There are few pleasures in life as great as to achieve a goal, to accomplish something that doesn’t come easily. Great lessons are taught through this activity; we learn that it is our determination and not our doubt that defines our limits. We learn that through studied discipline we can cultivate the skills required to work incrementally towards becoming what we want to be.
This is true for our personal, social and professional lives – and any other aspect that I may have left off. But to achieve our goals is usually a rather complicated mess; it requires introspection, it often requires reliance upon others to do their part or at least not interfere with you doing yours, and it is usually rife with hard choices of long-lasting and difficult to understand consequences.
In its most basic form, Cycling provides us a path to discovery in a less complicated model than do our actual lives. We train our bodies, we become more healthy. We become more healthy, we train more. We become stronger, we go faster. We derive more pleasure from our efforts. We experience reward for sacrifice. We associate progress with the pain of an effort. We enjoy Cycling more. We ride more. We become healthier still. We become stronger still. We go even faster. We suffer more. We associate more pain with a greater sense of achievement. And though it all, we discover it that unlike every other walk of life, in Sport we are islands: what we find here is only what we have brought with us.
Eventually, exercising will become training. The activity becomes richer with the application of the discipline that comes with this rebadging. Exercise is something you do regularly but without structure. With training comes a study of your body and how it responds to stimulus. Long rides have a different effect on the body than do short ones. Successive hard efforts have another effect, as do longer and shorter periods off the bike.
Training Properly requires discipline and patience. It means you don’t just throw your leg over your machine and pedal off to ride along tree-lined boulevards. Training Properly means having a plan for each day. It means heading for the hills one day, and the plains another. It means controlling yourself and not trying to set your best time up the local climb because you feel good that day. Training Properly means restraining yourself on a group ride and not joining in on the town line sprints if your plan doesn’t call for it. Training Properly means leaving for a ride despite the rain falling from the heavens and the loved ones whom you leave at home.
Training Properly comes down you and you alone; much can be learned from books and coaches, but the path is yours to walk. The discovery is yours to experience and to shape into what you are seeking. There are, however, some basics to keep in mind. Also keep in mind I’m not a “Sports Doctor”, “Physiotherapist”, or “Smart”. And never take medical or sporting advice from Some Guy On the Internet.
Be patient. Have discipline. Train Properly. Vive la Vie Velominatus.
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I ride to look fantastic! I have to slow down when I ride by reflective windows and admire the blinding awesomeness that is me.
And then I wake up. Oh well.
Honestly, my goal is to have awesome numbers when I visit my doctor in July. Last July, my body fat percentage was 11%. This year's goal is to be in single digits, about 7-9%. I weighed 64 kilos. That's where I want to be this July, but I gained a bit over the holidays and I haven't ridden enough to melt it away yet. I'll be 45 years old for my next check-up. Speed and strength on my bike are unintentional results of trying to hit my medical numbers. Or maybe it's the other way around. For me, I HATE the gym. So I ride. It's not a chore like it was when I raced.
Knowing both sides of my family have massive histories of cardiovascular and respiratory ailments and diseases gives me all the motivation I seem to need right now. That and I had a check-up a couple of years ago (having been a cubicle farmer for almost 18 years) when I weighed too much, I felt like shit, and my doctor prescribed drugs for high cholesterol. I was heading down the same path that my family had already paved. So I got back on my bike after 20 years of sitting, eating BBQ, drinking beer, and watching TV.
Then I became a Velominatus. Then I got my LOOK. Lo and behold, I got healthy, I got almost fast and almost strong (way closer than two months from peaking), and I ended up with excellent medical numbers.
I slacked off quite a bit since early November. Now I have a few months to get back to an excellent physical state before my next check-up. That's why I ride. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't ride if I called it training.
I had a few days off the bike this week as I had come down with a cold.
I'm not worried about the fitness, that won't make any difference, but I am worried that inwardly I was happy not to go out. I would have done it had I been fit, but it would have been with a less than joyful spring in my step.
I don't know what it is - I think I need some change, as I've been doing the same things for a year since I moved to the house I'm in now. Trouble is I don't have much choice - very limited routes, they're all flat, and I have nobody to train with (apart from our Friday group rides). And there's no regular racing - a couple of events a year (one of the reasons I did the triathlon cycle last week).
