The only thing worse than being two months from peaking and too fat to climb is being two months past peaking and in the middle of the season of rapid weight gain. At least with the former there is something to look forward to as you measure the incremental gains of your training as the almost daily rides of the season accumulate on your Strava profile. The latter can seem like a long dark tunnel that leads only to fat and slow. For those of us living in the Northern Hemisphere, on the tundra and ice-covered roads, with only 8 1/2 hours of daylight, a proper road ride and last season’s gains can seem like a distant dream. The juxtaposition of climbing well for your weight and expanding into a larger jersey size before your very own eyes is a cross the Velominatus must sometimes have to bear.
2012 was perhaps the best season I’ve ever had on a bike. It actually began on the trainer on New Year’s Day as I started training for the Keepers Tour. After returning from the trip of a lifetime riding the cobbles of Norther France and Belgium I was able to hold momentum at the start of the season at home. Next up was the Almanzo 100 in May, a very hard gravel race in which I was happy with my result. Then, the guys began gathering for our Tuesday group rides. On the whole, the group really got after it this year and we pushed each other to some great levels of fitness. Coupled with my almost daily solo rides, I was seeing progress early and often. Then the season was punctuated in September by a 15th placing in the Heck of the North, another gravel race. I had timed my peaks pretty well for an amateur and as my Strava numbers got bigger La Volupte and I had become closer acquaintances.
Then November happened. I hold about as much appreciation for November as I do for March in this part of the world. That is to say none. November and March are the shoulder seasons and the only time of year when running actually seems like a plausible way to stay fit. In November the Rule #11 chickens start coming home to roost, the roads can turn to shit and aren’t safe to ride, and graveling becomes an exercise in survival as half the month is slotted for deer hunting. Mates that haven’t been seen all summer start to wander into town again for Happy Hour beers at the local micro-brew. Food becomes laden with butter, chocolate, and carbs. This November was exacerbated by the fact that I went down for two solid weeks with a viral infection. I was so fucking sick I shit the bed one night. For Merckx’s Sake it took a lot of the V to recover from that one. Now I know how Thor must have felt about this year’s Spring Classics campaign. The only difference being my spring was better than his and my fall was his spring.
So let me have it. Tell me to Rule #5. Tell me to get out and ride my bike, set up the trainer, stop whinging. I probably deserve it after all this. I’m banking on the fact though that there are others like me out there. Others who have witnessed their own precipitous descension from peak form to shit in the matter of weeks. It really is incredible, the difference in how long it takes to build that form and how quickly it disappears. So please, grant me this one confession. Share your own despair if you like but then let’s move on. Let’s share in the fleeting catharsis that being a little bitch can offer and then begin the long, painful, and awesome slog back to the V together again.
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@motor city
The sauna at my Y is men only. When I was an undergrad at Glasgow Uni in the 80s the saunas were mixed - with bathing costumes of course. One did have to think pure thoughts. Rule 5 did not apply nor did you want it to!
@Nate
Nipple Lube
@scaler911
And yet....
@wiscot
Saunas are the only way to get clean. You asked what we thought, I think they are one of the five things truly worth living for. The others being cycling, beer, powder skiing, and one other one that slips my mind. They are not to be used though as any sort of training or weight loss device. They are to be used as a sanctuary. A place of communion and cleansing. Yes, don't piss on the stones. Don't ever fart in a sauna either. And for the true sauna aficionado, they are not to be had sex in. Lissa Loyla. Here's mine:
@Marko
NIce, Nice, Nice!
@Marko
Birch sticks or no?
@Nate Not sure what you mean by birch sticks? Do I burn birch - yes, often. Is it made of birch - no. Do I use a switch - not usually but they're not made of birch. Do I live on Birch Lake - yes.
Should I ever have the means I'd like my own sauna and steam room!
One of the best days of my life remains the day I spent at a natural hot springs on the southern island of New Zealand, north of Christchurch. I think it was...Hanmer Springs? The previous day I was driving a '83 Mitsubishi Ancer (the L had fallen off) down a dirt road towards a good fishing spot I'd been told about. A man and his family came by in a ute and told me the road was washed out, laughing at my poor sedan and telling me to turn around. He invited me to stay with his family that night. They fed me, put me up on their farm, and invited me to the water park the next day, where he worked. He got me in for free and to spend a day at a hot pool, plus a personal sauna room for a half hour, was pure heaven after living in hostels for a few months.
What a nice family!
@Marko Smacking self or others with dried bunches of birch leaves/sticks -- common in the Russian banya and some areas of Finland.
@Nate
Ah, that's where the 'switch' question above came in. That's what the old Finlanders around here called them growing up. Usually used willow or balsam. Talk about self flagellation. When we'd get in trouble as kids they'd threaten to come after us with the switch.