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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That
iswas one of the best post photos ever.You can't keep that form all year long Marko. Your skinny ass needs to recover, get fatter, then build towards April again. The flu is the baby jesus's way of telling you to "simma' down"
Time for a 29eit with fat tires maybe.
That's right. Let it out, and then move on.
Personally, I'm getting on the mtb and pasting a mud-spattered smile on my face, hoping that if I just keep doing that it'll start to feel authentic. Pascal wrote, "Bless yourself with holy water, have Masses said, and so on; by a simple and natural process this will make you believe..." But when--not if--I eat shit on that damn thing, if injury keeps me off the road bike, I'm going to soak it in gasoline and toss it a fucking match.
Don't even talk to me about it, Mate! I was ordered off the bike by my doc weeks ago and haven't turned a pedal in anger or otherwise in 26 straight days. The longest time without at least hitting the training or rollers in YEARS. Painful! Yeah, I have even been running for Lord's sake. Truly pitiful the depths that I have sunk to.
Okay, commiseration over. Time to HTFU, eh?
Soooooouuuh, Last year was a year of all top 5 finishes, a state championship, an upgrade, and hiring a coach to get me through the winter and early season. Said upgrade or coaching or a combination of both resulted in DNFs, going of the back at a race that I've won before and have finished no worse than fifth at. The only highlight of the season was one strange day when the planets aligned and Merckx had pity on me and let me borrow his legs for a couple of hours as I put a serious hurt on the unsuspecting (and incredulous) blokes trying to hold my wheel as I got my first (and surely only) Strava KOM on a local unrated climb. That bright spot aside this season has disintegrated into pity-party Blue Room bacon cheese burgers, beer, and about 30 extra pounds.
I keep telling myself that I was just having a "Gilbert Season" (sans the Rainbow Stripes) and that things will come around next season. If I can just hold out until Jan. 1 and stay under 86 kilos I'll be happy. Then it's on the trainer and a goal of 74 kilos.
Saturday I got on the bike for the first time in a while and did 90 minutes in the bitter wind and celebrated with a nice oatmeal stout.
Wish me luck.
@ Marko It sounds to me as if your brain is in the wrong place and all that good butter, Moose lard and beer has sent you on a downer.
Let me put it another way...from reading your post.
1. You had the best season ever and you started January. It sounds to me like you peaked exactly when you intended to and without a downside you can never have a peak to look back on
2. You have some time between now and March where you can ease off a bit and enjoy riding a bit less, ok so a little weight will be gained but you need to understand that shit is "good weight" the kind you will lose next year as you work towards peaking, otherwise there is not such thing as peaking and we are all doomed. If you are following Big Migs special winter diet a weight gain of say.....er... 3-5 kilos is nothing, enjoy it March will be here soon enough. Your alternative is to go to teneriffe and join the Team Sky training camp or spend the winter riding round Girona with the other weight gaining pros.
Oh...last point....4. See point one! rinse and repeat.
Winter is good time....bit of MTB or Cyclos cross or show some love to your turbo, but take it easy...
Great article...and just to make you feel better, this is the first winter where I am losing weight! Although I think I am starting from a position somewhere well above (weight) or below (ability) your current level!
Shit that priest in the photo looks like my brother.....it would not surprise me either!!!
The liquid diet is easiest to shed. Furthermore, the fastest way to lose weight is by first putting it on. Then, and in accordance with Rule #9, Love the Work.
I've had a pretty shit year myself (cycling-wise) after being quite pleased with my progress last season. A late season CX crash left me with a bruised sternum and some back problems that kept me off the bike all winter. Any progress I tried to make this Spring was hampered by home improvement projects necessitated by a pregnant VMH and the impending arrival of our first child. Summer was then a bust riding wise as the new addition to our family kept me from riding outdoors, training indoors or sleeping. In my defense I really did attempt to get some road rides in this fall (as CX was out of the question since Sunday was inverse Rule #11 day) even suggesting to the VMH that our daughter was small enough to fit in a Camelbak worn Grimpeur the Elder style, but was quickly overruled. Yesterday's Rule #9 ride (my first ride of any length in well over two months) showed just how far I've fallen. I look at the paltry 1,600kms I've ridden this year and my waistline and it leaves me quite dejected, but I suppose such is the nature of Breeding and Blimping. Its too cold now, but I swear I'm going to revisit that Camelbak idea come Spring...
I commiserate, now get out the xc skis, cue up the sufferfest after carefully aligning the bike with the trainer, and remember to enjoy the winter ales. Have some fun this winter and do some work. Dont finish the winter hating the bike even more than ur newly big belly because you kept pushing yourself without a break. Ur body will remember what you did to it on the cobbles and grave; give it a chance to cement that knowledge on a more permanent basis.
This past year was my breakout performance season, sorta. I too fear the belly growth at its astonishing capability to return to substantive girth. But a 9-10 saddle hour week is not soon to be repeated. And i'm ok. I hope.