There is pain to be found upon this road. Photo via Symonbike
My training hasn’t gone as I’d like it to be going. My days keep getting loaded up with things that pay the bills more than they add to the account at the V-Bank. It’s part of not being a Pro, I suppose, as if to spite my obvious talent which is a sort of talent sleeper cell where only I recognize my potential while the rest of the world perceives it as mundane mediocrity. I’ll show them, when I get around to it.
[rule number=10/]
To be an athlete is to mimic the animal world; this is the luxury of our age, stimulating the survival instinct through games rather than an actual need to survive which is itself a staggering accomplishment. It is our nature as animals that drives us to find the next level of achievement as athletes; as athletes, our success is rooted in our ability to process the act of suffering into a productive output, to push beyond the plane of perceived capability. What is left to the adventurer who walks along the path – the Velominatus – is to discover the complexity of suffering.
And, as Rule #10 implies, what lies hidden within the complexity of suffering is deceptively simple: more suffering, like some diabolical Mandelbrot Set set of pain where every point on its continuum contains an infinite set just like it.
The strange thing about suffering is that as you gain fitness, your lens shifts. When our fitness has the most opportunity for improvement, we alternate between pushing through a blockage either in the legs or the lungs – never both. The human mind is, after all, equipped to process only one pain at a time. But as our fitness develops, the mind learns to delegate the pain to the lesser organs and allows them to self-manage: the strength of one learns to support the weakness in the other. Over time, the suffering body becomes a holistic organism that can compensate for the most acutely weak unit with those which still yield some reserves. This is how we go faster; we transform how our body manages its resources.
When we speak of suffering, our minds shift to the climbs. Climbing is the easiest place to find suffering, a sinister gift of our old friend, Gravity. But suffering is to be found anywhere just as easily, provided you can motivate yourself to push as hard as gravity can pull. The Hour Record doesn’t have a climb in sight, but it scores a 100% on the Cycling version of Rotten Tomatoes (which, I am not too modest to suggest, finds its logical home right here at Velominati.)
As I suffer my way towards some level of condition, I am grateful for the opportunity to rediscover the pain behind the pain, to find some hint of control over the suffering, the ability to compensate one suffering unit for another. The ability to, despite every signal emitting from the body, push a little harder and resist the temptation to yield is perhaps the most noble gift our generous sport imparts upon us.
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View Comments
@TBONE
There is no slipping Celeste under the radar. Maybe you have to invoke the s-1 part of Rule nr. 12.
@1860
I can build it during the day, hide it in the spare room. It will live under the track. Or, I could just come clean.
@VeloJello
No cakes for me, but recovery beverages aren't helping my cause. In two weeks I'll be doing a 160km/3000m event, suffering up the climbs is a given. Embracing it is my goal.
I have to admit, I find training a bit of a challenge, I'm not sure what I'm training for? I can understand it for people here who enter competitive races and are capable of actually taking part and have some chance of doing well. For me, I'm only 'racing' myself most of the time. I usually ride alone and have to admit even if I'm on a ride with other people I find my own rhythm and can get quite annoyed if someone is with me and they are either just a *little* bit slower or faster than me.
I train, such as I have been able this year, in the winter so I can go out on decent rides when the weather picks up, rides when I can loose myself on the bike, face a few challenges (hills - I hate them over about 15%), fight them and win and finish the ride with that warm feeling that I've done it, I'm knackered but I enjoyed it. There's nothing worse than doing a ride and hating it, or even worse cutting it short because you've blown out.
@TBONE
You could do like my wife would say when confronted about some new piece of clothing... "Oh this is old, I have had it forever..."
in my view the question of coming clean depends on what Group you are putting on the bike... if it is Super Record then it is badass of course, and everybody will understand (or at least should...).
The other thing that is bothering me about this whole business, since when did I start respecting Canadians? But you sir, deserve it....
@VeloSix
What's FTP? I'm originally from the West of Scotland and know one interpretation, but it's not applicable here.
Remember guys, it's just NOT pro to go out training before 10 a.m.
@wiscot
Functional Threshold Power, in theory, this is the max average power you can sustain for one hour.
This whole article smacks of an early excuse for Keepers Tour form...
@chipomarc
Couldn't agree more. I've been out of sorts with starting our Sunday rides at the ungodly hour of 9.30...