Empower Coaching Systems

September Empower Athlete of the Month: Jon Mcgee

Jon Mcgee works hard, really hard. He does not have a lot of free time to cruise around and dilly dally, as like many of us, he has a very full plate. He owns his own company and has a beautiful family of a wife and 3 little girls. Every minute of his life is filled to the brim and he needs pure quality training to reach his cycling goals. When he came to me a few months out from the famous Leadville 100 mountain bike race and said he wanted to race it and make it in under the magical 9 hour barrier to receive the very coveted gold and silver belt buckle (not to be confused with the under 12 hour silver belt buckle), I was ever so slightly skeptical that we could achieve this lofty goal. Man oh man, was I wrong. Jon works fast, really fast.

He put his mind to the grindstone and never let up. Even when family called and he had to miss or change a workout, he was relaxed and trusted his program. He had planned to go race the Silver Rush 50 one month before the Leadville100 race which is in the exact same location and would have given me a plethora of information to work with from his SRM, not to mention to see how his body responded at over 10,000 feet in altitude. He had to cancel that trip and just about gave his coach a coronary with not doing that "test" race. I think he is the one who talked me off the ledge on that day. He assured me he could still do Leadville in under 9 hours. He just kept repeating his goal. As he got faster and faster over the weeks, he got more excited and his excitement poured over into his training, and that is a dangerous combination for his competitors. He was going to reach his goal. 2 weeks out, I knew he could do it. As his Functional Threshold (one of the key components in a race of this length) rose over 20 watts and he lost over 15 pounds of body weight in prep for the steep mountain pitches of Leadville at over 10,000 feet in altitude, he was going to be hard to beat. On August 14th he hammered his way to that shiny belt buckle, along with his brother Rob, in UNDER 9 hours! As I watched the athlete tracker on the Leadville 100 website it was like waiting for Christmas morning, as the time ticked toward the 9 hour mark. He came in RIGHT under the cutoff time, and I mean RIGHT UNDER as I believe he was the last racer to make the cut. He texted me right as I was reading his time come across my computer screen and it pretty much made my entire month! I love coaching an athlete with a purpose and rough neck determination!. Next year, we have done the math and he only has to go 3.7 miles per hour faster to beat Levi's record setting time. If anyone can do it, trust me, its Jon Mcgee. No pressure Jon:-)

Congratulations to Jon Mcgee on being Empower Coaching's Athlete of the Month for September 2010! Above is his picture with his brother, Rob with their new gold and silver belt buckles!