I've tried to find some partners in the compound where I live but so far they have all been very new and very slow and it just doesn't work.
I was pinning my hopes on getting a power meter when Garmin bring out their pedal system. To give me some difference and maybe change the training a bit. But that's not happening for another six months.
At the moment the Keepers' Tour is the only thing getting me out of bed and on my bike. I suspect I will come crashing to earth after that.
It's nothing new I guess...
"I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth. And indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory. This most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appeareth nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculties! How like an angel in apprehension. How like a god! The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me, no, nor women neither. Nor women neither. "
@Jeff in PetroMetro
@Jeff in PetroMetro
I also took a 20yr FREE LAP off the bike. Now that I have returned to cycling (44), it has returned me to my gritty self. I thrive on cycling again, whether riding or racing -- I love it. I can tell my wife that I love her and turn right around (right behind me) and vow that I love my bike "very much!" I did renew (USCF) USA Cycling, but still enjoy growing the local weekly group ride as well. Some are racing and others should be racing. As much as myself and other riders commit to the group rides, I also drool blood when throwing out challenges in a race (dramatization). I truly have wrestled with the same phases, ups and downs -- money, equipment, hours. And appreciate the off-the-cuff honest way the Velominati can express this with candor. A meaty blend of candor! I only can add to the total sentiment that all I have right now is a great feeling. "I am part of a bike race and that alone is thrilling -- and sanctioned!" And in the days that follow, there are always rewards to ride with great local cyclist -- all manner of cyclist. Then back to racing !! And thank Edouard Louis Joseph, Baron Merckx for the Velominati !!
@scaler911
But Scaler, WHAT HAPPENED WITH THE GIRL?
(sorry, I was missing those days when certain posts were in all caps)
@ChrisO
This post reminded me that I used to have 'Emerson training moments' on the bike. I need to start riding in Gilbert again -- South Carolina.
@Kyle
Is anyone going to be around to ride in Madison 3/24-3/27? Going to be visiting w pretty open schedule for riding. Gonna be in Asheville for mini-cogal the weekend y'all are doing the Madison mini, if I understand correctly.
Pretty crazy to see how many of you have taken significant time away from cycling. Glad to have you back! I played the same sport from the age of 7-22, now haven't even touched it since college. Sometimes I almost feel guilty. "It's spring, that use to mean the start of the season...shouldn't I feel more excited?" I think, like some of you, I just got burned out and let it dominate my life. I sure as heck would have had stronger marks in college without it! I also really didn't get along with my college coach, personality-wise or philosophy of the game-wise either. I don't know if I'll ever go back to it.
But, the good news is that I don't really miss it. I'm having too much fun developing as a cyclist.
Great one, Frank! Because of my experience with over-training and sapping the fun with my other sporting pursuit, I try to always, always keep cycling fun at the most basic level. Sure, I like to train, I went to get stronger, etc., but when I feel myself getting too crazy I take a step back. Heck, I only could ride for three hours last Saturday because I watched the Strada Bianche in the morning. Should I have been riding more today? No, fuck that. I woke up and watched an awesome race in bed. That's fun.
When I'm feel slow or fat or unenthusiastic, I try to recall how far I've come on the bike in a few years at it. Damn, not that long ago breaking 35kms was a major accomplishment. Now it might be part of a warmup!
Since I truly trained for other sports for so long, I don't want to force my training too much on the bike, but rather I like to toe the line between "riding" and "training." Vary my routes, my rides, my intensity, watch what I consume, do group rides when necessary, but I am not about to start charting intervals, buy a power meter, etc. That's just not for me. Thankfully, just doing a variety of riding has allowed me to progress pretty nicely.
Cool one here & great timing with the Big Day on Sunday...say hello to spring! As our pal over at BRR so eloquently put it: "TIME TO STEP UP, FUCKTARDS. WINTER'S ALMOST DONE."
@ChrisO
Excellent use of the Bard. Chapeau. Though I hope that you are not quite so melancholy?
No battles over my soul. My soul is won by cycling! And the last bit there on the previous post !!
@xyxax
Well, as it turns out, while she was away for 2 weeks at a time, she was living up to the common "Stewardess" (they hate that term) stereotype. I was a sailor in one of many ports.
She was pretty cute though.