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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View Comments
@ChrisO
I do have my suspicions.
On the plus side, when I had a bad chest cold last week the doctor said I should keep a stock of asthma medication in and take it a bit more often.
So I'm going to be smashing myself full of ventolin before every race from now on.
@KogaLover
This is all bad juju.
the private personal medical records of individuals being released on line then becomes fodder for cyclingnews and other rags to list and report. They are using stolen, illegally obtained, private info, that they were not meant to be in possession of to create news stories and help sell their product. It's one thing to report on the crime, the hack. It's another thing to then use the illegally obtained data resulting from the crime. That's how I see it anyways.
Further, the whole WADA protocol and whereabouts is a horrible invasion of privacy to begin with and the fact that they cannot protect the data is a blistering kick in the a** for those forced to participate. Shame on them.
@Randy C
Fair point.
The difference between this and say the leaks from Operation Puerto is that TUEs are legal and permitted, so it's hard to mount a public interest defence.
@Randy C
You have no idea how much I agree with your comments regarding data privacy being violated. I work in an industry where personal (sensitive) data are one of the most precious things to protect (or worst reputational risk to suffer if leaks) and when I see violations of data privacy like this, I do fear for my own data-safety. In EU, new data privacy standards are coming into force in next couple of years which are much stricter. I would encourage the impacted athletes to take WADA to court for not protecting their data appropriately. WADA should know there are people out there who are interested in those data.
@ChrisO
Nailed it.
@RobSandy
I'm an asthmatic and it sucks balls. But I also just use an albuterol inhaler which doesn't have the weight-loss bennies (obviously!) of the corticoid alternatives. I've had to take those occasionally to treat really severe attacks, but only when those attacks were so bad that my trachea couldn't support itself against the damage done by the initial attack that I needed a steroid to encourage rebuilding it. And my doctor has been very - VERY - strict about how much and how long I use that form. Side effects on the box include "shortness of breath", "heart attack" and "spontaneous heart failure". No shit.
To have been treated at length for years with corticoids is surprising in that context, but everyone has a different situation.
I don't like knowing this, though, it is private information and the use is allowed by the rules, but it feels like a gray area and I don't like it. You can't unring that bell once the information is out there and you process it and digest it.
On the other hand, Sky were already looking to be a bit USPS-ish in their canned responses etc, so I'm not exactly shocked.
@frank
It is getting interesting and like you I don't like it either. No needles hey Sir Brad? And yea, I'm critical of WADA allowing the data to be hacked and then the rags feeding on it. And then I read it anyways and… well… like ya said, the bell has been rung. So, having to confront being uncomfortable I just have to wonder, is maybe Tejay's challenge having been that he doesn't have allergies or asthma?
You posted this on my birthday, my 50th, and today I just found your site. I've been actively riding as much as possible for a bit over a year, and this makes all that effort more understandable. Peace from Utica, Indiana, USA.
@Skean66
Happy Birthday and Welcome to the party.
The Wiggins thing is unsavoury from whichever angle you view it. However, I can't unsee that info nor rewind my opinion, so to me it's a case of doping and always will be. Over (or inappropriately) treating a condition he's not had in previous years, nor since? It stinks and is hugely disappointing. On the plus side Froome comes out of the leak pretty well, which seems to have gone unnoticed behind all of the Wiggo hyperbole.
Looks like Frank's days of ripping off photos to use on this website might be coming to an end.
Play by the rules and stop stealing