Fatigue
Those things in life that are worth having are those things which are difficult to come by; perseverance is made more rewarding by the volume of messages ignored by the mind as we work towards a goal.
Fatigue comes in many forms and is normally framed in negative connotations; weariness, exhaustion – both things to avoid. For a Cyclist, it can carry a range of meanings. We may become weary of riding in the rain, as I normally am at this time of year; stuffing my shoes with yesterday’s newspaper post-ride in the hope that the dry accounting of our current events will somehow render my shoes less soggy the next day. We may become weary as we approach the big climb of the day when we know what suffering lies around the bend. To push on during an effort despite an overwhelming exhaustion that lays bare our spirit and threatens to stop our legs from turning.
But fatigue can be a beautiful thing. The fatigue that registers as a result of the post-ride status check is the gauge by which we measure satisfaction in our work. Even during the ride, we find that fatigue may not always be the sentinel of the Man with the Hammer; even as the wave of exhaustion washes over us, we learn through practice that we can continue or even lift our effort.
My favorite fatigue is the kind that sets in during a long ride; when the body has acquiesced to the mind and the signals of discomfort and pain have stopped being sent. The legs at this point take on an almost anesthetic quality to them, they don’t hurt but they don’t feel either; they have a thickness that, while they lack the punch they have when fresh, allows us to continue to push on the pedals for hours on end.
This happened to me during my most recent long ride. It was a cold, rainy day – cold enough that snow fell at the tops of the two major climbs of the day. The last big climb came at 160km and, while there is no such thing as a flat route in the Seattle area, the roads home lacked the steep grades that characterize our urban streets. The descent from Cougar Mountain froze me to my core. Starting in the snow and ending in the pouring rain, I arrived at the first of the minor climbs on the way home and pushed the button on my left shifter to slip into the little ring. Instead of making contact, my frozen hand slipped limply along the lever and did little more than jiggle the button.
This presented an unusual problem. At this point I was tired after having a piled a load of kilometers in my legs. I was also becoming just the slightest bit annoyed at how cold I was. I swerved dangerously as I experimented with bashing different parts of my hands and arms against the disappointingly stubborn shifter to try to get it to budge. Inanimate objects and I have an uneasy history, and I soon found myself giving it the customary inputs involving profanity and questioning the pureness of its mother.
Having that unpleasant business out of the way, I resigned myself to riding home in the big ring feeling fortunate that my right hand was still capable of shifting so at least I wasn’t riding a glorified single speed. And then it hit me: it was actually quite easy to carry on this way, riding in the big ring. The legs still managed to turn over and I hardly felt a thing as I pushed harder on them whenever the road pointed up. Even a few of the hills on which I struggle to stay in the big ring during my usual training rides seemed to pass under my wheels without giving undue notice.
That sensation of power combined with the heavy fatigue I carried with me distinguishes itself as one that comes only during my longest rides on those days when my form is good enough that the effort hasn’t cracked me entirely. Wholly unlike the seduction of La Volupte, it does bear a vague similarity in its rarity. Powerful fatigue; vive la Vie Velominatus.
Forged thru deliverance. Thanx for proving your merit again.
Nice stuff, Frank. I fixed your second sentence, though:
Awesome write up, Frank! Every time I pull off a new PR distance or ride through crazy conditions I return home feeling as if I’ve notched another mark in the stock of my Big Ring Gun(s), like I know I can do more on the bike the next time out than I did today and yesterday.
I feel like I was deprived of sustaining any true HardMan status this winter due to the extremely mild weather, cushy even for the southern U.S. I never even pulled on winter knickers, much less tights. I think I rode in below freezing temps just once. Very little rain too. The summer should prove to be as hot as at least four hells.
Broken shifter. Oh gosh, I snapped my cable last June in 103*F and had to big ring/small ring is home. That wasn’t much fun. I guess cooking is better than freezing though.
