Blogs
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Training
Latest Blogs
Power Up: A Young Women’s Guide to Winning with Sports Nutrition is Out Now!
In case you missed it, I (Molly) have a new book out this week! I co-wrote Power Up: A Young Women’s Guide to Winning with Sports Nutrition with one of our favorite podcast guests, registered dietitian Stevie Lyn Smith. We’ve gotten to know Stevie over the years as...
8 Things to Do in the Offseason
If you're in your offseason or about to be, here's your checklist of things you should do while training volume is low, the season is fresh in your mind, and you have a bit of time to reflect and prepare! Take an off-season We cannot stress this enough. It doesn't...
For Young Readers + Riders: The Shred Girls Book Club is Open Now!
This December, read along and then join author Molly Hurford and special guests including two-time World Champion racer Kate Courtney of She Sends for a Zoom session in late December to talk all about the book and what winning really means to you—and to the...
Training
New Cycling Plans for August in Training Peaks
We have two freshly updated cycling training plans for mountain bike and cyclocross available for instant application to your training peaks calendar that are perfect to start in August to prepare for fall goals. Both are designed to get you ready for racing in 3...
Coaching + Training Plans for Cyclocross Racers
Cyclocross is a demanding and dynamic cycling discipline that requires a great engine, tremendous skills and tactics to deal with decisions around equiptment, lines and pacing. Consummate Athlete offers a variety of services that can support your cyclocross campaign...
4 Common Limiters Holding You Back From Your Athletic Goals
When we start a training plan for cycling, we might be thinking about going faster in a race, finishing a big ride or improving our functional threshold power, which are all good goals. The issue with these outcome goals is they don't take into account the type of...
Racing
First Time Road Racing in … A Long Time
It's been a week since I've been back from the Killington Stage Race with my BikeReg/Shared Coffee teammates in Vermont. The race marked my first time back in a road race since at least seven years ago, and it was a bit of a culture shock for someone who's been mostly...
Should I use Gel or Mix for Bike Racing
GAME-PLAY With all the hype about nutrition and sports-nutrition, it is hard to know what you should use to do your best on race day. My advice is always to practice what you *think* you should use on race day on your key workouts (intensity, volume, race-specific...
For the Love of Racing… What Some of Us Are Forgetting
This weekend, as I was helping tear down the team tents in Louisville after the Derby City Cup, my dad called me. He had just gotten home from AppleCross, a local cyclocross race in NJ at an apple farm, and he wanted to tell me all about the race. He gave me the quick...
Cross-Training
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Mindset
4 Common Limiters Holding You Back From Your Athletic Goals
When we start a training plan for cycling, we might be thinking about going faster in a race, finishing a big ride or improving our functional threshold power, which are all good goals. The issue with these outcome goals is they don't take into account the type of...
What Are You Trying to Prove?
When you log the extra mile, do the extra workout, add the extra group ride or sneak in another race onto a packed schedule... What are you trying to prove? I found myself asking, well, myself this exact question last week when I was trying to do a big week of...
Should You Sweat the Small Stuff? What to Do About Those Little Niggles
Minor knee pain, stiff hips, a sore shoulder… What’s an athlete to do? Small niggles: those little irritations and tiny pain points that crop up during the course of training/everyday life. They're pretty much unavoidable. A sore shoulder here, a twinge in your hip...
Nutrition
Everything You Need to Know About Sourdough Bread + Recipes!
Sourdough bread: the final frontier of baking. Or, arguably, the simplest bread to make but also kind of the toughest to master. I've been trying to get more into baking and making my own food (ahem, see my story on wanderlust vs homesteading—this is why I'm already...
Best Outdoorsy Foodie Gifts for 2019
Like the other categories I've listed, I wanted to come up with options that were good for everyone—so I didn't include specific gels or sports drink mixes, because I can say as endurance athletes, we rarely want you to buy us new flavors or potions that we haven't...
Athlete-Friendly Stew Recipes for the Cold Days Ahead
I've been stew and soup-obsessed for years. (Ask the Aspire Team: I drove them crazy with the amount of beef and chicken + vegetable stews that I made when we lived in Europe.) I found that stew is the easiest way to get veggies in in the winter, and it's a great way...
Lifestyle
Healthy Travel Tips from the Pros Who Do It Constantly
I love talking about healthy travel tips in general, and it's even more fun when I get to talk to people who spend more time in the air than I do AND have to be in tip-tip shape when they land, because they have THE BEST ADVICE. They are dialed. So, over on Bicycling,...
8 Products I Loved in 2019… And 4 I’m Excited About for 2020!
2019 was a solid year as far as cool new (or new-to-me) products went, but I have to admit, I spent more of the season actually whittling down my collection of gear, letting go of some of my (older) bikes, handing off some kit to younger riders in the NJ NICA leagues,...
Speaker Applications are Open for Collingwood’s Outdoor Edit Speaker Series: “How To Be Outside”
A speaker series devoted to outdoor adventure, inspiration + motivation HOW TO BE OUTSIDE COLLINGWOOD, ON | OCTOBER 9, 2020 Come for an evening of motivating, inspirational talks around the different ways we can interact with the world outside, in one of the...
Women Specific
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Gear
6 Pieces of Gear to Splurge on for Endurance Athletes
Last week, we talked about 5 Pieces of Gear to Save on for Endurance Athletes, and now we're into the SPLURGE category. This is the gear you should buy with an eye towards quality, and typically look for well-known brands. Materials will matter, as well precise fit....
5 Pieces of Gear to Save on for Endurance Athletes
In the course of spending 20 years in the cycling/running journalism space, I've gotten to test a lot of gear in every price range. Some of it is absolutely worth spending as much as you need in order to have good, quality pieces that last and fit right. Some of it is...
A Case Study for Organizing Your Gear — And Keeping It That Way!
If you've been here a while, you know I'm mildly obsessed with organization, especially of athletic gear. I've done videos about creating a home charging station, I've talked ad nauseam about editing one's cycling wardrobe to make getting ready for a ride easy... and...
Videos
Adjusting for New Heart Rate or Power Threshold
You have achieved a new personal record! It is always nice to get an email about a client getting a new peak heart rate or power. BUT WAIT! The work doesn't end with those hard pedal strokes. Here are a few considerations and tasks after setting a personal best. (New...
What Bike Bag or Bike Box to Travel With
Fancy Options - these are used often by those that travel a lot BIKND - http://biknd.com/en/products/bike-travel-case/helium EVOC - http://www.evocsports.com/bike/bike-travel-bags/bike-travel-bag Cheaper route is the cardboard box route -> I still use this and...
How to Race Your Bike in the Mud – An explanation, cautions and take-a-ways from my ability to run beside a bike
I won a race on the weekend. This has happened a handful of times in my career, and only once before on a day with any mud (Crank the Shield 2008!). How/Why I’ve been asked how I went so fast this past weekend numerous times over the last 24 hours. While I tend to...