I’ll be the first to acknowledge that I’m in lousy shape (and yes, ladies and germs, round is a shape ... rimshot! ) Granted, I don’t know many guys my age and weight who can ride a bike 10 or 15 miles or more and not end up writhing in agony on the pavement, clutching my chest with both hands and doing my best Redd Foxx/Fred Sanford impersonation.
So, I’ve got THAT going for me at least. But on my ride late yesterday afternoon, somewhere around mile 6 or 7, I realized that my biggest obstacle was my own head. That old saw about “mind over matter” is really true when the matter is feeling like your legs just can’t push the pedals down and around one more time, and your lungs want to explode in your chest and then some skinny-minny-clown with lead weights in his back jersey pocket so he won’t get blown around by the breeze whizzes past like you’re standing still and disappears around the corner as your vision begins to gray-out and an annoyingly shrill whistle starts sounding in your ears and you can’t feel your fingers on the handlebars and your mph numbers on your cycle-computer steadily drop from 16 to 13 to 10.3 (I’m going uphill, okay?) and all you really want to do is stop, get off your bike, do a two-handed heave of the thing into the scum-lined cement trough of the nearby Arroyo Seco waterway, sit on the ground and cry until some good Samaritan comes along driving a mobile-masseuse-on-wheels-van and helps you inside to make all the pain and heartache go away.
Where was I? Oh yeah … I was not having a good ride. Especially when a couple of former riding friends (from a few years and a hundred pounds ago) found me huffing and puffing and just barely surviving and decided to ride alongside and grill me for miles about how often I was riding and how many miles was I going to do and why don’t I do more than that and is this how slow I normally ride and … you get the idea. The next accessory going into my tool pouch is a 9mm Beretta.
All that is to say, I’ve learned that you can ride the same route, the same number of miles and one day it will be uplifting and energizing and fill your soul with great hope for a physically fit and mentally enlightened future. And the next day (like yesterday) the very same distance and route can just kick your existential butt and make you want to post your bike on Craigslist as soon as you drag your sorry self home. It’s all a matter of what’s going on up there in that attitude manipulating brain. Call it the “inner game of cycling” if you will. Sure, I have no doubt that, if and when I shed a whole bunch of this extra weight I’m carrying around, I’ll always have those three-some-odd lbs. inside my skull that will play a huge role in how much I do or don’t enjoy any given ride.
In other words, like many other sports, cycling isn’t only about endurance and strength or aching feet or near lethal saddle sores – there’s also a whole lot of it that’s simply all in your head. Ride on.
So, I’ve got THAT going for me at least. But on my ride late yesterday afternoon, somewhere around mile 6 or 7, I realized that my biggest obstacle was my own head. That old saw about “mind over matter” is really true when the matter is feeling like your legs just can’t push the pedals down and around one more time, and your lungs want to explode in your chest and then some skinny-minny-clown with lead weights in his back jersey pocket so he won’t get blown around by the breeze whizzes past like you’re standing still and disappears around the corner as your vision begins to gray-out and an annoyingly shrill whistle starts sounding in your ears and you can’t feel your fingers on the handlebars and your mph numbers on your cycle-computer steadily drop from 16 to 13 to 10.3 (I’m going uphill, okay?) and all you really want to do is stop, get off your bike, do a two-handed heave of the thing into the scum-lined cement trough of the nearby Arroyo Seco waterway, sit on the ground and cry until some good Samaritan comes along driving a mobile-masseuse-on-wheels-van and helps you inside to make all the pain and heartache go away.
Where was I? Oh yeah … I was not having a good ride. Especially when a couple of former riding friends (from a few years and a hundred pounds ago) found me huffing and puffing and just barely surviving and decided to ride alongside and grill me for miles about how often I was riding and how many miles was I going to do and why don’t I do more than that and is this how slow I normally ride and … you get the idea. The next accessory going into my tool pouch is a 9mm Beretta.
All that is to say, I’ve learned that you can ride the same route, the same number of miles and one day it will be uplifting and energizing and fill your soul with great hope for a physically fit and mentally enlightened future. And the next day (like yesterday) the very same distance and route can just kick your existential butt and make you want to post your bike on Craigslist as soon as you drag your sorry self home. It’s all a matter of what’s going on up there in that attitude manipulating brain. Call it the “inner game of cycling” if you will. Sure, I have no doubt that, if and when I shed a whole bunch of this extra weight I’m carrying around, I’ll always have those three-some-odd lbs. inside my skull that will play a huge role in how much I do or don’t enjoy any given ride.
In other words, like many other sports, cycling isn’t only about endurance and strength or aching feet or near lethal saddle sores – there’s also a whole lot of it that’s simply all in your head. Ride on.
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