Professional Cyclist Toms Skujiņš on Life in the Peloton, Training Philosophy, and Crashing

In the spirit of the current TFF theme of epic cycling, as well as celebrating the first week of the Tour de France, this week's show is with professional cyclist, Toms Skujiņš. Toms races for Team Cannondale-Drapac, and originally hails from Latvia, beginning his cycling career as a mountain biker, quickly finding his feet and a talent for the sport. He then shifted to the road, racing at multiple world championships for Latvia and reaching a high level, turning professional in 2011. He's won the overall title at the Tour de Beauce, two stages of the Tour of California, the overall UCI America's Tour title, and has competed in the Olympics. Unfortunately, this year, he suffered a crazy crash in stage 2 of this year's Tour of California, where he broke his collarbone and sustained a concussion. We caught up for this conversation right before he made his comeback to racing, placing second in the Latvian National Time Trial Championships.

This is a bit of a different conversation than normal on the podcast. Toms isn't vegan but is focused on eating well for performance, and is interested in a plant-based lifestyle. Instead, this episode is about what it's like to live at the top level of the sport of cycling, how he approaches training and racing and his philosophy, and his account of the crash that went viral at the Tour of California this year. I always love tapping into the mind of professional athletes to hear about how they work and how they balance everything - from the training to the competing to the recovery, and we went through all of this with Toms. I had the pleasure of riding with Toms the day before this interview, and I'm proud to call him a friend. Definitely be sure to follow him on Twitter and give him some words of encouragement as he makes his return to the peloton! Hope you enjoy the episode.

I am currently writing this post in Chambery, France, the second stop on the Vegan Alpletic trip with my friends Gruff and Ian, where we're riding Europe's most epic climbs on our bikes and raising money for Mercy For Animals. Be sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel to catch up with the vlogs from the adventure, and check out our donation page to support the amazing work of Mercy For Animals.

Hope everyone has an awesome week, so go eat some plants, and do some epic shit.

-Jackson

Show Notes

Connect with Toms:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Tomashuuns

On Instagram: https://instagram.com/tomashuuns

Tour of California crash: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2OnYxaEtD4&t;=13s

Team Cannondale-Drapac: http://slipstreamsports.com/

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YouTube Channel: Thought For Food TV

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