Strength can be a fickle thing this time of year, when the training isn’t as consistent as it should be; it comes and goes, sometimes several times in the span of a single ride or even a climb. Like a rosy-eyed dreamer I keep awakening as I train, thrown like a rag doll between a state nearing euphoria and one resembling purgatory.
My mind is what drives me as a Cyclist, it is what allows my to keep going despite the burning in my legs and lungs. It is what pushes me to leave the comfort of my home to climb aboard my bike when it is dark, cold, and rainy. But there are times when the legs won’t go or the body fails in some anomalous way when we are struck by the reality that we are but puppets, pushed and pulled by forces that exist outside outside the jurisdiction of our will.
Whether or not the body fails, the mind can still resist. It can resist easing back. It can resist turning around. It can resist turning the bars to steer away from the extra climbing loop. Giving in is the worst kind of weakness we have in Cycling. With time all the acute reasons why we want to quit will pass; the acid will flush from our muscles, the gasps for air will give way to steady breathing, the cold will leave our bodies. But quitting, and the doubt it cultivates can last much, much longer.
Quitting begets quitting. It wears down your confidence and makes you question yourself. It asks questions of you that you will struggle to answer when the 2am Ghosts of Lost Opportunities come calling. Worst of all, quitting gets easier the more you do it.
Before my rides, I will decide if it is to be a hard day or an easy day; whether I will do the extra loop with the big climbs or look for the flatter roads. Once on the ride, I will shut off the part of my mind that asks those questions and simply shut off the part of my mind that processes those considerations. I will not stop until I am done.
Our strength may be fickle, but our minds are steady.
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@Rom
Mind over matter, that's all it is, if you don't mind the pain then it doesn't matter. The worst thing you can do on a bike is stop when going up hill as that just prolongs the agony, or increases it as you are forced to push your bike uphill!
I am not and never have been into competitive sports and measure my performances against myself , if you can understand that! i thin the is a quite from chris boardman that is something along the lines of when you ask yourself if you can make it to the end at a certain pace the answer should be maybe! If yes then you're not trying hard enough, if no then it's too late and you are destined to grovel like a bastard! At this stage in my life the answer is ALWAYS maybe!
work is the same, as I have no comparators to go by all I can do is be the best I can.
Have I ever mentioned how much I hate iPads for autocorrect, or in the above case, autocorong!
Rom - Interesting your cure includes pseudoephadrine. When playing college sports, I was in the locker room one day getting dressed for practice. I noticed the guy next to me, two years older and with a very liberal approach to what he put into his body, pouring a bunch of Sudafeds into his hand. I asked what he was doing. "Rattlers! They make you feel great."
I only tried them once, when I was definitely having a booze induced Man Flu, and I felt much, much better during the three hours of running around in below-freezing temperatures.
*At that point I didn't realize ephedrine was the common man's speed.
"quitting begets quitting" - After contracting mono while racing in Europe and dropping out of/getting pulled from a bunch of races, it took two years to break the habit of dropping out of races. Now, it's only if I get pulled (rare) or I seriously crash (also thankfully rare) that I'll drop out.
As an aside, my team contract in Holland included a clause that stated that you HAD to quit if you were dropped by the pack, since it would bring bad publicity to the sponsor to have riders off the back. Seriously, in a Kermesse or crit, you'd have to disappear before the start of the next lap. I don't know if that was unique to my team, or indicative of the hardman culture of racing there.
Great article as always @Frank. I've been working really hard this year, in my mind, on the ethos of good summers being made in the winter. I think it's also helped me, although I know it doesn't for all of you, to have a training plan mapped out. It kinda keeps me honest and I have no hiding from the facts if I think about skipping sessions.
Excellent article. On two occasions (both on long climbs, one in a race) I have heard a voice, an actual voice in my head which explained to me how much better off I would be if I would just get off my bike and stop what I was doing. The one during the race even hatched a plan to have me fake a flat tire to save face. Thankfully both times the voices shut up when I was over taken by a chasing group and then was able to keep going.
Bicycling magazine had an article about something like this in the late 80's. We are not wired to do the things we do, but can override our brain's mistaken protective mechanisms (which can take quite active roles in some).
I just wonder what Tom Simpson's brain was telling him on Mount Ventoux.
@unversio
Fuck'in AWESOME verse! I have always loved Isaiah 6:8 but that Romans one ROCKS!
In all the training that I have done in the Army the motto has always been "Mental Toughness". You know, the biggest guys, the most muscled Dudes, are not the ones that make it through the really crazy SF stuff.
It's the wirey guys, the guys that you just cannot kill, that keep coming back again and again no matter how much you fuck with them.
One great story from a friend who did Ranger school (I never went to ranger school) was when they were told one time to gear up, that they were headed out for a 15 mile ruck march in the cold and rain. They all pulled their shit on, formed up and went trudging off for hours and hours through the woods in the rain and cold. Finally they finished the march and did the "rucksack flop" and were all lying there half dead for around 5 minutes when the Ranger Instructor says, "Oh wait, did I dsay 15 miles? Get up, we're marching back right now the full 15 miles". A number of Ranger candidates just quit right there, but not my buddy. Mental tougness in Spades, man.
I always have that phrase running through my mind whenever I think about quitting. Mental toughnes is what counts.
Great article, Frahnk!