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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@ChrisO
Noooo - I still feel terrible about that day.
@Chris
This looks like some kind of training super lab. Are domestiques and soigneurs included in this?
@VeloSix
Unfortunately there aren't any domestiques, it's indoor training no matter how shiny it looks so at the end of the day you're alone on that front. The set up is aimed at making your time in there as productive as possible so the bikes are set up to your measurements (including personal saddles - that's got be worth 5 watts) in time for you to hop on.
As for soigneurs, whoever is running the session will fill bottles and adjust the fans etc. Shoes, shower gel/shampoo and towels (but no massages) are also all provided.
There are a bunch of coaching options as well as sessions that are 45 minutes on the bike followed by strength and conditioning.
Shane Sutton had a hand in setting it up (or is at least paid for putting his name to it). Its not the cheapest by my firm contributes enough to cover half the year.
@Chris
I've seen some other set ups like this, be it Instagram, Facebook, what have you.... A future relocation for my job is moving me 450 miles north.. So I see my winter outdoor riding being greatly diminished. Maybe one of these super labs is in my future. Hopefully there is some booty I can find from my company too, as this cannot be cheap at all.....
@Teocalli If I was allowed to use an emoticon I would have. I'm not a big believer in fate or any guiding hands but I am a believer in trying to take what happens and make the most of it.
If nothing else one has the opportunity to learn something about one's self, good or bad.
On a personal level I've had nearly 8 weeks at home - the longest I've been with my family for seven years - and it has made me realise how far past my shelf life I am in Dubai. I've got to do something to get out of here.
On an athletic level it's given me a challenge I would otherwise never have had. Unless you do different things you never learn, so I will learn what it is like to come back from a serious injury.
I've also learned that there is pain which a hundred intervals doesn't come close to. Hopefully I can put that to good use.
So, odd as it sounds, I don't actually look back on it as a bad thing. It was just a thing.
@VeloSix
Rafsanjān? I'm not sure they'll have anything like that there.
@Chris
I'll be working in DC, but commuting from south of the metro area.
@VeloSix
Haha, I misread your last one as one of @ChrisO's posts! I'm sure there'll be something similar there.
Athlete Lab is just round the corner from my office in London which is one of the attractions; I can go in during the day or after work rather than waiting till I get home after a two hour commute when I'm often too knackered to motivate myself well for a roller session.
@ChrisO
Thanks for that. I know what you mean about being away. Some years ago I found I was a stranger in my own house as a result of constant travel at work, that directly lead to us taking a series of winters out, teaching Adaptive Skiing in Colorado. Probably without the kick that I got from the work situation I would never have taken that step that lead to something I will always value. That and the mortgage on the condo we bought out there.
So I could always to teach you to ski....................
@Chris
Kazakhstan... very good labs for make cycling champion yes no problem.