Before the New Year, it was my ride up Haleakala. At present, it’s Keepers Tour: Cobbled Classics 2013. Before Haleakala, it was one of the various Cyclocross races and before that the Zoo Hill Time Trial. The targets change, but throughout my life as a Velominatus, there always seems to be a goal looming over the horizon which spurs me on. Training, for its endless nature, is like painting the Forth Bridge in Scotland: it takes a year to paint and you have to paint it every year.
In contrast to my opinion of painting a bridge, training is something I fundamentally enjoy. Lucky for me, I love training for the sake of training; I don’t feel any compelling need to do a particular ride in any particular time. What I do feel, however, is the need to do any particular ride in a better time than I have previously. I’m fortunate to delight in the process of finding form and fitness, of getting better. I love seeing the improvement; I love setting incremental goals and reaching them through the elementary process of working towards them.
Cycling, in this way, presents me with an incredibly rewarding outlet for that bit of my nature that lives on seeing marked progress. In every walk of life, things are complicated. The deeper we wade into any endeavor, the more embroiled we become in the mechanics of staying afloat – to say nothing of actually moving towards an end. Yet, Cycling is simple; put in the work and the results come.
The more complicated my life gets and the more conflicted my priorities, the more I find I love Cycling for its elemental simplicity. Set a goal, make a plan, follow it. There is no one to look to but yourself. There are no external dependencies. There is only the endlessness of The Work.
Vive la Vie Velominatus.
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Good news - the Tour of Oman is on Eurosport and Sagan, "The Junior Cannibal" as almost no one is calling him, is looking both awesome and fantastic. He is still a douche with his line crossing antics however.
I broke down and bought a turbo trainer this winter to try and keep the stave off the blimping part of breeding and blimping. In short, I fucking hate it, but I hate it a little bit less thanks to the Sufferfest videos. Summer's long days can't come soon enough.
@Ron
Yeah, I hit 77.5 kilos the 1st of Feb and said, fuck it, no booze or candy until I get back down to 71 kilos even, which was my weight 19 years ago when I graduated undergrad. Bit of a wake up call for me.
@King Clydesdale
AWESOME!!! What race?
@the Engine Cross country skiing perhaps.
On a slightly unrelated matter, are you driving to the Keepers Tour?
@Buck Rogers That would be an impressive weight loss. I've cut out booze and am trying to limit carbs etc. Fortunately I'm not averse to a diet of Sashimi.
I was 89.5kg on 6 January. I'd love to get it down under eighty.
@Chris
Completely unrelated matter I'd say, but yes the plan is to drive down and arrive on the Thursday night.
@Buck Rogers
Which is funny, because I'd be letting booze and candy back in at 77.5kg (currently about 83kg). Hoping to be around 77 by June. But will need better weather and more time on the bike for that. It's curious, though, that other goals notwithstanding, the number on scale is always implicitly one of them, when I'm typically less worried about weight and more worried about "feel." I know physics plays a pretty important role in cycling, but I can feel strong at 83kg in ways where I'm not worried about shedding the next kilo before the weekend. All in all, I'm learning that patience is a pretty critical plank in any training, weight-loss, goal-setting effort.
Goals: I'm riding Paris-Ancaster, a local road, gravel, mud race (70km) in late March with my son. The goal is not to compete, but to put in a good ride with my son (he's 15). So no targets, but part of me says to ride the singlespeed. Vermont is also looming large. But I also want to set myself an annual target. After last year's 2much ride, I wallowed and did a lot less riding than I could have or should have. One of the dangers of goals is that there can be a reduction in riding and training after they've been met.
@the Engine My missus never made it in to work today, be nice to have been home and got the xc planks out too. You can almost see Chez Strathlubnaig in that pic.
@VeloVita
NOOOOO! Why didn't you tell me this in Louisville & I could have talked you out of it? (Actually I used to ride rollers as well, I just happened to get lucky and meet a southern gal!) Take notes, I'm going to have a lot of questions if/when I hit the Breeding & Blimping stage.
Steampunk - 3 weeks & no saddle time? Ugh, I start to go batty after just a few days. Huh, weights are shrinking the guns? I've been riding less than I'd like & doing a bit of weights to stay in shape & I think my guns are growing. Might just be how my body responds, as I lifted regularly for many years for sports, stopped for a few years now that I'm a Follower, and now realized I was losing too much strength to even do yard work and such. Maybe my dormant muscles are just happy for the use.
Wow, are you lads fluctuating 6-7 kgs big dudes? I'm not & as soon as my pants get tight I pay more attention to what I eat. Usually that only takes 2 kgs for me, but I don't have much surface area to spread the gain.