Frank, I also can’t believe you ride the White Slippers in shite conditions. I know, gear is meant to be ridden, but I ride my older Geniuses in bad weather, saving my Ergo2s for good weather. Then again, after a recent rain ride my Dominators feel molded to my foot. And my Ergo 2s have never felt quite that awesome. Maybe they need to be soaked & broken in?
I’m sure you’ve read it, but I have this on my wall above my work desk & thought it fit with the write-up:
“I have always struggled to achieve excellence. One thing that cycling has taught me is that if you can achieve something without a struggle it is not going to be satisfying.”
-Greg LeMan
Amen, Fr0nk.
A bike ride just doesn’t feel like a real ride unless you suffer a bit and are tired during/after the ride.
The last two weeks I’ve been taking it a bit easier on myself while riding as I’ve started to mix in weight lifting to help improve my core/lose more weight, which has left me with legs that are already half-shot by 10 am on Saturday morning.
And even though I am trying to “train smart” (going back to your article from a few weeks ago), it just doesn’t have the same sense of accomplishment as rides where I go up to the top of all the local hills that are within ~10km of my house.
For me, nothing feels better than doing a good climb, getting a bit beat up by it so you have that “oh god this sucks oh god this sucks, fuck I’m already on my 25? Damnit…” as you grind away, then the glorious recovery after you summit. Where once you catch your breath and your heartrate lowers, you actually feel stronger and faster than before the climb. Can anyone explain THAT bit of magic? Truly an awesome part of the sport.
@Ron
If you save your good kit for nice weather in the Seattle area then you only get to use it about 43 days a year.
@mcsqueak
Nicely put. The sign of growing fitness is how quickly you recover. Good morning, today. Already 12c by the time I got out and legs and imagination were ready to take on the steeper three-step climb up the escarpment. At the top of each step, I was pleased with how quickly I was working back up the cassette and how I didn’t let up along the rest of the ups and downs. Short ride, but all-out this morning. Finished with the satisfactory grimace of having gone hard and having more gas in the tank than I thought.
Fatigue to come on some longer rides later this week and next. And that’s a whole other feeling: going out with the intention of meeting the man with the hammer. And hoping you make it home in one piece…
Man… To think I was 2nd guessing my hardness. To make the 13.5km ride into work today at a bone-chilling (for SoCal) 46°. Was the shifter frozen or was it just our bikes and our brains conspiring against us? I swear I heard “Sur La Plauque you frozen sausage-stuffed turkey!!”
VLVV
Mtnbikerfred
@Steampunk
Shit! Gotta get more repeats here in Pittsburgh to keep your wheel on the Cogal! I think King Clydsdale should plan on jaunting up across the border from Central PA for an inaugural century on his soon-to-be new machine.
As Peter Winnen once wrote: Macht in de poten is een heerlijk iets.
Out with the club yesterday (everyone fully rule compliant apart from a pair of furry legs appearing below the three quarter bibs of a man who surely knows better)and took a beasting over three hills (one allegedly 20%) from six guys who obviously never stopped for 10 years or so to get married and/or have pedalwans and who waited patiently on every one for my hot sweaty carcass to crest the top – to make the point one would always drop back to talk me up the hill. Anyway, it being Mothers Day in Scotland I had to head home “early” for the VMH and peeled off after the last effort for a one and a half hour solo effort back to the car. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and hardly any wind – although the early morning had been frosty the mid-morning saw 12 degrees C and those kilometres through Perthshire with the pressure to perform in front of peers gone were fantastic – passed others out for a Sunday twiddle as if they were standing still and me with 70k’s in delightfully tired legs.
“stuffing my shoes with yesterday’s newspaper post-ride in the hope that the dry accounting of our current events will somehow render my shoes less soggy the next day.”
Very clever.
@Tartan1749
Agreed! Ontario Cogal would make a great breaking-in ride for the new steed. As for me, I’m only pleased with the effort in relation to the last, not in some universal definition of “en forme.”
Beauty Fronk! For a cyclist, or any other endurance athlete for that matter, fatigue is pains twin brother. The former is chronic, while the latter is acute. Both can be ignored, but when embraced and accepted they help you achieve the next level of performance by pushing your body past the level of discomfort where your mind tells you to stop. You captured the phenomenon perfectly- well done!
Great stuff and essential reading ahead of the English Cogal. Having spent time recce’ing much of the route I can almost guarantee fatigue!
As an aside I come to the conclusion that there’s a direct relationship with fatigue and how good beer tastes.
Ah, fatigue. For me it’s that place on a long hard route that usually occurs more often when I’m alone. Start switching between hand positions on the bars, moving around in the saddle ultimately ending up in the same position; palms on top of brake hoods, wrists resting on bars, alternating between staring at the front tire (dangerous) and forward. Concentrating on not concentrating on the dull burn in your back, neck and quads. But mostly just lost in the fog of lactic acid build up. So why do I (we) do it? Because that pain is soon forgotten and the next time on the same route, that feeling comes later in the ride, then, maybe not at all. Until you decide to do it faster. Beautiful………
We’ve all been here before:
Excellent write up, and I totally agree. When you come back from a ride not feeling tired you feel you cut yourself short. But when your so burnt out you crawl home that’s no good either.
Just so you know, I’ve been secretly laughing to myself at work as I continue to draw heavy snow in the cascades when I do my travel maps at night, especially considering the Midwest is having such a nice spring (along with the northeast). Minneapolis is running something like 12 degrees above normal on the month. International Falls had broken their record HIGH for the day at MIDNIGHT, and the temperature only went up from there. Simply unfortunate you Pac Northwest people are really suffering in the weather department this year, even Cali got a storm the other day.
Nice work, Frank. Once the ride is done there’s nothing like sinking into the couch with a frosty beverage to revel in that fatigue.
@frank
Well written, and true!
@scaler911
We’ve all ridden the Worlds?
While I can certainly speak to fatigue and the “Thousand Yard Stare”, I am happily deficient in Rule #9 opportunities. Although the CA Cogal route had snow on it yesterday (you can see the road cut upper right):
I stayed down low where it was only 5* and windy. Typical SoCal winter. 30* followed by snow, followed by Merckx-knows-what. PS Nice prose, Frank.
Amen brother. And get yourself a pair of shoe-dryers; MUCH better than newspaper. An essential piece of gear for riding in the rainy northwest.
@King Clydesdale
You know, as much as I’d love a nice spring right now, I am quite pleased by the winter we had down here in Portland. I was able to ride most weekends this whole year without worrying about rain.
Sure that’s changed a bit in the past month, but it’ll get warm soon enough. The first few rides of the year above ~25 c have me suffering heavily and wondering who made the air so thick and hard to breathe.
@mcsqueak
Here’s some unreliable modeling, temperature and precipitation forecast anomalies for the coming months:
No promises, take from these what you will. Sure looks like a warm spring though!
@Ron
A mechanical is one thing – this had nothing to do with my shifter – it was all in my frozen hand. It was useless – never seen that before, but absolutely could not push on the levers. Crazyl.
Couple things on this. First off, they clean up very, very well. I’ll soak them overnight in a bucket of water with laundry detergent overnight a few times a year. For the rest, I do indeed stuff them with newspapers – a trick taught to me by Nico from Fizik – it soaks up the moisture and keeps the bad smells out. Also, I wear overshoes in almost all bad weather – wool Belgian booties in Summer/Sprint/Fall and neoprene in Winter.
Also, shoes are indeed meant to be used, so it doesn’t bother me that they get wet or dirty – and neither condition seems to affect its performance.
Finally, I’m super – SUPER sensitive about my gear – I wouldn’t be able to switch shoes between good and bad weather without getting little pains etc. Don’t know why I’m so sensitive about that stuff, but I’d have to buy two pairs of identical shoes in order to be OK wearing one in rain and one in sun – and even then, I’d struggle with it.
@mcsqueak
I can’t explain it, but I can attest this happens. This is what I think might have to do with that same anesthetic effect. Any time I have any kind of event – for as long as I can remember, my warmup has always involved a full effort to flush lactic acid all though my body. Seems that once that’s been done – and provided I can get a full recovery before the event, I will indeed feel stronger.
I went 15 seconds faster on the Zoo the first time I did it when I was 20 pounds heavier than the second time I did it. The first time, I rode it three times before the race. By the time I did the event, I was totally numb and went faster than this last time when I made sure to save myself and keep fresh. Big mistake. (Granted, this was a 2.5km hill climb – very different from a longer race in terms of how badly you want to singe the muscles to coax out some strength.)
@Steampunk
…and the optimism to believe that when you meet him, you’ll shake hands. Not likely to happen, but hope is a beautiful thing…
@King Clydesdale
Suffering! Ha! Hillarious! We’ve had the best skiing ever! Every day the VMH and I have skied this year, its been powder. 20, 30 or more inches overnight is nothing at this point. Same story again this weekend. It’s been amazing. The trick to weathering the PNW winters is also being a skier. Though I look forward to riding in dry shoes one time soon.
@co-mo
Cool! Thanks for the tip!
@scaler911
Poetry!
@Oli, @936adl
Its not the official post-ride recovery ale of choice for nuttin!
A Merckx brother. Nicely written, as always.
I’ve felt some of that lately. It’s never the guns that make me want to stop, usually the lower back, neck, some other less awesome part of the body. But you only stop when you are done and half an hour later…that wasn’t soooo bad, was it? Jesus I have more than the right amount of dumb.
@sgt
Well, no, of course not. But if you’ve been at this sport long enough, you’ve had that stare a few times I’d bet.
@frank
What’s the Fournel line, remembering Fignon going out for a 300km ride with just a cereal bar a few days before the World Championships? “He went out to meet the Man with the Hammer. If Fignon needs it, just about any clown, like me, can use a blow up too.”
Inspiring as always, and it gives me something to meditate on next time my brain starts nagging me to turn around and go home. I do love the moment when you are totally spent, but somehow your legs can keep turning and continue to numbly push pedals, and it feels like you can keep going for a few more hours, then when you are home and you stop, you know deep in the marrow of your bones you are done for the day. Thanks again for the great writing.
More from Fournel:
I haven’t decided whether that will come pre- or during 200 on 100 this summer, but I suspect it really isn’t up to me…
Enjoyable read that: well crafted to bring memories to the surface for pleasant enjoyment from the comfort of the couch whilst watching the flames in the woodstove. For me, the aspect of the cold weather rides is that is most satisfying is that upon return to home and the gradual realization of “man, that was a bit tough today.”
A favored ride here is a canyon climb of 1000m over 20k (15k from home to start of climb) – especially in the spring to chase the snow line. Left in mid-morning last May under scattered cloud; degenerated to heavy cloud, rain, sleet, then snow. Topped out at Road’s End with a fair accumulation of snow on ground and cooler parts of self. Turned steed around and started return. A bit chilly (akin to your hand not working), exercising mind over wind and weather, accumulating snow and ice – bloody cold and shaking. Return home to warm shower, thawing pain, and tea. Savored both muscle and cold-induced fatigue. Felt great.
Thanks for sparking the memory.
I asked the impenetrable ‘why the FUCK do we do this, Gleg?” question of my mate just yesterday morning at 6.13am halfway up a third repeat somewhere in Sydney.
This thread has gone a long way to answering it – thank you all.
I’d also like to say that I felt a deepened sense of respect and awe for my steed, toward the end of that punishing ride – a tangible sense of falling ever deeper in love with my bike. Lost to it – the whole nine yards.
