Feeding the Good Wolf
One evening, an elderly Cherokee brave told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.
He said, “my son, the battle is between two ‘wolves’ inside us all. One is evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.
The other is good. It is joy, peace love, hope serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.”
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “which wolf wins?”
The old Cherokee simply replied, “the one that you feed.”
I am given to understand that our brains get covered in plaque when we don’t exercise. That sounds terrible, a plaque-covered brain; if I needed another reason to ride, that one would be first in line.
I already ride for many reasons; the freedom, the harmony, the sense of flying over the ground. The feeling of strength in my muscles as I force tempo and near my threshold. I love feeling fit, I love how my muscles feel when I touch them, the fibers are there just below the skin.
But I can’t always ride as much as I want or need to, and I can feel my mental state start to deteriorate. Self-doubt creeps in, unnoticed, and when that happens, I find satisfaction in climbing on my bike and going into the red just to prove I can still make myself hurt simply because I want to. It rebuilds the trust I have in myself that I can do whatever needs to be done in life.
Other times, I’ll find myself in an unexplained and unsolicited foul mood that needs an exorcism. I recently had such a day after a short spell off the bike. I knew what I needed to do: go meet the Man with the Hammer. Just going for a ride doesn’t flush the system the way I need it to; I find I need to run it on fumes in order to reboot the system. Five hours into the ride, I was still riding well and still in a dark mood. The policy is to keep turning onto a road that leads farther from home until the lights go out; only then am I permitted to ride home.
The ride through the total exhaustion is where the magic happens; the sensation of hopelessness at the daunting ride ahead slowly melts into certainty that I can override the messages coming from my body and keep chipping away at the task at hand. Eventually, a heavy kind of dull strength returns to my muscles when the Body finally gives in and decides to collaborate in the Mind’s mission to overcome. By the time I get home, drained, I am reborn.
I don’t always need to ride in order to be a complete person, but generally I am a better man when I find the time to turn the legs around. Winter is coming, and the shorter days will make it harder to get out, but I am resolved to continue to feed the Good Wolf.
Vive la Vie Velominatus.
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Getting ready for cross season and the coach has got me running intervals. Too much pain to meditate and I have to make sure that nobody sees me - however the man with the hammer arrives about 15 minutes in so it's very efficient.
@the Engine
"running"???
#1 is clean...
...few things satisfy like a pristine bike.
@DeKerr
Yup - although he's got a point in that running up steep hills does happen in CX
Fucking fantastic once again. In special forces training they just LOVE to mind fuck you. That's how they separate the ones who are worthy from those who aren't. One thing they do sometimes us make everyone go for a fucking long ruck march and the whole way they keep telling you, "Only 15 more miles, "Only ten more miles until we rack the truck", etc. Finally, after hours and total fucking exhaustion you reach the end of the match and just collapse. That's when the Cadre walk up and go, "Ahhhh, fuck. Guess what boys, the truck cannot make it. Guess we get to ruck it all the way back. Of course, you can quit and catch a ride back in a few hours." THAT's when you see full grown men just break. But when you do make it back, nothing will break you. You feel mentally reborn. Fucking amazing.
Great post, Frank. However, I have been seeing a lot of ads for the Bad Wolf lately........
I don't know if it means anything or not.......
@the Engine
I very much enjoy cross season but the training is in fact brutal. The first few practices leave you sore in places that were never sore during the regular season. And YES that man with the hammer hits you quite quickly and much harder than on the road. If you want to zing your heart rate into new horizons, give a cross race a try. I have never suffered more on a bike than racing cross. 5 things that make a cross race merciless:
1. 110%+ vomit inducing effort from the gun to the finish
2. Dismount, remount, run, jump, FALL
3. No drafting or freewheeling
4. Weather and course conditions (the most difficult races are actually in dry conditions because the speed is insane and gets faster every lap)
5. The temptation of beer handups
@frank
Wonderful piece.
@Sparty
6. The ohhh f*** this is gonna hurt (as the down tube on your really cool cross bike is buckling):
Oops...that post of mine was supposed to go into the Bikes section of the site. Apologies for the aside and please feel free to delete my post so as to restore the logical flow of responses to Franck's fantastic article.
@kixsand
Logical flow of responses? You're fucking hilarious!
+1 to @kixsand for most humorous post of the day.