1045 kilometres to go: The tarmac heats up from below while Jay Petervary breathes through a straw. The US-American has been on his bike for ten days, 30 minutes ago he launched an attack to catapult himself to the front of the race, but then this: Jay's throat constricts. Every pedal stroke feels like a fight through yeast dough. Jay gets off his bike, lies down on the ground and looks up at the starry sky. He takes a deep breath and mumbles soothingly to himself. Asthma - his great enemy has struck again.
When you think of mountain bike ultras, you can't get past Jay Petervary. The American has been setting standards in the scene for years: both with incredible performances and with victories or innovations that lie in the grey area of what is technically permissible. He celebrated his greatest successes at the Tour Divide. A race that likes to call itself the toughest in the world - and the organisers are not entirely wrong. The athletes cross the USA for 4418 kilometres. There is no prize money, no TV broadcasts, no fans along the route. The only thing that gets through to the outside world are GPS signals from the individual bikers. Basically, you are permanently alone on the route from Canada to New Mexico - apart from the wild dogs, grizzlies, snowstorms or the sweltering heat in the south. Outside help is forbidden, as is slipstreaming. If the bike fails in the middle of nowhere, you have to walk 50 miles. Half of the participants drop out. It is precisely this extreme mix that Jay Petervary loves.
He has now made himself comfortable in his optimised sleeping bag - if you can call it that. He has knocked the filling out of the sleeping bag cover until there is only insulation where Petervary needs it: on his upper body. His breathing has calmed down in the meantime. "When I started bikepacking, I always tried to make my luggage as light as possible. Sometimes I only had a plastic bag with me at races. When I rode with other athletes, we would cuddle up close to each other so as not to freeze - like puppies. Those were really shitty times, I had no money for equipment. But this toughness helps me today during the races," explains Jay and rummages in his pocket. He fishes out a Snickers bar, nibbles on it and closes his eyes.
Jay has been competing in adventure bike races since the early nineties. The now 45-year-old sees all these years as a great learning process for multi-day races. Petervary himself admits that he is no longer physically 30, but with cleverly planned training, enough recovery and a strong psyche, he still dominates the scene - and has done so for over ten years. The trained carpenter tends to train hard, short intervals and uses long one-day races to build up the necessary foundation. He spends almost as much time testing equipment as he does training. He is driven by the best tyre choice, the lightest equipment and every little thing that could give him a spark of an advantage. Petervary, for example, stretches a piece of fabric on his bike as a sail to utilise the wind. He pays attention to aerodynamic but robust clothing or the lightest headlamp. Some of these innovations and racing decisions earned him the nickname Cheatervary.
The mobile phone alarm wakes him from his sleep. Four o'clock in the morning, the stars are twinkling over the warm motorway. Jay takes a deep breath - all is well again. He packs his bag and talks about how he deals with problems on multi-day tours.
"Every race hurts. I've endured a lot over the years and learnt from this pain. My Achilles tendon used to be inflamed, my knee was as thick as a balloon, or my back hurt like a knife was stuck in it. I carried on riding anyway," says Jay, getting sleepily onto his bike. He only sees these pains as things you have to ride through. As you get older, it becomes easier to deal with pain. He also doesn't let the pain get too close to him. What the 45-year-old means by this is focussing on data and race performance. Petervary constantly looks at his mileage and wattage and follows a clear route in this regard. If he digresses, this is just a sign that he is focussing back on the essentials.
936 kilometres to go: The tarmac is boiling again from below. Petervary breathes calmly and sits aerodynamically on his bike. The night is beginning to show under his eyes, but he knows that. He knows that the next petrol station with coffee is waiting in 60 miles. That's what drives him now, that's what will drive him for the next three to four days until he crosses the finish line in Antelope Wells - hopefully without a straw in his throat.
MIND OVER MUSCLE
What determines whether we give up or keep going when we are exhausted? If you take a look at sports physiology, you will quickly come to the conclusion that it is exhausted muscles. Low oxygen supply, insufficient carbohydrate intake and PH value shifts in the muscles: our body is on strike. These values are measured daily in laboratories to obtain performance data. However, the values often do not correlate with the performance achieved in a competition. Athletes often perform better in races! Where does this difference come from? Why do seemingly weaker athletes outperform stronger ones? This fact led Professor Tim Noakes to develop the Central Governor Theory. This theory states that the brain stops physical work before the body causes itself damage. This means that the limiting factor is not just the performance data, but rather the brain. And this can be trained. By exposing yourself to extreme stimuli, it becomes accustomed to borderline situations. Petervary uses training rides to toughen himself up mentally: be it with very little sleep, food or extremely hard intervals.
THE TRAINING TIPS
How do you become mentally tougher and achieve the impossible? Jay Petervary reveals his most important training, tactical and mental tips.
1. loss of control
Sometimes nothing goes together: Flat tyres, rain and then lousy legs. This downward spiral tends to take on a life of its own if no active intervention is made. These problems are usually beyond your control and you waste energy unnecessarily brooding over them. Jay's tip: Accept things and problems as a challenge instead of seeing them as torture. Example: You are driving in the rain and think: I hate rain, what am I doing this for? Think instead: Driving through the rain will make me mentally stronger if I get through it now.
2. keywords
Do you start to wander off and make small driving mistakes? Words or phrases can help you stay focussed. Jay's tip: Find three words to say out loud when the situation calls for it. For technical driving matters, perhaps: concentrate; for weaknesses: I feel good and have everything under control. Practise these phrases again and again in training so that they come automatically in the relevant situation.
3. situation training
Former Tour de France winner Bradley Wiggins exposed himself to adverse conditions in training to toughen himself up mentally and physically. For example, the Englishman trained on a roller in very overheated rooms to prepare himself for hot mountain stages. Jay's tip: The time between two and seven in the morning is particularly tough on long-distance rides. For this reason, he occasionally trains at precisely this time.
4. eat what you can
Ultra races rob the body of a lot of energy, which has to be replenished. Jay's tip: There are often hardly any aid stations during long races, which is why you end up at supermarkets and petrol stations. You should be familiar with the food there and have already eaten it under stress. Jay knows immediately when he enters the petrol station what he has to buy to last him for the next hundred miles.
5. relax
If you are stressed and tense, you cannot perform at your best. You should therefore relax when under stress. Jay's tip: Start by relaxing your facial muscles. This relaxation runs like a chain through tense muscles. You should also control your breathing. Deep, relaxed breaths under stress have been proven to reduce stress and lead to better endurance performance.
6. remain objective
Despite all the self-motivation, you should still judge your performance and your body objectively. If you overdo it physically, you won't reach the finish line even with the best mantra. Jay's tip: Wattage data, heart rate and coordination are important factors in self-assessment. If you notice that you are making mistakes, your heart rate is strange or your wattage data doesn't match, it's time to analyse it. However, a break with sufficient food usually helps.
7. empty travelling
Don't become dependent on carbohydrates and train your fat metabolism. Jay's tip: To better train your body for fat, fasting rides in the morning (up to a maximum of three hours) or very long rides are suitable, which you also start fasting, but feed with carbohydrates from hour two onwards. Important: Do not ride faster than your basic pace so that your metabolism slowly gets used to the change.
INFO JAY PETERVARY
Age 45
Size 175 cm
Drives since 1987
Victories
- Tour Divide (4418 km)
- Iditarod Invitational (1609 km through Alaska)
- Arizona Trail Race (1207 km)
- Colorado Trail Race (805 km)
You can read this article or the entire BIKE 10/2017 issue in the BIKE app (iTunes and Google Play) or buy the issue in the DK shop reorder:
