There are few pleasures in life as great as to achieve a goal, to accomplish something that doesn’t come easily. Great lessons are taught through this activity; we learn that it is our determination and not our doubt that defines our limits. We learn that through studied discipline we can cultivate the skills required to work incrementally towards becoming what we want to be.
This is true for our personal, social and professional lives – and any other aspect that I may have left off. But to achieve our goals is usually a rather complicated mess; it requires introspection, it often requires reliance upon others to do their part or at least not interfere with you doing yours, and it is usually rife with hard choices of long-lasting and difficult to understand consequences.
In its most basic form, Cycling provides us a path to discovery in a less complicated model than do our actual lives. We train our bodies, we become more healthy. We become more healthy, we train more. We become stronger, we go faster. We derive more pleasure from our efforts. We experience reward for sacrifice. We associate progress with the pain of an effort. We enjoy Cycling more. We ride more. We become healthier still. We become stronger still. We go even faster. We suffer more. We associate more pain with a greater sense of achievement. And though it all, we discover it that unlike every other walk of life, in Sport we are islands: what we find here is only what we have brought with us.
Eventually, exercising will become training. The activity becomes richer with the application of the discipline that comes with this rebadging. Exercise is something you do regularly but without structure. With training comes a study of your body and how it responds to stimulus. Long rides have a different effect on the body than do short ones. Successive hard efforts have another effect, as do longer and shorter periods off the bike.
Training Properly requires discipline and patience. It means you don’t just throw your leg over your machine and pedal off to ride along tree-lined boulevards. Training Properly means having a plan for each day. It means heading for the hills one day, and the plains another. It means controlling yourself and not trying to set your best time up the local climb because you feel good that day. Training Properly means restraining yourself on a group ride and not joining in on the town line sprints if your plan doesn’t call for it. Training Properly means leaving for a ride despite the rain falling from the heavens and the loved ones whom you leave at home.
Training Properly comes down you and you alone; much can be learned from books and coaches, but the path is yours to walk. The discovery is yours to experience and to shape into what you are seeking. There are, however, some basics to keep in mind. Also keep in mind I’m not a “Sports Doctor”, “Physiotherapist”, or “Smart”. And never take medical or sporting advice from Some Guy On the Internet.
Be patient. Have discipline. Train Properly. Vive la Vie Velominatus.
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@Tartan1749
OMG, those commercials are classics! Remember the nuclear meltdown commercial? "Are you new to the team?" "No, I'm with the tour group. But I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night."
@Buck Rogers
It's the hardest part for me, I love a bit of chocolate so I do. It's another side of the discipline Frank talks of, discipline to go out when it's not nice, discipline to stick to the program and discipline to put the correct fuel in your gob.
@Lister
When you open the 'savings' purse on race-day, make sure you find what you expected to spend! Go ahead and register hard efforts for your race-day psyche -- and find a group that wants to invest big in training. Saving it can often become a bust. I'll shut up now and take my own advice.
Point #3 is tough too. Having just gotten over a nasty bout of pneumonia, it was hard not to go out and ride with the team. The race season started 3 weeks ago, and I just got back on the bike last Friday. Better part of valor told me to wait until the cough had totally gone away, and I'm glad I did, tough as it was. I know I would have gotten sick again riding in the cold air we've had until recently. But it's gonna be 15C tomorrow! No knee warmers, jacket or insulated arm warmers! Bibs and Gillette only.
@frank
Spot on. This was just what I needed, a gentle kick up the 'rse, I've been mentally flabby, a bit anti-V over the last week and haven't been putting in the efforts I'd planned. Once the little people are dispensed with I'll be on the rollers for a solid 2 x 20.
@scaler, thats the hardest lesson I have had to learn, when to rest....
I learned that a couple years ago, and it does help recovery a ton
but never had a pneumonia, so that must be a kicker and must drive you crazy resting
@Buck Rogers
You're thinking of Steampunk's Guest Article: Cutting Weight.
Is there a consensus for training for the (un)expected ?? Race scenarios are (un)scripted. "Races are decided over very small differences." -- (not my quote) Usually my willingness to answer an attack is the biggest difference -- while training. And I agree that there is a subjective line here with training and the group. Which comes first, the training or the group (chicken and egg metaphor) ??
@mcsqueak
Indeed! Thank you!
@scaler911
Yes, I have "the Flu" and have finally kicked the fever that I had had for the last 5 days. Still recovering and dying to ride but will have to wait a day or two I think. Last ride was one week ago. Killing me.
@snoov
Yeah, I am either black or white on these things. I either eat too much or just shut them off completely. I have literally not had a donut since 2008 and a chip of any form since 2010. If I eat one of either of them, I will eat the whole bag/box. Drives my VMH crazy!!! She says, "Just eat one or two? Why this all or nothing?" I truly cannot explain it, that's the way I am with certain foods. Better to skip them completely.
Frank knows my story, but it bears repeating for everyone, as a lesson in Point #3:
After riding an entry-level steel-frame mountain bike on the road for 15 years, I bought my first road bike in July of last year. I was 54 years old at the time, and I figured that I'm not getting any younger, and with a road bike I could ride farther and faster.
I still remember that first ride. I had an ear-to-ear grin--I'd never dreamed that I could ride that fast on a bicycle! I quickly fell in love with road cycling. I would ride an average of three times a week, and by the end of the year, I had worked my way up to confidently doing rides of 50 miles (sorry for miles instead of kilometers, but I'm 55 stinkin' years old, and my brain can only process so much).
In early January of this year, I started getting a little pain in my left knee, which would usually become apparent the day after riding. Now, one that all active people have in common, be they cyclists, runners, skiers, footballers, whatever, is that we don't want seem like wimps, so we've been conditioned to "suck it up" and play through the pain. Which I did. I kept on riding, the knee would get increasingly painful. It got to the point in late January when the left knee was so painful I could barely walk.
I made an appointment to see my orthopedic doctor, who is also a road cyclist (we spent the first ten minutes talking about gear, routes, etc). Based on the X-rays and physical exam, his diagnosis was quadriceps tendonitis, which is considered an "overuse injury." His prescription: 4-6 weeks of rest.
I resigned myself to taking the entire month of February off the bike, which was very difficult, espcially when I'd see other riders on the road, and see emails from my bike club advertising rides that I couldn't do. It wasn't easy, but I kept the promise, and didn't ride at all in February.
I got on the bike again last Thursday, March 1. I also rode on Monday. Let me tell you...nothing is more humbling than going from riding 4-hour, 50-mile rides to riding 1-hour, 15-mile rides. I feel like a beginner all over again. BUT--the feeling of riding and having no knee pain during the ride--and even better--no pain the following morning, is fantastic. I plan on s l o w l y working my way back up to speed and distance, and hopefully by summer I'll be back to where I was.