I've been patient with you. I've been polite and I've tolerated your ridiculous behaviour for months now. But today was officially it. The beauty of blogosphere has given me a voice and it will be heard.
1. Oh hello. Did I invite you to sit on my ass?
I am not intimately familiar with the unwritten rules of drafting and, even if I were, I don't particularly care what they say. Hear me loud and clear weekend warriors - my back wheel is not a free ride. Notice how I am riding by myself? No friend, no group, no triathlon mates. Just me, my Garmin and my bike. Ever think there might be a reason for that? Well, here it is. I'm not on a weekend cruise, I'm not catching up with mates to discuss the footy or the kids on a 40km round trip to Black Rock. I'm on a training ride. I'm riding by myself so I can spend 3-4 hours focussing on my heart rate, cadence, speed, pedal stroke and nutrition. If, after all that, I have some spare mental energy left I might think about the race I'm actually training for and visualise what it would feel like to win it (just to keep the motivation high). Here's what I don't need to listen to while I'm doing all that - you and old mate chatting away about the deals at work, how your other old mate friend is going, how Max is travelling in Auskick and how you're looking forward to your coffee, all while being dragged along by my biking efforts and making little of your own.
Oh, and after I've dragged your ass for 45min, you're not kidding anyone by then having a crack on a straight where you sprint past me and feel like gun for "beating the chick".
2. See this bike? It's not like yours.
Notice that my bike is different to yours? Its a triathlon bike. That might not mean much to you, but I can assure you there is one important difference that will make you take notice if you were gulping off my wheel and there was suddenly an accident.
When I'm on aerobars, I can go faster. Thats probably one of the reasons your hanging off my wheel. However, one of the flaws with this design is I have no immediate access to brakes. This is of minor concern to me when I am riding by myself as I can sort myself out; it becomes a big concern to me if I have some lazy nugget on my back wheel, chatting and paying no attention. Let me be clear - I don't know you, we're not friends, your not in my club and I have no idea how many more of you are hanging off me. When I am riding on aerobars, I am thinking about my own safety. If there is an accident or if I need to swerve, change direction or something else happens, I will not be thinking about you first - and I will need another 3 seconds or so to get to my brakes. I don't need to added stress of knowing you and your mates are right behind me, ready to ride up my ass if something happens quickly. Notice how packs of riders don't ride together on triathlon bikes? Yeah there's a reason for that.
3. I'm sorry, are we friends?
I'm not out to have a chat with strangers during training rides. Don't sit on my wheel, then come up next to me and try and chat to me for the next hour like that makes it all better. It doesn't. Stop talking.
4. Wind sucks
Wind sucks. Absolutely it does, we all know it. Riding in wind is tough work. But that is what makes you a better rider. You know why your sitting on my wheel and not the other way around? Because I ride into wind all the time. Without sitting on people's wheels.
5. I'm not anti drafting
I get that there's benefits to organised drafting and group rides. It can be a useful training tool. What I am sick of, and I'm sure others are too, are people who choose to "go out for a ride" and do nothing but attach themselves to a rider - usually uninvited - and get sucked along which achieves nothing much more then wearing down your tyres. Here's a tip - if you are someone who is prone to attaching yourself to someone's back wheel, and that someone keeps turning their head to look at you - get off their wheel. You've just received the Beach Road Cyclist Code to f**k off. In the nicest, cycling friendly way possible.
6. For the love of god, wear appropriate lycra
With the number of online shops, there is absolutely no excuse for ill fitting cycling gear. I don't want to see your belly poking out from under your jersey; I really don't want to see your crack through the (often) beige or white knicks that should have been retired about 10 rides earlier. I've checked and sizes go up to something like XXXXL. Do us all a favour.
7. To all the men who do none of the above...
Thank you. Especially thank you to those who offer little words of encouragement when they see me pushing along by myself, who slow down if they see me on the side of the road with a puncture or some other problem. To those who say good morning at the lights or have a chat when you're refuelling. To the genuinely nice people out on Beach Road training, getting exercise and just going about their business without hassling other people. That is what makes the training rides enjoyable and, particularly on the tough days when the wind is bitching and the rain is falling, its nice to know we're all in this together.
Riding the wave
Yesterday, I confronted this:
I almost did have a little brick wall cry with frustration. I did grunt some unattractive sounds as I battled with the wind trainer and with a body that wasn't doing what it was told, with muscles that just didn't want to give me any love and with my own fragile emotional state.
Bottom line, I had a bad session. In hindsight, there was some reasonable explanations for this. And I know this is common and we all have these experiences. At the time, however, I looked like this (subscript "oh my god I'm so crap, that was so shit, I am a failure):
and of course I tried to constrain the flood of adrenaline fuelled negative thoughts that irrationally pumped through my mind (i'm-terrible-that-was-terrible-i'm-not-improving-fast-enough-how-am-I-ever-going-to-be-competitive-oh-my-god-what-if-i-fail-at-this..........)
