Oh Yeah, Now I Remember...

I'm always amazed at how quickly I forget seemingly imperative, critical lessons. After a stint away from triathlon, I had forgotten the most important thing I have ever gained from swimming, biking, and running. I was fortunate enough to be reintroduced to why it is that I do whatever it is I want to do... Some people "ride to live" others "live to ride." I subscribe to the latter.

I love the internal struggle that rages between my mind and body when I am riding on the edge, the edge of fatigue, pain, and suffering. I love (and hate) to enter the "chamber" where a fierce fight of reason versus muscle power rages, a place where breathing becomes sounds of painful anguish and muscles burn with an insurmountable amount of accumulating "H" ions.

I have learned more about myself while riding my bike than any other situation. I have seen my inner strengths on long rides, races, and steep climbs, moments in which my muscles were conveying "stop this hurts, we can't hold this edge anymore," but my mind countered with, "shut your mouth and keep pedaling, we're in the chamber now and you'll listen to me."

It is on my bike that I have met with a version of me I hardly ever see, a version that is 100% fight (vs flight). A version that does not listen to reason, a version that has no doubt in my ability to do what I am about to do, a version that harbors no inhibition to simply let the pace rip and see who's left at the end" (doesn't always work, I've self detonated dozens of times doing it, and no matter how fast I ride someone will always ride faster, but it can pay off big)

I crave the feeling of taking race elements (racers, hills, wind, rough road) as direct personal slights to me. Personal slights that fuel a feeling to creep all the way up on my saddle and channel every ounce of frustration I have ever felt into my bike's crank arms. Every ounce of effort comes out in circular crank turning bursts of a precisely controlled bleed-off of animalistic simplicity...the race waits for no one, get on the pace or get the F outta the way.

I have also met weakness and self doubt in similar situations. Times when I was on the verge, the verge of dropping off the effort or staying in the fight. Backing off the pain subsides but shame awaits. I have been there many times, times when the only thing in my body is the feeling of, "I can't do it..." Times when for whatever reason (flat tires, running off course, wrong turns, knee injuries) I have had success and opportunities taken away in exchange for a general feeling of being robbed, cheated, and entirely too pissed off with triathlon. Triathlon probably wouldn't be what is if it were easy.

Everyone deals with some sort of adversity, it's not a matter of "if" something happens but more so "when and how you deal with it." I was reminded of this through the knee injury, and today as my P3's chain snapped on a climb. Was I mad...you're damn right I was mad! It was this that reminded me of the most important lesson I have ever learned...no matter what happens in training (or the races) it's always better than a "normal" person's day of unchallenged, trans fat filled, comfort-zone existence, a day (of agony or victory) on the bike is a day on the bike. Period.