Base Miles

I suppose I should begin by attempting to justify why I would think anyone else would even be interested in reading a blog entry about cycling.  The answer is, I don't really.  Much like any other fairly esoteric interest, it will probably only appeal to a small fraction of the public at large, familiar with the joys and frustrations and endless challenges of the sport.  

Cycling as a hobby and as a sport can be thought of as a graduated system of ever shrinking concentric circles of talent and intensity.  In the outer most ring are those who own a bike and enjoy riding for fun or to get from place to place.  Somewhere in the middle are the middle aged upper middle class nubes who watched Lance Armstrong on the TV and suddenly got the itch to buy a $5000.00 road bike, stuff their paunchy bits into a pair of lycra bib shorts, and wheel on up to their local club ride.  Nearer the center of this universe is a dense mass, a hard core.  It is within this crucible that I live; constantly working to move deeper and deeper toward the center; the peak.  

It is December 27th.  There is about a foot of snow on the ground, and I am already 6 weeks into training for the upcoming race season.  The more you ride and the more you race, the more you realize how unbelievably difficult the sport of competitive cycling actually is.  It is a discipline that rewards intelligence, sacrifice, strength, and above all, Suffering.  The more of each you have or can withstand, the more successful you will be.  That goes for training as well as competition.  

Daily Breakfast - Oatmeal, Egg whites
and Lots and lots of water

Training begins some time around Thanksgiving and continues more or less non stop until the end of your racing season, usually some time in September or early October.  You wake up one day and realize you have put on 15 pounds and 10% body fat.  You haven't looked at a training routine in months, and you realize that there is whole lot of painful work to be done.  It starts slowly.  You begin cutting calories and watching what you eat.  You start with short and lazy trips to the gym or training rides at pathetically low average speeds.  But as the weeks go by and the pounds come off, you go longer, you go harder, you go faster, you suffer more, and you become fixated on reaching that peak.  Everything else kind of becomes background noise.  Your mind becomes more and more preoccupied.  

There is no doubt that cycling is a selfish, selfish sport.  It involves a lot of time, a lot of money, and a willingness to not compromise on many things.  Half measures will not get you through a 100k race, up and over mountains, at speed.  Family members suffer along with you, and blessed is the man or woman who has the support of the people around them.  My wife initially hated me for it, but over the years she has realized that it is a vital part of my life and my happiness and is now my biggest and most valued supporter.  She indulges my strange requests, like a food scale for Christmas, and listens patiently while I blather on about wattage output and romanticize about local hills, that to her, are just hills.  She stands with my daughter at the side of the road during the shorter races each year cheering, "Go daddy Go!", and always encourages me no matter what the result.  It doesn't hurt that she is a trained masseuse either.  For all of that, you love family more than anything.  

Trainer set up in the basement.  Endless
base miles are churned out on the trainer
during the long winter months.

One of the mysteries of cycling is the fact that it can't really be said that it is fun.  Riding for hours on end up and over small mountains, with block head winds and pissed off motorists, muscles searing, and your goal speed or distance always just out of reach is not even remotely fun.  Yet you learn to love it.  There is an undeniable masochistic joy.  Maybe it comes from being pissed off at the world, or from being too stubborn to ever turn away from a fight.  Maybe the suffering it takes to hang with the other hard riders in that hard core gives you something better than fun; something you can't get anywhere else in a world full of duplicity and phoniness.  When you line it up at the bottom of a hill or at the start of a hard race, it is a yes or no proposition.  It isn't at all easy, but god dammit if it isn't fair.  All you need to succeed is to be hard enough and to be willing to suffer as much as it takes to not let yourself down.  

So with another three months until my first race of the year, I will continue on with the dieting, the training, and the dreaming.  It can be a lonely and exhausting process, one that tries your mettle and that of those around you, but the deeper and deeper you go, the harder and harder it is to turn back.  Some day my body will age and my performance will begin to decline.  Maybe then I will start to lose interest in all the hard work and sacrifice.  Maybe I will be more interested in coaching the youngsters coming up through the ranks behind me.  But until then, I'll be fighting and clawing with every piece of grit I've got to grow harder and stronger and faster; to chase down the dream wherever it may lead.