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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@Cyclops
This deserves to be article in its own right.
Frank's article brings up some really good points. I, for one, have the whole "resting recovery" thing down to a damn science.
It's the "training" thing that has me buggered. Training for what? I don't have anything big on the calendar like the Keepers Tour. Scaler911 and gaswepass have me pretty much convinced to try racing this year, so we'll see how that goes.
However I hate to call what I do "training", since I have no regimented plan I don't think it can be considered that. During the darkest months of winter I used my trainer a lot in order to keep most of the fitness I had gained through the previous spring and summer.
But that was simply so I wouldn't slide backwards.
I think what has kept me from adopting a more formal plan is that I am afraid of turning cycling, which right now is the main thing I "do" outside of work and spending time with friends/family into something with so much structure that I don't enjoy it. Right now I ride when I want, and don't ride when I don't feel like it, which is kind of nice.
However I know that if I were to add more structure I'd be getting more out of myself. Right now I'm leaving potential performance on the table, and it will be a big deal to move beyond that. I have to decide when that time has come.
This is most timely. Most of my training has been indoors with weights recently. Squats suck. They're boring. They're the opposite of awesome. But they're good for me and good for training. They make me stronger. Nice reminder to keep at it for another couple of weeks. Weights twice a week and a couple of shortish rides at moderate pace (today: 50ish km"”outward leg into 45+kph winds). Will taper out the weights soon and increase duration and intensity of rides. My weight is good"”about where it was at the end of last year, but with more muscle and less fat"”but the cardio needs work. Stage two: cardio. Will be ready for a nice Wisconsin Cogal in three weeks, and peaking in time for Ontario & Vermont Cogals in May & June. Vive la vie V!
@motor city
Yes, I want to read an article about cyclops hurting people! What should be call him? The Idaho Icepick? The Butcher of Rexburg? The Powerful Potato?
Oh, I guess reading about the coaching from a pro would be nice as well...
@mcsqueak
Super points that I struggle with as well.
I am back into regular road racing this year for the first time in over 15 years and I have a "plan" and some structure, but with my current life with work, five kids under 11 years old and a beautiful wife who has seen me go on three deployments to the MiddleEast in the last 6 years, it would be too stressful for me to start writing out a specific day-by-day plan as there is no way in heck (still on the no-cursing bandwagon Steamy) that it will happen and will only stress me out.
I get out for, when healthy, four rides a week, plus or minus one, with one being long, one intervals, and two steady or recovery rides for around 200 k's per week. I do train with HR but not power and I love what I am doing. If I were single, I would ride 6 days a week with power, 400 k's and try to be a Cat 2 within the next two years.
As it is now, I already made my main goal of the entire season of getting my cat 4, so now I am deciding if I should try to up my goal and try to make a cat 3 by the end of the season or focus more on getting ready for the Paris-Roubiax cyclo in France in early June and the 200-on-100 in VT at the end of June?
I guess, ultimately, in the end, it's how's having the most Volupte on the bike that wins.
@Steampunk
What? Where? When?
Did I miss this somewhere???
@Buck Rogers
All part of the training, my friend. If you can't curse, that energy will be available for blasting out the V.
This raises a really fascinating question. Does training properly increase one's chances of experiencing la volupté? It would seem that, yes, the stronger and more adept one is on the bike, the more likely to reach that perfect condition. But training, by definition, would seem to establish a series of conditions that would prevent la volupté from occurring.
I must confess that I am very good at training properly off the bike. Weight-training, eating properly, etc. On the bike: meh, I just like to ride a lot of the time. Listening to the inner rhythms of body and machine, and experiencing the ride is often too tempting. The plan is there, but maybe I'm too old to insist on some kind of competitive definition of proper training (I did that for many years as a soccer player). I don't need to race. I have a routine: rides need to fit specific times on specific days and I try to make the most of them. I have goals for the year, but since they are primarily personal ones, logging umpteen intervals or hill repeats doesn't appeal nearly as much as enjoying my time on the bike.
All this to say: an additional step might be added to the list above. "Training properly" is a personal and private endeavor; it should not be interrupted by external forces, but nor need it be shared with others. Training properly requires a silent, hermit-like dedication to improving one's relationship with body, bike, and road.
"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."
This has to be one of the hardest parts of training for me. I've been able to get a nice crew of solid riders to go on regular lunch rides at my office. Most of them are younger than I (in their mid 20's to early 30's) and are some pretty serious athletes in other sports. Inevitably many of these rides turn into hammerfests with each kid trying to out do the other or to set a new PR on one of the many Strava segments during our loops.
There are few things that give my 40 something year old legs more pleasure than dropping to the small cog and riding them off of my wheel while I still can. But now that the summer racing is near and it's time to get serious I have to be a little more thoughtful on these rides. That feeling of angst in watching them power away up a hill or on our finishing sprint is tough to deal with, and I have to admit there have been a few times when I let the moment get the best of me and join in.
The best remedy I have found for this is to have my head handed to me in an early season crit because of all of the gamesmanship during our mid week rides. Usually only takes one of those to set me straight.
@Dino
Wiscot just wrote the entry. I hope it will be up shortly. The short of it: afternoon of Friday, March 30: 80km through wine country west of Madison.
@Steampunk
This was the winter I finally committed to training on the rollers a couple evenings during the workweek. Not only am I riding stronger than I have in a couple of years, the legs have more souplesse leading to more frequent moments of volupté.