the tao of cycling: patience

Thursday, March 29, 2012

patience

it's that time of year again when I need to dig down deep and find, within, some patience.

like most everything in life, cycling is cyclical. (that makes me smile.)
every spring when the weather turns nice we ride, we ride more, we ride longer and longer, we ride harder, and guess what? we get better.

and then the season ends, we back off, we ride less, we ride shorter, we go indoors and do intervals, our total saddle time is cut by up to half.

winter happens,
spring appears,
and the cycling cycle begins again.

last weekend gave us 2 incredible days in the the 70's, and of course, most of us who love to ride hit the road. the cycling cycle has begun again.
which is the reason I need to dig deep and find the patience to let myself build back up to the place I was last fall.

saturday some biking buddies and I rode up to brighton, and it was hard-hard-hard. I was at the top end of my anaerobic zone (okay, ventilary threshold) for a good half of the ride, which means only slightly less than an hour. this is a ridiculous place to spend an hour, and it hurt. but if I'd gone any slower I would've fallen over sideways.

not really, but I was the tail end of the 5 of us, and I didn't like it. I had to at least keep number 4 in sight.

so instead of being frustrated, I need to be patient.
I need to remember that it's only march; I need to remember that the first big climb of the season is always painful, difficult, ridiculously high heart rate the entire time. I need to remember that this is only a phase; I need to remember that this will change.

patience with myself.
faith in myself.
trusting that I will work through this and get better.

there is a time to sow, a time to reap. a time to lay fallow, a time to be fertile. a time to read on the couch, a time to work. a time to spin indoors, a time to remember the delight of outdoors. a time to eat, a time to relax, a time to be grateful, and my favorite,
a time to dance.

spring brings the cycling cycle back to the time for patience, faith, and trust.

because the thing about cycles is that they're cyclical, predictable, faithful, dependable; and if they move quickly enough, they create this really cool thing I call

swooping.

see you out there!

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the Male Ego

The other day I was coming down a canyon in my drop bars (two years ago I would have said, 'what's a drop bar?'), working hard, when I came up on two guys who were also heading downhill but at a more leisurely pace. I passed them, said hello as I did so, and pulled back into the bike lane. a few minutes later they went flying past me, faces looking dead ahead, not a single bit of acknowledgment that I even existed on this planet let alone was involved in and enjoying the same sport they were.
I have to attribute this to the male ego. what else can it be? now I know we all have egos, myself included. and mine even shows its ridiculous little head once in a while, or perhaps more often. but the difference between mine and say, those of certain men on bicycles, is that I KNOW mine exists and I can LAUGH at mine. I know my ego was quite excited to pass those guys, and I could also smile because I knew if the men had really been working like I was, they would have kicked my butt down the hill.
I think I pissed them off.
and I'm sure I will be sharing with you much more of my thoughts about the male ego . . .

a little history

I was married, and I had a mountain bike which I rarely rode. we separated, I moved out, and four months later someone stole my bike. the next spring, 2005, I bought myself a new mountain bike. I rode occasionally, and in april 2006 I rode in my first century, the Cactus Hugger in St. George, Utah. I made it 54 miles on that mountain bike, and it took me about 6 hours. I think that included the rest stops where I prayed that someone would steal my bike again . . .
in june 2006 I started riding my mountain bike five mornings a week, a 45-55 minute loop that was intended to be all about exercise. and what I found was that I loved the quiet, peaceful morning full of bird chatter and barely breaking sunrises. by that fall I was hooked, and began considering the purchase of a road bike. I rode up emigration canyon for the first time that Labor Day of 2006, panting and plowing along on my trusty (heavy) bike, and a month later I was the proud owner of my own road bike: I had become a two-bike girl!
a 17-week-long "power camp" over the winter and a handful of new friends kept bicycling front and center in my life, and when spring of 2007 rolled around I was ready to hit the pavement. I rode my first century the end of april, when I again went to St. George and completed that Cactus Hugger. it took me about 7 hours, but this time I rode the entire 100 miles with about 9300 feet of vertical gain. woo hoo!
I started riding canyons around our area, emigration and millcreek, city creek, big cottonwood, little mountain and big mountain, and once--yes, only once--little cottonwood.
then in september of 2007, I rode from Logan, Utah, to Jackson, Wyoming, in the slightly infamous LOTOJA race. I rode, I did not race. and I completed the thing, crediting my good training buddies, the incredibly perfect weather, my support team, and an amazing convergence of all things positive in the universe.
I put in about 3500 miles last season, and as of today, july 19, 2008, I have about 1700 in, adding to it every day.
I have again signed on to ride the LOTOJA race, and my goal is to have just somewhere near as great a ride as I did last year. oh, and to have someone fun to talk with along the way as I got incredibly bored last year . . . star valley is still a nightmare scene in my biking memories . . .
and here is a picture of the machine that has helped me reclaim my life.