enjoyment. To see that you’ve provided them with an opportunity no one else has makes management feel all the work we dedicate to the program is worth it.

The post Catching up with Team Athletic Mentors Cycling Junior Development appeared first on Team Athletic Mentors.

By: Brie Siems

My name is Brie Siems and I am 14 years old. I am a freshman at Hackett Prep. I enjoy being  outdoors and have a passion for being active. I  participate in many sports such as soccer, swimming, running, basketball, and skiing.  I like triathlons because they include swimming and running. This past summer, I competed in many triathlons in addition to running in multiple 5k races in the area.

My brothers and I volunteered at the Kid’s MiTi triathlon in Grand Rapids this past August. I really enjoy volunteering at races. I watched so many kids arrive in the transition area to set up.  They were so happy and excited. For some of them, this was their first kid’s triathlon ever. I was able to help set up the food table and mark the kids’ arms and legs. It was fun to see all of the kids gathered at the water start. I helped some kids get their socks on in transition and take their heavy bikes off of the rack for them. I was even able to hand out all of the medals to the kids when they finished. It wasn’t that long ago that I was one of those kids who was new to triathlons and learning the basics. Now, I am helping kids in the race. It’s a good thing to give back and encourage others who are new to triathlons.

I also had the opportunity to race in the MiTi Olympic Relay triathlon the next day with my two brothers, Kellen (14) and Sean (16). This triathlon is a 1500m swim, 40k bike and 10k run. I was encouraged to do the swim leg.  The swim course looked very long and it was my first time swimming this distance with no break. It was also my first time racing in a wetsuit, which really does improve speed and comfort in the water.  Luckily, I have been training on a swim team so I was ready!  We all have strengths and weaknesses,  but it was perfect because I was better at swimming. The race ended well with each of us getting a finisher medal and a 3rd place overall Olympic Relay medal. My brothers and I worked hard but also worked well together as a team.  

Athletic Mentors provides great support and opportunities.  In addition to helping with gear, it provides a network of people that help you out.

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• Building Endurance – Consistent training gradually builds endurance, which is crucial for completing the varying distances of a triathlon. Regular sessions condition your body to handle the demands of the race, preventing burnout on the big day.

• Muscle Memory – As you repeat the three disciplines of swimming, cycling, and running, your body develops muscle memory. This means your movements become more efficient, leading to improved performance and reduced energy expenditure.

• Moderating Plateaus – Progress isn’t always linear, and training plateaus are common. However, with consistent training, you can push through these plateaus and continue to see improvements over time.

• Injury Prevention – Consistency also plays a role in injury prevention. Gradually increasing your training load with regularity allows your body to adapt and grow stronger without succumbing to overuse injuries.

• Customized Training Plans – A coach will design training plans that align with your current fitness level, taking into account any pre-existing conditions or limitations. This tailored approach minimizes the risk of injuries while maximizing progress.

• Goal Setting – A coach helps you set realistic yet challenging goals, breaking down your long-term objectives into smaller, achievable milestones. This approach keeps you motivated and focused on continuous improvement.

• Technical Expertise – Triathlons require mastering three distinct disciplines. A coach can refine your swimming technique, enhance your cycling efficiency, and optimize your running form. These technical adjustments lead to improved overall performance.

• Monitoring and Feedback – With regular assessments and feedback, coaches ensure that you’re on the right track. They can analyze your performance metrics, suggest adjustments, and provide insights for ongoing enhancement.

First Triathlon