I've posted for a few months now, some of you may have read some of the posts of stories, requests for advice, comments and opinions... I'm still a newbie road cyclist and will consider myself one until my first formal race. I ride for the pure fun of it, and the satisfaction... I ride with a goal of improving in mind... When it hurts, it feels good, it feels healthy and positive...
I ride when I am angry, and when I am feeling good... When I'm at home and fidgety I go into the garage and work on my bike wether it needs it or not... I watch about 1/50th the amount of TV as I used to since I began road cycling, and of that 1/50th almost all of it is cycling related (OLN) or the History Channel.
My wife regularly stares at me in disbelief in the kitchen now and at the dinner table because I am making a conscious effort after years and years to eat more vegetables and fruit and less fatty foods, soda and other junk food, and all of this because I want those extra seconds in my 5 mile interval, and I want to make it to the top of that long climb without panting and falling over at the top...
I think I hit a milestone just last weekend... I picked up Chris Carmichaels book "The Ultimate Ride" and wether you like or hate Chris Carmichael and the whole CTS training phenomena, I'm looking at it more as picking up information and tips and advice everywhere I can... Quite alot is said at the beginning of the book about mental toughness and being strong in the mind and confident... I remember how it said that he had met many cyclists who were steeped in physical talent and yet failed because they were weak in the mind and didn't risk in order to achieve.
Just this last weekend I was on the Ironhorse bicycle route in the afternoon as I always am, and I was riding along at about 18-21mph which is stretching it for me, but I was pushing hard against a pretty decent headwind because I was nearing the point where I was ready to turn for home and I wanted to cap off the mark with a sustained effort.
About 2 minutes into the effort another cyclist in the jersey of a local bike club pulled up along side me and gave me a flat palmed wave and a nod...
It didn't look like he was struggling at all to stay next to me and maybe out of fear of embarassment or even a subtle revelation that I might be better than I thought I was, I relaxed my shoulders... made a supreme effort to stay solid and steady in the saddle with no rocking, and dropped a little lower into my aero position.
He did the same and began to accelerate...
Before his rear wheel got 2 yards from mine I pedalled out of the saddle for 10 seconds until my rear wheel was almost overlapping his on the left.
The whole time I saw the paragraph of words from the book in my mind almost floating in front of my face "To gain confidence you have to risk failure, you have to push or you will never know how good you are or where you need to improve... You might fail often, but you will always learn something, you have to believe you can beat everyone else on the road"
I realized how "cornball" the whole thing I was doing seemed... It was like I was a two bit extra acting out a bad movie script...
He pulled farther in front of me, and I noticed that there was a slight rocking developing in his upper body, and for a moment, he raised up from the aero position as if to stretch something that was hurting him.
At that point I pedalled out of the saddle again and pulled up about even with him...
He looked back every 5 seconds or so, sometimes more frequently... looking ahead their was a high post of some sort next to the trail... maybe about an 1/8th of a mile away...
He shouted out "to the post!"
I responded "yeah"
He REALLY mashed down hard and it surprised me how big an accceleration he made...
As hard as I tried I couldn't seem to generate enough force to keep up with him and he slowly began to pull away...
I got out of the saddle once again while still hanging on to the drops and an image started to build focus in my mind... It was that little animated picture that Vo2 uses in his signature... I'm not sure who the rider in the piture is but all I could see in my mind was that animation, pounding over and over again on the pedals never getting tired and tried to will myself to be that...
As he pulled a little farther out I swung in directly behind him, and momentarily drifting to his right, I noticed that the sound of the wind suddenly dropped off significantly... At that point I pushed as hard as I could and was able to maintain my distance...
I moved slightly farther to the right and the wind noise returned with a rush of sound and he pulled a bit farther ahead...
The post was only about 100 yards away now and I madly tried to get back into the area of dead air just to his right and behind... He was looking back every 2 or 3 seconds now But I was pushing so hard all I could do was stare at the ground...
He started pulling away even more and I started to really let loose with a kind of barbarian yell looking for anything more I could dig up.
When he passed the post I was about 10-15 yards behind... and I drove another few yards past the post before I think I let up...
He was already coasting and looking back and I caught up to him quickly as I began to coast as well...
He held out his hand and I shook it... He seemed almost as destroyed by the effort as I was and he just said "good.... good..."
We rode on liesurely for another hour or so before we went our seperate ways... We talked about a lot of things, training, how we got into cycling, wives, bike clubs in the area etc etc...
But to be honest... I remember very little of that...
I just keep seeing that little man pumping away on his bike in that animation, never tiring, and how it felt to not get left completely in the dust by someone who I would have imagined 6 months ago was many times better than me...
