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and other cycling philosophy “I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer
now and live the rest of your life a champion.’”
I don't quite hate every minute of training, in fact there is a lot of road bliss to be had out there, but boy there are times when that quote just keeps running through my mind over and over again. "Suffer now and live the rest of your life a champion." That just about says it all. One of the things I've been amazed about is how mental cycling is. I mean, I'm not even a racer, but cycling requires a certain amount of psychology and philosophy -- not in the 'book-larnin' sense of the words, but directly applied to yourself and what you are doing right now -- that I did not expect when I began. Mental toughness? Yes. Here are a few of the things the last three years of cycling have taught me. About the road, about life, about myself. I call it 'road freak' and everybody gets it some time or other. A fast downhill... a long, hot day... riding alone... wind. You get into a situation and your mind starts running these very bad tapes on you. On my very first Hotter n' Hell in 1998 there was a stretch between the 30 and 40 miles where I was out alone on a long stretch of road and my mind just wigged out. There was a lot of wind and I couldn't get above 10 miles an hour and it was hot and I'd lost all of my friends I'd been riding with. I really, really, really wanted to stop. No, I didn't just want to stop. I wanted to die. I wanted to leap off my bike and jump up and down on it. I felt as if small insects were crawling under my skin. I felt as if 20,000 fingernails were scraping down 20,000 blackboards. Inside my head, I was climbing the walls and voicing every self-deprecating comment I could think of. I felt my head was going to explode. And then something inside me said 'stop.' And I recognized that it was not the wind or the heat that was making me suffer -- it was my attitude toward the wind and the heat that was making me suffer. "Yeah, so I'm going 10 miles an hour, it's hot, I may be out here all day, and I don't have anyone to ride with. So what?" Oh. Yeah. So what? And things instantly got a lot better. That was the start of the 'wind is in your head' philosophy. I think I've just about got the wind & heat road freak licked. My traffic road freak, on the other hand, is alive and well, but I am conquering it slowly. I think the first step to beating road freak is to recognize that you are having a road freak. That's not always easy. The freak itself is so absorbing that you can easily devote 100% of your mind to playing that negative soundtrack. LOUDLY. But at some point in the maelstrom hopefully that little voice of rationality will pipe up and say, "hey, this is road freak." Clues include but are not limited to: Tears. Homicidal rage. Suicidal rage. Fear, self-loathing, and loud voices in your head screaming at you. Sometimes you should get off of the bike. I was doing a two day
ride, rainy and slippery as hell both days. I was by myself and there
were a lot of hills and we had nearly gotten taken out the day before by
a big truck. And my mind decided that a big truck was going to come
up behind me and thwack me a good one and I would be left dead by the side
of the road and no one would figure out that I was gone until many hours
later. It was a gray misty day and everything was green from the
rain and I was sobbing my eyes out in fear that I would die any minute
now. Of course, it was not the smartest thing to keep going when
you really can't see worth squat. I should have gotten off until
I calmed down. Instead, I kept biking until I calmed down.
Not quite as good, but hindsight's always 20-20, right?
I think the trick is learning to be OK with whatever guise the freak presents itself in. Being alone. Death by truck. Heat. Saddlesores. Yeah, so I might die today. Nothing wrong with that, after all, we've all got to die sometime. Of course, this is easy to say, not quite so easy to do. When all's said and done, if you don't let the road freak keep you from finishing the ride, you have beat it. Even if you had to get off the bike to scream or snivel or whatever you needed to do. An exchange on the Alaska AIDS Vaccine Ride listserv led me to articulate
what I have come to realize is not only the foundation of my cycling viewpoint,
but also a significant chunk of my own personal philosophy -- at present,
I'm something of a Buddhist without portfolio, whatever that means....
but, anyway, I've reprinted the entire exchange here because, well, it's
one of the more interesting conversations I've had... it dragged something
out of me that I hadn't exactly been aware of. Some of this repeats
the bits about 'road freak' above... oh well, you're getting it all anyway.
In a message dated 03/18/2000 1:11:48 PM Pacific Standard Time, jeffreydean@*************** writes: From: "Jeffrey H. Dean" <jeffreydean@**************> I found this quote about the winds on the Richarson Highway: "The Richardson Highway from Fairbanks to Valdez is extraordinarily
beautiful, paved, and for the most part has wide shoulders.
Hmmmm . . . --- jkblue2@****** wrote:
Thanks for posting this tidbit. Unlike most Chicagoans, I am completely
intimidated by wind. It is THE thing I find impossible to train
Cheers,
-----Original Message-----
From: Crispin Reedy <Crispin_Reedy@yahoo.com Just remember:
Wind is in your head! --- "Jeffrey H. Dean" <jeffreydean@************* wrote:
1. Wind is real, not in your head, as when you go 25 mph with a tailwind and 8 mph with a headwind, without any differnce in energy. 2. That being said, no one is questioning his or her
commitment, even in light of the winds, and so chill out. If someone
expresses factual
Jeff. -----Original Message-----
From: Crispin Reedy <Crispin_Reedy@yahoo.com My friend, I believe you have misconstrued my note. My whole point
with the "wind is in your head" philosophy is that when you are
This is the road that quickly leads to the SAG wagon. And let me tell you, I've been there, done that, got the shirt.