Etc. Really productive and helpful.
With the benefit of food and 8 hours sleep, a new day has dawned and a new training session to tackle. Which, I'm pleased to report, has been nailed perfectly. Which goes to show - we all have off days, but the important thing is to leave the off day in the off day. Don't drag it or the negative thoughts associated with it through to other training sessions so that the off day turns into off days or an off week.
When I have days like this, I often search for things to remind myself why I am doing what I am doing, to show how far I have come and to basically keep myself and my thoughts in perspective. Today, I thought I'd go back and see how many training hours I've logged since starting my half-IM training program 8 weeks ago (can't believe it's only been 8 weeks!)
So - over the past 8 weeks, my training has looked like this:
I almost did have a little brick wall cry with frustration. I did grunt some unattractive sounds as I battled with the wind trainer and with a body that wasn't doing what it was told, with muscles that just didn't want to give me any love and with my own fragile emotional state.
Bottom line, I had a bad session. In hindsight, there was some reasonable explanations for this. And I know this is common and we all have these experiences. At the time, however, I looked like this (subscript "oh my god I'm so crap, that was so shit, I am a failure):
Etc. Really productive and helpful.
With the benefit of food and 8 hours sleep, a new day has dawned and a new training session to tackle. Which, I'm pleased to report, has been nailed perfectly. Which goes to show - we all have off days, but the important thing is to leave the off day in the off day. Don't drag it or the negative thoughts associated with it through to other training sessions so that the off day turns into off days or an off week.
When I have days like this, I often search for things to remind myself why I am doing what I am doing, to show how far I have come and to basically keep myself and my thoughts in perspective. Today, I thought I'd go back and see how many training hours I've logged since starting my half-IM training program 8 weeks ago (can't believe it's only been 8 weeks!)
So - over the past 8 weeks, my training has looked like this:
- 80% of the time has been on the bike, 15% has been running and 5% swimming
- I've biked 1,191km, I've run 226km and swum ~ 70km
- The highest 2 training weeks out of 8 were over my Christmas holidays (so.....what holiday? :) lucky I love it!)
Not a bad effort for an 8 week base build!
Needless to say, my internal hysteria over the one off session was mitigated significantly by looking (a little proudly I have to say) over my efforts over the past 8 weeks. Lots of hours, a fair bit of sacrifices, a lot of hard work and pushing your body just that "little bit more" when needed......but I think we're getting there :) and I know the hard stuff is yet to come. Exciting!
Making it happen
Damn straight. I turn 30 in a couple of months and everyone tells me this is supposed to have some profound impact on me, that I'm apparently going to wake up the morning of my birthday and "feel differently" and suddenly my goalposts will shift and I will have a burning urge to navigate my way towards a husband, children and a house in the suburbs with a kitchen that has matching cutlery, a MixMaster and one of those industrial fridges with the ice maker in the front door.
Unlikely.
What I do know is that there has been some significant changes in my life leading up to this milestone birthday of 30. Priorities have shifted (just none that involve the above mentioned suburban dream); my attitude has changed and my outlook on life is different in one enormous way.
Right now, at age 29 and 10 months, I freaking love my life.
I love so many parts of my life and am so grateful for the opportunities and experiences I have. There is no luck involved; I didn't wake up one day to this and think "what a nice surprise!" There are no shortcuts, no quick hints and no easy steps to happiness - just a lot (a LOT) of hard work and wanting what you want badly enough to work for it.
I am happy; confident; motivated; committed; excited; fit; healthy; strong. I am committed, resolutely, to training and am seeing the results. No missed sessions, no excuses, no trade-offs, no quick fixes. Just solid, consistent hard work and listening, learning and discovering along the way.
I feel tough, mentally tough. I'm ready to race, I'm ready to 'embrace the pain' and push through to the other side. Most importantly, I'm ready to race myself. I am my biggest competitor.
By far the biggest thing, the biggest change in me right now at age 29 and 10 months, is that I believe in myself. I believe I can do this, whatever "this" is. It doesn't matter. The goalpost changes every day, whether it's getting through a 3k set in the pool, a 15km run or a long ride. It doesn't matter what "it" is. What matters is that you don't give up, you stay focussed and you trust, you believe, that you can do it. You will get through, no excuses, no complaints and no giving up. Because I'm better than that. You're better than that.
There's a big difference between interest and commitment; when you're interested in doing something, you do it only when it's convenient. When you're committed to something, you accept no excuses - only results.
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