articles: TESTIMONIALS
Nick Kiernan's Success Story
My name is Nick Kiernan and I am a USCF (United States Cycling Federation) Category One racer. I have been racing at the top level for 3 years and have just recently enjoyed a breakthrough in my racing and training. It's called BreathPlay.
I started off this season in California for five weeks, just racing and training. I was riding for six to eight hours per day, meeting different people along the way. One day after a training ride I met three-time Olympian John Howard, who is held in the highest regard by American cyclists. We struck up a conversation about his training methods, and in particular about a breathing technique called BreathPlay.
After talking about it for a couple hours I became very curious. When I returned to the place where I was staying, I immediately started searching for BreathPlay on the Internet. Everything I read on the site made perfect sense to me so I decided I was going to order the BreathPlay Serendipity and Zooming CDs when I returned home. I had one more stop to make before beginning my trek home. It was a race in Arizona called Another Dam Race, which is a USCF National Calendar Race.
It's basically a two day race, and on the second day disaster struck. I crashed at the finish of the race at almost 40 mph suffering a head injury, severe contusions to the face and body, and a broken elbow. The doctors estimated that I would be out for at least ten weeks if I was lucky and everything healed correctly. Needless to say, I couldn't decide if I wanted to continue racing bikes. I was getting burned out. During my time off I spent some much-needed time at home. As days turned into weeks I started thinking about the bike again and how much I loved it. My friends encouraged me to return to the road because it's something I love, but I wasn't really sure. After many sleepless nights I decided to give it another try. On one of my first days back on the bike I met a young woman from Hong Kong.
She told me she had traveled here to work with her coach, Ian Jackson. I was floored. I lived only six miles away from this guy I had heard so much about. I had to meet him. After the ride, when Ian picked her up, I was finally able to meet him face to face. We set up a time to meet the following week to talk about BreathPlay and bike racing. As we sat down and got acquainted, I was amazed. He was a former US Olympic cycling coach, and he provided key coaching to Matt Eaton (the first US rider to win the highly coveted British Milk Race), Alexi Grewal (Olympic Gold Medallist at the 1984 Los Angeles Games), John Howard (three-time Olympian), Bill Watkins (Olympic Bronze Medallist at he 1984 Los Angeles Games) and many others. When I told one of my cycling friends about this meeting, he told me that the staff at the Olympic Training Center had tried to get Jackson to coach the up-and-coming US Juniors in his BreathPlay technique, but that Jackson was too busy writing his book at the time. During our first meeting he asked me to get on the treadmill with the Serendipity CD and to close my eyes as I walked.
I rested my hands on the treadmill console and as the music began to play my mind started to relax and before I knew it I had been walking on the treadmill for 40 minutes, although it only seemed like 15. I had to try this on the bike. I ecstatically returned home and hopped on the stationary trainer. I turned on the BreathPlay Zooming CD and immediately saw the benefits. I had never enjoyed riding the stationary trainer and yet I thoroughly enjoyed it with the Zooming CD. For the first time in a long time I had fun on the bike again. Over the next several weeks I would ride twice daily, once in the morning on the trainer with the BreathPlay Zooming CD and then again in the evening on the road.
The power boost on the bike was truly amazing. The BreathPlay technique revolutionized my training and racing. I started winning races again and was having the time of my life doing so. Finally, I want to describe the last race of my season, the Texas State Road Championships. This was definitely an unexpected high point. I have heard for many years about Alexi Grewal's heroic ride to the gold medal in the 1984 Olympic Road. I have often wondered how he was able to go deep enough to find the courage and confidence to take control of that race so early and to press ahead solo. I almost played out that same story in this race. It was a great way to end a season that at one point nearly ended prematurely with a decision to leave the sport. BreathPlay has changed my life forever. Now I see why John Howard told me that BreathPlay is the future of high performance cycling. BreathPlay is definitely the future of mine.