Update: Training and Events

It's 80% `time' and 20% 'cheap Scot.' 

I've just had to bite the bullet and recognize that I'm not willing to take the time away from other areas of my life for the purposeof training for the spring schedule of events I've lined up. 

I prepared a spreadsheet of cycling training, events, miles travelled, time spent driving, cost of food, etc., for the 6 weeks of training and events from April 17 to May 22nd and came up with a cost of $ 1,427, 2,823 miles travelled, consuming 62.1 hours of driving time and 249 hours of time training and racing on the bike.  None of this includes the many, many hours of reduced energy and sharpness I need for my family and work. 

So, I'm going to ride from my house in Chicago on the least dangerous roads as often as possible.  I may participate in the Balltown Classic. 

With the rest of my time I'll devote to family, my work, getting the house ready to sell, showing the house to prospective buyers, packing up to move to AZ no later than July 15th, and finalizing the renovation plans for our house in AZ. 

Better to do important things well than to do them poorly.

  

Talktalktalktalktalktalktalk. And more talk.

I used to belong to several bike listserve discussion groups.  I quit a few and got kicked off a few.  From one precious list I both quit and was later banned.  Sort of proud of myself for that.

Its been months since I surfed these groups so I just finished checking them out again. 

Vapid. 

Empty. 

Nothing there. 

The same few guys arguing the dimensions of the head of a pin and willing to sell their mothers to prove it. 

I was bored, I guess. 

I guess they are, too.

Angry

After a long cold winter, and committed to not making things even more depressing with insane indoor training ... along comes the slow start of spring's warm and agreeable weather. 

Last September I rode 360 miles in 24 hours and felt great afterwords.  Today I rode 61 miles in 4:40 and feel twitchy, deeply fatigued and ... angry.  Angry that I have to climb this painful wall of getting fit again.  Takes months just to approximate the fitness I had last year.

City - Silvio

Getting out of Chicago, the grim isolation of winters.

Anger is a good source of motivation.

I'm very, very motivated!

Pacing, restraint, planning, no-small-goals ...

This blog is called the `Training Blog' for a reason.  I'm fortunate to be associated with a group of cyclists known as the Big Dogs Ultra Cycling, who, in turn, are part of the Ultra Midwest, LLC.  Ultramidwest Link.

If you've gone to the websites above you'll note a member log of daily mileage, etc.  You'll see names of some of the worlds most accomplished and motivated cyclists.  At the Ultra Midwest website you'll note the impressive series of endurance and racing events organized and directed by Joe Jamison and Dave Parker (and many, many volunteers). 

Many of us Big Dogs are `aspirational.'  That is, we aspire to accomplish our best results while we balance life's other demands and passions.  Many of us are `inspirational.'  That is, we've individually accomplished exceptional cycling feats.  And then the majority of us keep a healthy discipline of doing our best to stay fit and use Joe and Dave's Ultra Midwest events as goals and benchmarks. 

Ultracycling is an addiction.  Certainly there are articles and psychological profiles that describe the `driven' commonalities of ultracyclists.  As a psychologist the best I can come up with is `they're very different, one from another; and they're very similar in that they are kind of crazy.' 

I am ramping up my training now that the weather has broken and returned home today after a windy 40 miles in 2 hours and 40 minutes.  Entering my home my wife said "And how was it?"  I was aware of a sense of grave mischief in my response, with a restrained intense smile "Very, very real!" 

And I think that that sense of `real' is the source of our driven motivation to ride for hour after hour, in all sorts of weather, alone most of the time, aware of fatigue, pain, and myriad other perfectly good reasons to stop! 

All day and every day, just beneath my focus on work, finances and family, there is that smoldering consciousness of the bike, the road, training.   These are anchors around which I allocate my energy, my daily chronology.  Everything becomes linear as I move the pieces of the `plan' for this or that cycling event and challenge. 

• Three months and counting before I can ride the bike out my front door and into mountains, deserts and plateaus. 
• Three months and counting before I can schedule a typical training day as being 60 miles and 6,000 feet of climbing. 
• Three months and counting before the `Training Blog' spawns a `Performance Blog.'