Team Work
People who are into cycling know this but I feel most people don’t. One guy crosses the finish line first but behind that guy there’s usually a team that is willing to put everything on the line for him.
This happens more on the higher categories obviously but before a race, if you have team-mates with you, you will plan the race and target the people you want to hunt-down in order to minimize the risk for other team-mates.
Looking at the image above you can see a team of cyclists, the dude in yellow is the one they protect and target to win. The rest are there to cover attacks and make sure he’s not in any danger.
If you compare it to engineering, you can clearly see some concepts at work here. My success is not only my personal success, I care about my team members success just as much as I care about my own.
If one of the members of the team needs help with a task, they’ll get my full attention and I’ll do the best I can to make sure they deliver their task.
Prep Work
I will never go to a race or even a group ride unprepared and cold.
If it’s a road race, I will look up the route on Strava, if it’s a Crit, I’ll check out some videos on YouTube to see which parts are sketchy. I will look up my competitors to check where they are stronger/weaker than me.
Same goes to every task I do as an engineer. Preparation is key to success for me. Planning your day/week ahead as efficiently as possible, knowing what you’re gonna do and how you’re gonna do it.
For example, I recently rewrote a critical part of the application @ Gogobot using React-Redux. I did a lot of home-work before even writing a single line of code. I didn’t assume that because I know JS I will know every part of the task ahead.
Exercise
There’s a lot of research out there on how exercise makes you think better and clearer. My go-to rides mid week are usually in the 1.5–2.5 hours range. That gives me just enough gas in the tank to get me through the day without dying mid-day.
My weekend rides are longer or they are races which just take too much out of you and you will not be able to recover enough to get through a day focused to do your job.
Getting the ride in bright and early in the morning is a great way for me to start out the day and I feel so much more focused to get through my day.
Before I got back to cycling I had a lot of trouble focusing. Getting back from a ride, having a nice breakfast and shower is an awesome separation between sleep and activity. :)
Nutrition
If you do any type of endurance sport, whether it’s swimming, running or cycling you know that what you put in your body is crucial.
I try to eat a lot of fresh home-cooked food, I don’t eat outside more than once a week and I try to pack in as much nutrients as I can. This includes loads of fresh fruits and vegetables. Good fats like Avocado and nuts and loads of carbs to make sure I don’t bonk on rides :)
Nutrition is fuel not only to your body but also your brain. I limit myself to 2–4 cups of coffee a week so I don’t need it to really wake up or focus.
I try to consume stable levels of sugar during the day so I don’t get a rush or a crash. I eat smart during lunch time so I don’t get a food coma. This took a lot of time to adjust and it gets really challenging on rest days when your body is just craving everything your kitchen has to offer.
Discipline
Getting up for a ride 5:45 in January is not easy. Just pushing yourself off the bed and into the morning routine (which is very strict) is hard work. Seriously!
Knowing that giving up will hurt you in the long run is important.
I cannot tell you how many times I got up, I opened the email with today’s workout plan and I was like… Well, this is not happening today.
Sometimes, even after I am all dressed up and everything is ready, that lady of doubt that lives in your mind, that one thing that always wants to pull you back and leave you in bed to dream about Pokemon Go some more.
It’s the same exact thing with engineering work.
Thinking and solving hard problems is seriously hard work. Your brain will play every trick on you in order to avoid the serious and hard thinking.
Knowing your limitations and what pulls you back is key, knowing what triggers your behaviors.
One thing that always kills me is wind, if I know it’s windy outside it always brings me down. It can be rainy or hot, hilly or flat, the wind is my one true enemy.
Moment of honesty here, with engineering work, my true enemy has always been tasks I don’t believe in the purpose of. If I have a task that I don’t believe in, it will be x100 times harder to work on and deliver.
Since I know this limitation and I am aware of it, I can work with it (or around it, depending on how you look at it)
Measuring
Any rider training with a power meter will tell you, this thing keeps you honest.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, a power meter is essentially a torque meter with cadence that calculate output in watts.
This means, if you are riding and you just slightly pull your foot off the gas so to speak, it will hurt your overall average.
If you are training with heart-rate, it takes a long time for the heart-rate to catch up and it’s easier to “cheat” yourself in training.
At work, I do the same exact thing, I measure myself on everything. But not on the fancy “commits per day” or “number of projects opened on Github”, I measure my deliveries and my productivity levels.
I’ve written about it in the past but the essence of it is that I use RescueTime and make sure I don’t spend distracting time when I’m supposed to be working.
That being said though, I am not a machine and I know when I need to ease off, just like taking a rest day or even a couple when the mental/physical load is getting to be too much.
More to it
For the sake of keeping it short I will end it here but there’s a lot more to it than what I mentioned. Things like being coachable, pushing your boundaries, believing in yourself. All of these are just life lessons that you can use in your daily job.