Nice.
Yesterday we rode in 3C weather with a 35 km headwind. Today it snowed so much the roads were closed by the RCMP. And the wind just got stronger. Mother Nature is a Rule V bitch! I guess I can put the knobbies back on the cross bike…
Oh yeah, it hurts so good… (Yes, I just quoted John Cougar)
@Steampunk
Has there been a Great White Cogal yet?
East Central Alberta in the house…
I wish there were hills where I am – I know I’d curse them, shake my fist at them, hate them – But I know that when I got home and I was tingling all over I’d freaking love them. Ah well, flat, flat, flat, hot hot, hot, for now.
Great write up, really enjoyed.
Well done Frank. Yet again you’ve managed to convey the thoughts of most of us here.
Just re-reading Krabbe and was reminded of this when reading your piece –
“because after the finish all the suffering turns to memories of pleasure, and the greater the suffering, the greater the pleasure. That is Nature’s payback to riders for the homage they pay her for suffering……..Nature is an old lady with few suitors these days, and those who wish to make use of her charms she rewards passionately
@Dan_R
I’m so pale, every cogal I show up at is automatically a Great White Cogal. Hey-o!
@Steampunk
In his book Fignon talks about preparing for the 1988 MSR by completely destroying himself and emptying himself of any reserves of energy behind Alain Gallopin’s derny, the idea being that if you completely deplete the body’s reserves of glycerol and other sciency stuff, it will over stock over 48 hours. It would seem to have worked, he won and talked of a complete lack of pain in his legs.
I’m not convinced it’ll work without a pro sized foundation of base miles so I’m not going to test it on the Keepers Tour. Maybe some other time.
@Chris
@Steampunk
I knew of a Aussie international rider that would fatigue train by going out until hunger flat then turn around and ride home. This would be a 200km+ session.
Must be some method to the madness!
@Dan_R
Ontario Cogal at the end of May. Of course, to call it Great White North would be a bit of a misnomer, since it will be more southerly than the majority of American Cogals organized so far.
@mcsqueak
I see a new V-decal name badge in your future. Something Nibali-Sharky-like.
Chances are that by the end of May, we’ll be in glorious sunshine. I’ll defer to @King Clydesdale’s almanac skills, but I’d say we’ll likely be in the high 20s.
WOAH! A blowup?! That sounds pretty crazy. Love the idea though, will have to try it sometime, maybe a few days before my wedding in June so that my body, mind, & spirit are ready for a new phase!
Interesting though.
The only time I really attempted a “blowup” was before my last cross race of the season, back in January. I did some intervals, which I’ve always refused to do, since I’d never raced before this year. Seems to have worked alright for me since I raced pretty darn well & felt strong in rough conditions.
Not much to say, except great post and great comments. This definitely inspired me to push a little harder this morning, despite some dead legs from a weekend of spreading 12 yards of mulch in the yard (one wheelbarrow at a time).
Frank – that makes sense about the shoes. I have finicky feet as well, so keeping everyone happy about all the kms is important.
And I’m sure it’s been covered (and I likely asked it!) but what is the preferred method for setting the bar angle when you’ve got a compact or slightly slopping TT? With a level TT the idea was to get the drops parallel (or close to it) with the TT. Can be more of a challenge with slopin’ tubes.
@The Oracle
Damn. I’m still living in a Velominati nirvana/dream world. Not married (yet), only a dog & cats, no kids, no yard, no mulch (we rent still). I have no idea what is in store for me when these things start to slowly change. I do have friends who are recently married and have just had children, so I’ve seen the change, but I don’t think you know until it hits ya.
Good riding, Oracle! The mulch be damned!
@Ron
Life won’t change much when you get married, esp if you two are already living together. The first 2-3 years of kid-dom, however, is a different story. Once home, its hard to get away in the afternoon/evenings, so I do my best to work riding into commuting.