I've had more than my share of negativity and "road freak" for want of
a
However I found that after applying a bit of Buddhist philosophy to
cycling, things got much better. When you take the approach of
Then you will begin to realize that the wind is simply there, and there
is nothing to do except relax, put your head down, get in the
Bicycling has made me a much better Buddhist. And I apologize if my email was perceived as questioning someone's committment,
or as defensive. It certainly was not written in that
Nam myoho renge kyo,
Or, as Milton put it, "The mind is its own place, and in itself / Can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heav'n." hills are your
friends
And I don't think climbing a hill ever killed anyone. Just between you and me, I do suck at hills. Sitting at my desk, writing this, off the bike, I can admit this to myself. I know I suck at hills because most people I ride with can beat me up them. And by the time I reach the top, I'm panting and tired and right at the edge of throwing up. I'm trying to suck less at hills. This year I'm going down to White Rock one day a week and do nothing but climb Flagpole hill. I think that this will help. My friend Max, the Cycling God, says that hills are all about power to weight ratio. I think that means I'm too damn fat. Oh well, you know, when I want to give up quesadillas and pesto and french fries and all that other yummy greasy stuff, maybe I'll lose some weight. Meanwhile, I'm just going to have to live with it. However. When I get on the bike, in my own mind, I am Queen of the Mountain. Worthy of the polka-dotted jersey, you bet. And no matter how many people pass me when I am on my way up the hill, never, never, never do I allow myself to think, "Boy, I really suck at hills." Or if I do think that, I immediately follow that up with a big smile and say to myself, "I am good at hills. I love hills. Hills are my friends." The smile is important. I think it has something to do with endorphins. My favorite things to do while climbing hills
I'm a cheapskate. God, am I ever. Cheaper is always better. I live in a somewhat downscale apartment complex.... I once referred to it as blue-collar, but my friend burst out laughing and said, "Crispin, your apartment complex is no-collar." But the rent's cheap, and I'm pretty lazy, so I'm still there, after four years, even though I could afford better. I always shop at the discount places like TJ Maxx and Burlington Coat Factory. If I go to a mall, I'm always looking for sales. But when I started biking, $700 seemed an exorbitant amount to spend on a road bike. So I got a hybrid. It was cheaper (therefore better), and I wasn't really sure about this whole road bike thing anyway. Three months later, there I was, buying another bike. Or, take the portable bike pump I got. I just got the cheapest one, without really thinking about features, or what a pump should have. When I got my second bike, it had different valve stems, and the little el cheapo bike pump that I got.... didn't switch back and forth. (I know, most of them do, but somehow I managed to get ahold of some odd off-brand that didn't.) So I had to buy another bike pump to go with my new bike. Um, what else have I bought twice? There was some other bike toy or accessory that was destroyed in less than two months, I forget what. And a friend of mine bought two cycle computers because she didn't know what cadence is, and didn't realize that it was a good thing to have. Anyway, slowly I began to learn that... surprise! you get what you pay for. Sure, sometimes you can find a bargain, but you have to do enough research and know enough about the thing that you're buying to realize that it's a bargain. Rather than a rip-off. So I am slowly beginning to realize that it's better to take your time, save up a little money, do your research, and make sure you're getting everything that you really want. Obvious? Probably. But, you know, I was never very good at shopping. I'm not much of a clothes horse, and my main purchasing power during my high school and college years went towards books and records. Not much of a quality issue there. Anyway, I'm sure there's some equally obvious conclusion to be drawn about investing time and concern in things and getting time and concern back out, but you know, this topic's starting to bore me, so I think I'll cut it short.... ha! bliss
Riding with a group is fun. I'm not the world's most experienced rider when it comes to packs, but I've started learning how to draft, and I've started watching how people in packs interact. When I'm in a big group like that, I'm 100% focussed on the people around me and on the road up ahead -- anticipating the way people may go, making sure I don't lap wheels, staying in a good position so if the rider ahead of me does something I have an out. Also, of course, talking to each other, figuring out when I'm going to pull, how we're going to rotate, and so on. I'd like to take a class or a clinic to learn these skills better, but right now I'm just sort of learning by observing other people. Sometimes I'm so focused on the pack, I don't even see the things by the side of the road. Farmhouse? Gas station? I couldn't tell you. This is the feeling of 'flow' that comes when you are so absorbed in something that your sense of self fades and diminishes. Like watching a movie or reading a good book -- you are no longer there, you are so centered in the thing outside of you that there is no you anymore, there is only the movie or the book or the pack. And, for me, the pack is like an action movie -- tense and exciting, and there's always something happening that you need to be paying attention to. But when I'm riding alone, sometimes I get a different kind of flow. A different tempo. There are times when the bike seems to vanish underneath me, and all I am is this point of awareness, moving along the road, easily flowing, part of everything, one with the asphalt and the trees and the bluebonnets on the shoulder of the road and the birds and the sun and the sky and the tall grass. I am the road. And that's the closest I've come to bliss. |