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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Nice! I just read today that the hour goes forward on March 8th. Damn that's good news here in WI because it means the possibility of rides after work, getting in those short rides to build up some fitness. That fitness leads to longer rides and that will mean, sooner rather than later, I bite off a bigger one than I'm ready for and suffer accordingly. I've done a couple of 80kms this year and was surprised at how well they went. This has instilled some confidence (misplaced, I'm sure) that I'm ready for some 100-120 kms rides in March. It's as if I'm daring the man with the hammer to come out with me. Is it too perverse to say I'm looking forward to renewing his acquaintance?
Same here. Not much riding, shit legs and Het Volk round the corner. This spring is gonna be tough.
http://www.omloophetnieuwsblad.be/nl/elite-men/race/track
@wiscot
not at all, without his visits, how would you know you'd really pushed yourself?
TDU week last month was an interesting example for me, I was leading a tour group around on ~100k rides each day, but because I was designated to only maintain a pace that the group could hold, I still came out of a 700k week with plenty in the tank & feeling invincible.
Skip forward a few weeks & a tough, but manageable, 100k/3,000m ride with the other ride leader from the week drew a visit from the man 70k in. Cue 30km (and a couple of tough climbs) of communing with butterflies as I crawled home, strangely happy that I still knew how to properly hurt myself.
Deep Stuff Frank!
Good to have you back espousing the noble cycling truths.
I am experimenting with training while suffering from the flu. My theory is I can burn up the illness through suffering in the saddle. I am not sure if it works but I do get some temporary relief through an endorphin release. And I'll be damned if the flu is going to keep me off the bike!
@Mikael Liddy
I know how you feel. Did 175k 2 weeks ago and was comfortable the whole way. Following week was wheel sucking 2nd half of 100k.
Frank I hope we get to ride together one day -- and I hope I've made myself to suffer enough before we do.
True words, true words. Damned if you can get non-cyclists to understand the beauty of suffering (and it's inherent benefits). Like any good hypocrite though, I look with scorn on those folks you see whipping themselves in the name of religion yet do the same thing (cycling speaking) to myself on my bike.
The only thing better than making yourself suffer though, is making someone else suffer...
I'm so there with you. Ice everywhere here in NashVegas for the last couple of weeks. Were it not for the trainer and Sufferfest, I'd have no legs at all. Holding on to what form I have with my fingernails.
mmm...mandelbrodt...
Actually a pretty decent--bubbeh approved--energy bar substitute, now that I think of it.
Climbing is gravity's way of telling you you're headed in the wrong direction.