JAMES REID LEARN HOW TO SUFFER

Career highlights: South African XCO Champion and Marathon Champion

THE 23-YEAR-OLD SA CHAMP PRESENTS A MASTERCLASS IN THE ART OF SUFFERING

W take-home message: build up s-l-o-w-l-y

Suffering is complicated; it’s intense and deep, and there’s a lot to it. There’s good suffering and bad suffering. You can push through good suffering – and you can handle it, and feel like you’re going forward. But suffering is all about conditioning. If you’re under- conditioned for the demands of the event, you get the bad kind of suffering, where it doesn’t feel like you’re going anywhere, and your legs are exploding. If you’re running above your lactic threshold, eventually your system will stop responding the way you want it to. You don’t just pitch up at a race and suffer like a champion; you actually have to condition yourself for weeks and weeks leading up to it – and you do that by pushing yourself incrementally. My advice is to push yourself 5% more in the weeks leading up to the event, and then use metrics – like power, and heart rate – to understand your suffer point. Because if you’re in way over your head, it catch up to you.

So, learn to suffer gradually; and that way, you’ll manage the pain. At least three times a week, have some part of your training that is unpleasant – that’s the ‘ vegetables’ of training.

W what do the olympics mean to you?

The Olympics is the pinnacle of sporting prowess, and to be a part of them would be incredible – it would be the peak of my career so far. It would be massive.

W what has the road to rio been like?

Not easy. There have been seven selection events this year, and I’ve won four of them, which shows good consistency and strong form. It’s been difficult, because you have to be at your best now to be selected for a race in August, which is tricky.

W what are your hopes for the olympics?

Top 15 – it sounds ambitious, but in some ways the Olympics are a bit easier than a World Cup; because at the Olympics, some of the bigger and stronger countries are restricted to just two or three riders.