Well this has been quite a ride (pun intended) so far. The cold weather has been nothing but relentless and punishing for training and I've been putting in more hours indoors on the trainer than I care to admit. The days becoming perpetually shorter makes the window for riding during the "warmest" weather tricky, especially around here with so many schools if you find yourself caught out round about 3:15 pm, you have no hope of finishing your ride in solitude. Oh and brrr, did I forget to mention it's cold as hell?
I have officially hit the point of winter training known to some as "the grind." Unbeknownst to many this is a significantly different grind than one experiences at work or with other activities with which they pursue. When you find yourself inside of the grind with cycling it usually has to do with sub-freezing temperatures, slushy rain, wind and the inability to maintain body heat which in turn begins the complete shut down of your body. Here is the difference though, you are still 30 miles from home and have no other option but to keep pushing onward. If you've seen the movie Finding Nemo, you quickly resort to the mantra "just keep pedaling, just keep pedaling, just keep pedaling." After about 100 rounds of repeating yourself, you slap that crap out of you because you were quoting a Disney movie on a miserable training ride and start to seek other sources of inspiration. "If I can just push it for 10 minutes, then I'll recover for 2 and go again until I get home." Or you start to have a running commentary in which Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen are giving a play-by-play of your epic solo breakaway. Either way this is miserable and you just need to get home so your water heater bill can continue to be astronomical for the months of December & January.
What makes this grind different from your standard work grind is that you have no other option but to keep going. On top of that you have to think about what your goals are and what steps are necessary to reach them. Today I cut my ride short by 90min because conditions were getting to be too uncomfortable (remember those fun metal posts in my face?!? Yeah I sure do). But my goals for this 2014 season are to win races, so once I got home, it was another 90 min on the trainer to wrap things up (it wasn't pretty but I got it done). All of this work is in hopes for this road season to be promising with many wins and top placings, and that payout will be well worth it.
I have officially hit the point of winter training known to some as "the grind." Unbeknownst to many this is a significantly different grind than one experiences at work or with other activities with which they pursue. When you find yourself inside of the grind with cycling it usually has to do with sub-freezing temperatures, slushy rain, wind and the inability to maintain body heat which in turn begins the complete shut down of your body. Here is the difference though, you are still 30 miles from home and have no other option but to keep pushing onward. If you've seen the movie Finding Nemo, you quickly resort to the mantra "just keep pedaling, just keep pedaling, just keep pedaling." After about 100 rounds of repeating yourself, you slap that crap out of you because you were quoting a Disney movie on a miserable training ride and start to seek other sources of inspiration. "If I can just push it for 10 minutes, then I'll recover for 2 and go again until I get home." Or you start to have a running commentary in which Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen are giving a play-by-play of your epic solo breakaway. Either way this is miserable and you just need to get home so your water heater bill can continue to be astronomical for the months of December & January.
What makes this grind different from your standard work grind is that you have no other option but to keep going. On top of that you have to think about what your goals are and what steps are necessary to reach them. Today I cut my ride short by 90min because conditions were getting to be too uncomfortable (remember those fun metal posts in my face?!? Yeah I sure do). But my goals for this 2014 season are to win races, so once I got home, it was another 90 min on the trainer to wrap things up (it wasn't pretty but I got it done). All of this work is in hopes for this road season to be promising with many wins and top placings, and that payout will be well worth it.
Living like a monk is tough enough but when you add nasty Oregon weather, it makes the grind that much more uncomfortable. It's only December and the season will be starting in a few months. I'm still building fitness and increasing my volume, the mental game is still prevalent and icy conditions while descending are still touch and go. Somedays (or weeks) aren't as good as others but I will get there. This week's forecast calls for rain and above freezing temperatures, 14 more hours in the saddle, I will get there.
See you next week.
-Andrew-
See you next week.
-Andrew-