Start them young

Excellence is a habit- Aristotle

There are a few gifted individuals who seem to be more talented than others. Talent could seem to be unfair, you train so much harder than your nearest rival, but when it comes to race day you never seem to have what it takes.  How could the gods decide who gets more talent than others? Life is unfair and cruel!

Wrong, if we believe excellence hinges on talent, we are likely to give up if we show insufficient early promise. This theory according to Mathew Syed (author of Bounce), explains that if we believe talent is not implicated in our future achievements, we are likely to persevere. These wise words on my coach’s wall, excellence is a habit, alludes to the fact that those who excel in life do so by hours of practice (or habit).  If we therefore change our mindset; from talent is what one is born with, to that of people who excel in life spend hours working on it; a shift in behaviour is imminent. More likely we will move heaven and earth to get the right opportunities for our families; the right teachers, access to decent facilities; and the entire combination that leads to the top.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, heavy name for a baby genius! Before his 6^th birthday Mozart had already clocked 3500 hours of musical practice.  He had produced his first concerto’s at the ages eleven and at sixteen, which did not compare to the two decades later where he produced compositions considered amongst the greatest artistic creations in history. His rise to greatness can be ascribed to the hours of music dedication, which had amounted to about 10 000 hours by his mid teens. Examples of dedicated sport starts who started practicing at a young are that of Tiger Woods who started golf at the age of 2; the Williams sisters started tennis when Serena was 3 years old and Venus 4 years old; Roger Federer, David Beckham, Picasso… Mozart, along with other stars who started practicing at a very young age, gave rise to he theory that achieving excellence requires 10 000 hours of practice.

So how do I compare to becoming a specialist who needs 10 000 hours to achieve excellence? I have been cycling for about 4 years now, and a professional for about 2 and a half of those years. The training benchmark for a professional women’s cyclist is about 60 hours per month. This will increase or decrease depending on goal races. One training year will therefore equate to about 660 hours of saddle hours. In my short career as a cyclist I have not even clocked 2500 hours of cycling training yet! Even though I have competed against world class athletes and I can keep up to a degree, there are hours separating me from the women who have been riding in the Alps from the age of four years old. I do believe my younger athletic ability aided my cycling performance, but I am nowhere near claiming expert status!

For arguments sake lets see how many hours I could have counted if I started cycling at 3. Lets work on 4 hours a week, which is more like play-time up to the age of 8. From 8-12, there can be a bit more focus so lets say 6 hours a week. When high school starts, maybe it can be practiced at school and 8 hours of training a week can be handled. During university years, students should have some free time to train for at least 10 hours a week. A rough calculation:

Age 3-7= 960hours

Age 8-12= 1440hours

Age 13-18=2304hours

Age 19-21= 1440hours

This prudish calculation adds up to 6144 hours by the age of 21, by this stage it should be clear if there is talent and dedicated focus should get world-class results before the age of 25. As much as I would keep practicing the sport I love, I would rather focus my attention on encouraging girls to start dedicating their free time to start practicing what they wish to excel at later in life.

There are exciting initiatives being discussed by current professional female cyclists in South Africa who would like to act as mentors to dedicated young girls. The thinking is to act as a big sister and a role model so that we may see women’s cycling grow to greatness.