Brooke Miller

Coach: Bllly Innes

Manager: Linda Jackson

Sponsor: TIBCO/To The TOP

Career Highlight: 2008 US Road and Crit National Champion

Favourite event: Stage races

Occupation: Cyclist

Time in the Sport: 8 years, 5th year pro

Bike: LOOK 595

Cycling Tribe: Brooke, Thank you for your time. In 2008 you claimed The United States criterium and road national Championships, how has this record breaking season impacted you and your cycling?

Honestly, each season has been all part of my bigger goal of the 2012 Olympics, which has been my career focus since I decided to take the sport seriously.  2008 was a great season in terms of winning the two titles, but it was all part of a bigger picture of international competition.  It was thrilling to win and to wear the stars and stripes – but it just gave me more resolve to wear the flag and represent my country in world championships and in London as opposed to impacting my career in any other way.  It was, I guess, just another exciting step along an already exciting path.

Photo By Logan Pierce

Cycling Tribe: What are your individual and team goals for 2010?

For me, my 2010 goals are nearly all based across the pond.  We will be doing the spring classics and three world cups as TIBCO and that is thrilling!  Flanders is my all-time favourite race and I would love to win it.  It is a race that haunts me when I train and sometimes when I sleep.  All the European races are big for me, but Flanders is the king.  I also always have a special spot for Philly (Liberty Classic), am looking to win there, and the big season goal is to race Worlds with the US National Team.  As for team goals: we have a lot, but the biggest goal is for us to make an impact when we go over to Europe.  We race every race we enter to win and we have some phenomenal riders.  So, we are going to turn some heads over there – and that is the plan.

Cycling Tribe: What would it mean to you to compete and challenge for a medal in London 2012?

For me, London is really everything in my career.  When I was a 12 year old kid and playing volleyball, I had a dream of becoming an Olympian.  As soon as that goal became a remote possibility for me in cycling, I was full bore in that pursuit.  Everything I have done since I decided to take cycling seriously back in 2006 has been in the direction of working toward that one goal, that one race, that one day.  I can think of no greater honour than to wear my country’s flag proudly and compete in the games… and I will race for one place only: that top step.

Cycling Tribe: You used to be a rock solid volleyball player. Do you miss the sport? Is this where you developed your competitive edge?

I would say that volleyball was most certainly not where I developed my competitive edge, but where I finally released it!  I grew up a tomboy and was always racing the boys on the street and every single thing that I did was a competitive sport.  I was hyper-competitive: much more so than I am today!  I was so competitive that it was a detriment, as I could not turn it off!  Volleyball helped me hone my competitive edge and it was my first true passion in life.  I can truthfully say that I do not, however, miss it.   I have moved on with other chapters in my life.  Volleyball was a complex relationship for me.  It was like a slightly dysfunctional love affair.  I was passionate and loved it deeply, but it was emotionally, physically and mentally hard for me.  Volleyball beat me up and broke me down.  It was a tremendous time for me, and one of deep personal growth.  Playing on scholarship through college made it a job and it really was a hard job. It is a wonderful sport, however, and I will always cherish those memories as of any first love – but I am now in a different place in my life.

Cycling Tribe: You also work on software development in your spare time. Can you tell us a bit more about this?

Haha!  I am a closet nerd.  Well, maybe not so in the closet in my nerdiness.  Basically, I have to keep my brain active.  I am always doing something.  I am training full time and find things that are interesting to dabble in to keep me mentally stimulated.  My mantra is that you have to exercise your mind as much as your body.  I earned a Ph.D. in biology and spent a lot of time doing lab work and analysing data.  I realized that there are a lot of inefficiencies in lab work that could be helped with some better designed software.  Since there was nothing on the market, I learned how to do some database building and some programming to help make something that would help others be better, more efficient scientists.  I have tabled it for a bit in the last year or so, but just recently dusted off one of my software packages and sent it to a friend of mine who is working with it.  For me, it was a chance to work on two important mental outlets: my creative side and my analytical side.  Doing the software was creative in coming up with layouts and visual presentations of the user interface that were pleasing.  But it was also a fun analytical game to make it all work.  Very much like little logic puzzles.  You KNOW that you want it to do X, so you have to figure out how to make it do X and have it work as simple as possible.  Programming in that sense really is like solving fun little games.

Photo By John Pierce

Cycling Tribe: Can you describe a typical week of training?

Sure.  Sleep.  Eat.  Ride.  Eat.  Sleep.  Shower in there somewhere.  Sleep.  I am kidding.  For me, I don’t do that much volume compared to a lot of other riders.  Being that I am a sprinter, I really do believe that my physiology is different.  I can do a big load of intensity and walk out at the end of the week fine – but give me a few weeks of big volume, and I get tired!  Most of my teammates are the other way around.  My training is highly varied week by week, month by month – but for the most part, it is a combination of building base miles, basic endurance, longer sustained efforts and sprint specific work.  I train my weaknesses and work on climbing and sustained efforts: 15-, 20- or even 30-min efforts, (sometimes one-hour efforts), but I always make sure to keep my sprint honed, too.  My sprint work will be a mix of different sprint efforts: 5-, 8-, 15- or 20-sec, in addition to 1-, 2-, 3- and 5-min efforts.  The start of the week will often be a bit mellow and I will usually have a big long day on Wednesday, and then taper back some of the volume but sub in some more intensity.  But it really just depends on where I am in a training block, what I am prepping for and what time of the year it is.

Cycling Tribe: How do you feel about your form leading into the European season?

I can truthfully say that I am the strongest that I have ever been.  I have never been happier before in my life and struggled with some personal challenges in the last two years.  All of that is behind me now and each day seems better than the one before.  For me, the bike is an extension of my happiness and my love.  Even in the rainy, cold winter training days this year, I was always happy to be on my bike and never had a winter mental slump.  And it shows.  I am happy, I am healthy, I am strong.  Being happy to the core and loving life so much makes it a lot easier to really push on the bike.  I train with power and have regularly been thinking that my power meter is broken because I am doing things that I have never done before.  Now I know though that it is not broken…I have just broken through.

Cycling Tribe:Brooke, Thanks so much for your time and best of luck this season.

Thanks!  And it was great talking with you!