Training isn’t always sexy or romantic
“Dude, your feed… no riding?” This is how it started, and it ended with a round of friends (my official support team, as it is) agreeing that I needed more riding and less not-riding in my photos and stories of the BCBR training progress to date. Up to now most of it looks like this:
Or maybe this:
What people really expect is more of this:
As you prepare for an epic mountain bike race people expect pics of jumping gaps, defying gravity on berms, and getting selfies while you manual down a rock face. At least this is how it feels as the poor sod training for an event and letting people down with the mundane aspects of getting the body up to speed so you can get the bike up to speed. Sadly, it gets as bad as this:
And then you start to doubt your own preparation regime and think maybe everyone is right and you’re the only one not in on the joke. What are you doing with weights and trainer intervals and yoga matts? Miles in styles for finishing with smiles, right??
And so here is a lesson in the making, of what we won’t know for sure until July 16 2016 and completion of the upcoming BCBR event, but let the record show: It is a long road to changing your body, lifestyle, and state of mind to meet and execute an endurance goal. At least I think so because i’ve never done it before and can’t be sure. But the key is to be focused on what you want to get out of your chosen adventures and do the work required to meet those goals. ‘Work’ is the operative word here and it was all that fun ride-around-non-work that got me into trouble in the first place as lazy physical imbalances happily settled in to this middle aged frame.
Here’s a thought experiment: Would you rather merrily ride around in the bush with friends or sweat alone focusing on things that your body isn’t very good at? The first, of course, presuming you are a cyclist and didn’t find this blog by unfortunate accident. But here is another question: Those things you don’t immediately enjoy, could it be that they are the very things that require attention to really improve physical performance? As a personal example I have always hated doing situps. Leg extensions — sure load on the weight! — but I’ve always hated core work. I suck at it; it hurts. So a few years goes by and what do you know, back problems start to pop up. Ignoring the ‘work’ will eventually catch up with you. For me, this whole bike race episode is just a way to force a reset on things that have come out of balance like sleep, diet, exercise, and having more fun.
I get this from well-meaning critics: “You’re just using a 10lb kettle bell? You’ll never progress.” Okay fair enough, but it depends what your goal is. If your goal is muscular hypertrophy (gettn’ big, dude) then yeah you’ll need to amp up the weight progressively. But if you are trying to stimulate cumulative fatigue, not so much.
I have three goals for my training during these 12 months (July ’15 — July ‘16):
- Rehab a back injury
- Develop balanced muscular strength
- Ride my bikes more
The plan of attack is pretty simple: Take what’s weak and work the crap out of it.
This brings us back to the catalogue photos of people shredding on bikes in contrast to how my last 6 months have gone. A photo essay of my October-November campaigns would be really disappointing which mostly involved laying on the floor of an empty gym making imperceptible movements as I rebuilt my core one pelvic breath at a time. It was weak so I worked the crap out of it, in the way I felt I needed to, not to have fun in the moment but to achieve the long term goal of rehabbing a back so I could advance to greater strength training so I can ride more. Smiling, because I’m strong and pain free.
So, what does training really look like? This:
It’s usually 6:30 in the morning, lights dim or off, or worse — on full, with winter rain outside and a chill to the basement air. A bike sits on a trainer. Then you start to systematically break down your body. Quantifiably. There’s nowhere to hide as you assess current abilities, what you need, how your body responds, breaking points, nutrition needs, physical thresholds, mental limits, recoveries. It is sobering to hit a wall, but measuring the success of your training to break through it is fulfilling.
Training isn’t always sexy and romantic like the shoe ads. It is personal and contemplative, physical and substantial, painful and exhilarating. The joy rides will come, but so must the training basics. All in balance.
I agree the pics of biking are way cooler though!
