‘I just want to push my body to its limits’
‘I just like riding my bike,’ says Fiona Kolbinger, 26-year-old German ultra-racer and surgeon in training. Cyclist is asking her about her training plan, but it turns out there isn’t one. She doesn’t follow any specific programme, let alone ride with a power meter, calculate her watts per kilo, or have a strict diet. She simply understands what does and doesn’t work for her.
‘It’s all about knowing yourself, your body and what you are doing,’ she says. ‘Long-distance cycling and being a surgeon have many things in common. You need to be able to work long hours, concentrate and make reliable decisions on not much sleep. You need to be able to go without food for a while and then be able to eat large amounts in one go. Of course you need to be physically fit, you need to stay calm when it’s stressful and you need to know how and when to rest.’
She spends most of her time at University Hospital Dresden in Germany. Her goal is to be a surgical oncologist specialising in abdominal surgery, which means she works 14-hour days, often during the night, and when we speak she is on the intensive care unit. Her long working hours
