Adding a second sport while chasing 5 W/kg – anyone juggling two sports?
Hey,
I'm getting a bit burned out on cycling being my only thing. After five years on the bike, I miss that feeling of being a total beginner and working my way up in something new.
I'm 40, sitting at around 4.75 W/kg. The long-term dream has always been 5 W/kg, but that last quarter watt per kilo is a bitch. My focus right now is ultra events – I'm doing three 1000+ km events this year. I also love racing big alpine granfondos like the Ötztaler Radmarathon and the Giro Dolomiti. My goal is always to finish in the top 20%, and so far that's been working out. I usually train 10–20 hours a week on the bike.
A few weeks ago I stumbled into padel tennis and I'm hooked. I played tennis as a kid so I picked it up pretty fast, and now I've got that itch to actually get good at it. Realistically that means another 4–8 hours of training/playing per week.
The thing is, I really don't want to sacrifice my cycling fitness or give up on hitting 5 W/kg before I turn 45.
So – how realistic is this? Time-wise it could work if I cut my workday from 8 to 6 hours, which I was planning to do anyway. Physically I feel like I can handle the extra load.
But I'm worried I'll end up mediocre at both – not progressing in padel while also losing watts on the bike.
Has anyone here successfully added a second sport without tanking their cycling performance? How did you manage the load?
Thanks in advance.