YOU ARE WHAT YOU TRAIN

Our egos are wonderful and villainous elements of our psyche. On one hand our egos give us confidence, courage, and the ball bearings to try and accomplish things we wouldn’t attempt. On the other hand our egos can send us home with our tail between our legs to lick our wounds.

In an earlier post I mentioned riding with the Chico Velo years ago. I started this because I wanted to improve my riding for the cycling leg in racing triathlons. They have a flat fast ride through the orchards on Wednesday afternoons. Appropriately it was called “The Fast Fifty” which originally stood for fifty miles, but evolved into fifty kilometers. I had been training for years, but I was getting mediocre results in my racing. Riding hours by yourself is fine to get the mileage in, but it is difficult to really improve. So I had this bright idea, ride with the young fast guys (I was at least ten years older than most).

The first ride we started out going through town to get to the orchard roads and I thought ‘wow, I can hang with the fast dudes’ that was about the time that rollout ended and I never saw them again. I finished the 50 kilometers by myself. I put my ego aside and let my stubborn, competitive side take over. I kept going back and getting dropped. Well the ego came back the first time I finished with the second pack hanging on for dear life. I was pumped. I then worked my through the second pack and started hanging on the back of the first pack. The joy (ego) I felt the day I moved to the front of the main field to take a pull was priceless. Even amongst the dirty looks and raised eyebrows. I was not well accepted as I was OLD and a tri-geek. In fact, they barely tolerated me. I indeed improved my cycling and continued to ride with the Velo until I left Chico.

I share this story because I just got back from the “Coffee Republic” ride, a fast somewhat hilly ride on Saturdays. I had my butt torn off and handed back on a silver platter. Don’t get me wrong, I had very low expectations and lived up to them. I once again find myself wanting to improve so ego aside and stubbornness in front I hung on as long as I could and rode hard until the finish. I wasn’t last (ego), but not even close to the main field. Most had gone home by the time I finished. They are still young and I am a lot older. In the movie Breaking Away, the “Cutters” are looking down at the school and are complaining that ‘they will always be young’.

Train hard and surround yourself with riders better than you. This is how you improve. I hope to have some training specific posts here soon. We live in a great place to train. I already see complaints about training indoors. Here in Sacramento we can train year round on the road.

I know they will always be young, but I will be at the Coffee Republic coffee shop next week for another dose of ego shattering humility. As Fixedgear Dad says (posts from him coming soon) "Getting dropped is a temporary condition."