I think I reached a milestone of some sort... I'm not certain what it is, but it feels good...
Thanks for listening to me rant...
Feanor
I ride when I am angry, and when I am feeling good... When I'm at home and fidgety I go into the garage and work on my bike wether it needs it or not... I watch about 1/50th the amount of TV as I used to since I began road cycling, and of that 1/50th almost all of it is cycling related (OLN) or the History Channel.
My wife regularly stares at me in disbelief in the kitchen now and at the dinner table because I am making a conscious effort after years and years to eat more vegetables and fruit and less fatty foods, soda and other junk food, and all of this because I want those extra seconds in my 5 mile interval, and I want to make it to the top of that long climb without panting and falling over at the top...
I think I hit a milestone just last weekend... I picked up Chris Carmichaels book "The Ultimate Ride" and wether you like or hate Chris Carmichael and the whole CTS training phenomena, I'm looking at it more as picking up information and tips and advice everywhere I can... Quite alot is said at the beginning of the book about mental toughness and being strong in the mind and confident... I remember how it said that he had met many cyclists who were steeped in physical talent and yet failed because they were weak in the mind and didn't risk in order to achieve.
Just this last weekend I was on the Ironhorse bicycle route in the afternoon as I always am, and I was riding along at about 18-21mph which is stretching it for me, but I was pushing hard against a pretty decent headwind because I was nearing the point where I was ready to turn for home and I wanted to cap off the mark with a sustained effort.
About 2 minutes into the effort another cyclist in the jersey of a local bike club pulled up along side me and gave me a flat palmed wave and a nod...
It didn't look like he was struggling at all to stay next to me and maybe out of fear of embarassment or even a subtle revelation that I might be better than I thought I was, I relaxed my shoulders... made a supreme effort to stay solid and steady in the saddle with no rocking, and dropped a little lower into my aero position.
He did the same and began to accelerate...
Before his rear wheel got 2 yards from mine I pedalled out of the saddle for 10 seconds until my rear wheel was almost overlapping his on the left.
The whole time I saw the paragraph of words from the book in my mind almost floating in front of my face "To gain confidence you have to risk failure, you have to push or you will never know how good you are or where you need to improve... You might fail often, but you will always learn something, you have to believe you can beat everyone else on the road"
I realized how "cornball" the whole thing I was doing seemed... It was like I was a two bit extra acting out a bad movie script...
He pulled farther in front of me, and I noticed that there was a slight rocking developing in his upper body, and for a moment, he raised up from the aero position as if to stretch something that was hurting him.
At that point I pedalled out of the saddle again and pulled up about even with him...
He looked back every 5 seconds or so, sometimes more frequently... looking ahead their was a high post of some sort next to the trail... maybe about an 1/8th of a mile away...
He shouted out "to the post!"
I responded "yeah"
He REALLY mashed down hard and it surprised me how big an accceleration he made...
As hard as I tried I couldn't seem to generate enough force to keep up with him and he slowly began to pull away...
I got out of the saddle once again while still hanging on to the drops and an image started to build focus in my mind... It was that little animated picture that Vo2 uses in his signature... I'm not sure who the rider in the piture is but all I could see in my mind was that animation, pounding over and over again on the pedals never getting tired and tried to will myself to be that...
As he pulled a little farther out I swung in directly behind him, and momentarily drifting to his right, I noticed that the sound of the wind suddenly dropped off significantly... At that point I pushed as hard as I could and was able to maintain my distance...
I moved slightly farther to the right and the wind noise returned with a rush of sound and he pulled a bit farther ahead...
The post was only about 100 yards away now and I madly tried to get back into the area of dead air just to his right and behind... He was looking back every 2 or 3 seconds now But I was pushing so hard all I could do was stare at the ground...
He started pulling away even more and I started to really let loose with a kind of barbarian yell looking for anything more I could dig up.
When he passed the post I was about 10-15 yards behind... and I drove another few yards past the post before I think I let up...
He was already coasting and looking back and I caught up to him quickly as I began to coast as well...
He held out his hand and I shook it... He seemed almost as destroyed by the effort as I was and he just said "good.... good..."
We rode on liesurely for another hour or so before we went our seperate ways... We talked about a lot of things, training, how we got into cycling, wives, bike clubs in the area etc etc...
But to be honest... I remember very little of that...
I just keep seeing that little man pumping away on his bike in that animation, never tiring, and how it felt to not get left completely in the dust by someone who I would have imagined 6 months ago was many times better than me...
I think I reached a milestone of some sort... I'm not certain what it is, but it feels good...
Thanks for listening to me rant...
Feanor
