the time of year

To break out the old well read copy of Tim Krabbe's The Rider.

Why now?

Well folks around here have registered for races, started racing even (at bethel or ninigret or where ever). I'm looking ahead to my one token big road race of the year. Yeah laugh a bit, but I've sort of got this love hate relationship with the Battenkill race, i've done it twice in a row and have been left both times feeling like i still have a ton to prove, to myself. I don't have anyone or anything to blame for my finishes the last couple years. I entered a race in a category over my head, under-prepared. Never a good combination in a point to point race like the Tour of Battenkill.

Each time I read The Rider I catch a different bit of it like I'd never read it before. The story never gets old. I know what happens yet the ending still surprises me. I have selective and deliberate amnesia in a way. The same skill that lets me watch a movie again for the who knows how many times and still enjoy it.

I just started reading it but this time it was page 5 that hit me.

Lebusque is really only a body. In fact, he's not a good racer. People are made up of two parts: a mind and a body. Of the two, the mind, of course, is the rider. That this mind has recourse to two instruments, a body and a bicycle - both of which have to be as light as possible - doesn't really matter. What Anquetil needed was faith. And nothing is better for a firm and solid faith than being in the wrong.

That last line says a lot about the mental big of racing. Anquetil may never have won the Tour de France if someone had forbidden him from putting the waterbottle in his back pocket.

Obviously from my Lou Ferigno moment on saturday's ride I don't have the even keel that Friel and Zaruder talk about the pro's having. Phased by nothing, not quick to explode or over-react. The calculating brutal mind of a champ. Often it is my mind that keeps the body from pushing the bicycle as fast as the assembly could go. The bike isn't holding me back at all. And I found myself at my limit on one hill only to strangely feel great heading up the following one. Maybe it is just the body and I'm mislaying the blame on the mind. Maybe if the mind could get my body to train specifically then that would be great. Friel's web log entry from Friday got me thinking a bit this morning about how to best train for specificity in a 65 mile road race. Do you train for specific parts of the race like the hilly sections combined with a good endurance base? Do you just flat out race what ever you can? But then that leads to the lack of specificity since there aren't too many hilly 65 road races to use as prep for the big race. Or just generally go in with what ever you can muster and try to make it work. I've been more successful this year at starting the intensity a bit sooner. Also I'm getting more effective recovery, not pushing on the bike right away after a peak intensity session. Listening mostly to my legs. It seems to work pretty well. I'm still fat and slow but less slow than I was. No doubt my massive feeding over the last two weeks contributed to the added weight, but it was only an increase of less than 2%, could even be water gain. Although I suspect i went into a primitive feasting phase. Now it is time to head back to a primitive fasting phase...

And yes, given the choice between packing a couple figs and a gu, i'll take the figs.

Will I learn anything more this time from reading it? No, probably not. But it is a great frame work to put some mental emphasis on the process needed to focus. I guess it helps that my wife is working towards the PVD 1/2 marathon this year so her natural athletic work ethic is rubbing off maybe a little.

Oh yeah the ride we did with the snake hill drains of death is over here at Brentani's list. It isn't quite exactly that and I added a significant distance by riding in (18-20 miles or so) and we had a bitching headwind in the 15-20 mph range all the way to CT.

I saw this article first linked from Maynard, I read it then found it linked and discussed more over at Beehive

I do like his points, and am not about to try and wade through the 323 comments over on the NYTimes page.

Ihad a few other things rattling around that needed to get out but i'll let them rattle a bit more, maybe getting heavy enough to fall out of the tumbleweed.

heddwch
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