I should know better by now, but I did it again. After taking a mid-July break and spending August training hard and racing close to home in races that I wasn’t emotionally invested in, I capped the road season with the Green Mountain Stage Race and Univest, theoretically giving myself all the form I would need to sail right into a successful ‘cross season. Ok, so far so good. But my results the last few weeks have been anything but stellar, in fact they have been arguably worse than my results from this time last year, which weren’t great, either. So what did I do wrong? I got greedy.
Following Univest I continued training in an effort to get just a little more form out of my tired legs and a Central Nervous System that was begging for mercy. At the end of that week, on 9/20, I raced and won a small, local ‘cross race, and I felt really good. Actually, I felt really good, but I wasn’t satisfied, I wanted more.
Like many of us who court failure and disappointment as a hobby, I sometimes find myself engineering said failure behind my own back, interesting really, but that’s another article. I know better than to flog myself with more training after having a good race, really I do. But the ego is a mighty beast and requires much in the way of care and feeding. What if I only felt good in that little race because I rode alone the whole time? Nobody was pushing me, so I was probably faking it, and besides it was a small field. More accelerators, more 3×15 sweet-spot intervals. More. And would you believe I was tired when I got to Vermont the following week for my first UCI races of the season? Yes, you would. But did that stop me? Heck no!
Sure I took it “easier” the week before Gloucester, but I wanted to be just a little faster, just a bit. So despite encroaching teaching responsibilities and life stress, and despite my sleepy body asking me to settle down for a bit, I forced myself into another round of workouts. And guess what? I was tired at Gloucester, too. The first day in the mud was fun, but drained me completely of any energy I had left. The second day, when it was dry and beautiful, I wanted to go to sleep during the race. I thought about work, I thought about my girlfriend, I thought about being tired and writing about it in my column here, and I thought about how cool the draw-bridge in Gloucester is. I didn’t finish the race.
So I went home and rested, right? Well, mostly right. Last week was a real exercise in jihad for me, as my productive and self-destructive selves warred for control of my soul. Mostly I didn’t ride bikes, but I did do one workout, and one run, and a few easy spins and…it was still just a little too much. Providence was better, but still not good. I’m racing like a goon, and I deserve it.
This week? Not a damn thing. It’s Wednesday and I don’t even have wheels on my bike yet. Yesterday I re-glued a tire but I haven’t even emptied out my duffel from the weekend, haven’t done my laundry. Instead I have been meeting deadlines, preparing lesson plans, getting enough sleep and stroking my CNS like it was a kitten. Today I’ll ride a mellow 2 hours, tomorrow 1 hour, Friday openers. And how will I feel in Toronto? Hard to say, but I can tell I’m getting twitchy already, and showing up at ‘cross races excited and wanting to go hard is more than half the battle. I don’t have enough energy in my body or my brain to get pumped for training during the week and then stay pumped to throttle myself for an hour both days on the weekend. So for now I’m working on life, and I’ll let the races come to me. See you out there.
