Self-Talk In Action

Introduction

Ageing isn’t all bad … I think I’ve acquired some wisdom, and at least the money is better. But, being an athlete, I find the inevitable decline of my body a bit hard to take, especially as I have a long history of judging my performance. Sometimes I begin to feel resigned to putting sport behind me … but then I catch myself and dig back in. It’s a constant struggle, and I’m having to talk myself down from negativity time and time again. This post explores the role of “self-talk” in how we see ourselves, and what it “sounds” like when this self-talk is put into action.

What is self-talk?

My cycling friend Mike Ceely, a licensed psychotherapist and founder of Ceely Sports, an athlete coaching company, describes self-talk on his blog, here. It’s a way that an inner voice responds to, and reinforces, a belief system. For example, he considers a gymnast who is a perfectionist: “Maybe her first coach taught her that mistakes were unacceptable. Because of this, her belief system is ‘people won't like me if I make mistakes.’”

Ceely goes on to explain, “The key to changing your beliefs is to listen to the language—often subconscious—that we use to evaluate ourselves.” I completely relate to this, as I beat down the nascent belief system that I’m too old to be an athlete. This comes into play regularly, when I try to keep up with the high school mountain bike racers whom I coach. My self-talk starts up when we’re five minutes into our ride and cranking up a 10% grade. This is the hardest part of the whole ride for me, as I really need to warm up but the kids clearly don’t. So I have this battle of voices: “I’m just not warmed up,” one says, and the other replies, “I’m making excuses. I’m just too old for this.”

Can self-talk be tamed?

What I experience going up that first hill is a fairly typical dialogue for those who don’t just give in and accept the unhelpful belief system. Ceely advises, “Stop using negative self-talk, and start using positive self-talk. This is the ‘outside-in’ approach. Tell yourself something long enough, and you start to believe it. Instead of saying ‘I’ll never get better’ say, ‘I want to get better.’”

Of course this doesn’t mean I should tell myself, “I will get younger.” Ceely points out that “positive self-talk must be realistic. Saying ‘I will win’ when you’re up against tough competition is not smart. Instead say something positive and unconditional like, ‘strong’ or ‘smooth.’”

The psychologist and author Benjamin Hardy, in this article, points out that past success can actually make it harder to stand up to negative self-talk. He notes, “Some of the most difficult negative thoughts will relate to your past. If you’ve been relatively successful in the past, your mind will always make you believe that you’re not as good as you used to be. Your mind will try to convince you that you’ve lost your touch.” In my experience, this seems like a very rational approach. After all, I have all this data—heart rate, average speed, stopwatch times up my favorite climbs—showing me that yes, my body is slowing down, my power output dwindling.

Hardy goes on, “The first step of silencing your mind is to not believe the negative and limiting thoughts that will relentlessly plague you if you’re growing and learning. See these thoughts for what they are—your subconscious wants certainty and predictability.” How true. So often I’ll be riding and will try to match the speed of a kid I used to drop, only to discover that my legs have checked out for the day. My body used to be pretty predictable … it performed pretty much the same, day after day. Now it’s like all the planets have to line up for me to feel “on.”

So what is to be done, when that negative voice comes over my mental PA system reminding me I’m in my 50s? Do I just ignore it? No, it’s more complicated than that. Hardy explains, “Simply trying to avoid negative thoughts is not enough. You must load-up on goal-directed stimuli, which include information, behaviors, environments, etc.”

Ceely describes the inner dialogue really well in this article, saying:

The inner critic is a natural psychological mechanism that all humans have. Its purpose is to problem-solve by pointing out your (real or imagined) errors and flaws. Historically, its purpose was to protect you. Pointing out your errors back in the caveman days was advantageous.

Because your brain uses language to represent ideas, it’s easy to confuse the messages of the inner critic as your own. Instead, think of the inner critic as a linguistic personification of a primal survival mechanism. It’s useful, but tends to overreact and be a bit hyperbolic… The key is to know that your inner critic is just one of many voices, or internal mechanisms, that try to communicate information to you. Think of your inner critic and other internal voices like members of a board of directors, where you are the Founder, CEO, and majority shareholder. You’re in charge. Your job is to listen to the board members, take their words into consideration, then make executive decisions.

Here’s the cool thing: you don’t have to believe everything “you” think. This means you can take the role of the higher self, the observer, the one who dis-identifies from the automatic narrative playing in the background. 

How this plays out fascinates me.

Self-talk in action

All year I’ve been focusing on mountain biking, which for the Albany High team means trail rides of generally 2-3 hours, with lots of breaks along the way. This past weekend, one of the guys on my road team emailed the group suggesting a (road) ride up Mount Diablo, which would be over 80 miles—twice my longest ride of the year—with lots of climbing and very few breaks. As you might imagine, this would be a real stretch for me. But I cautiously accepted, replying, “Sounds good, if you don’t mind a mellow pace,” etc., which I knew would come across as a coded message that actually meant “I’m gonna try to rip your legs off,” because that’s just the typical bike racer ruse. But I meant it … I’ve ridden so little on the road, my road bike still feels weird to me, like the handlebars are way too narrow. I literally haven’t ridden with the team once this year.

As we headed over the Berkeley hills the little voice in my head popped up and said, “I wonder if there’ll be a sprint.” As I’ve described here, and as you’ve surely noticed yourself, one’s self-talk leverages his or her entire history and doesn’t have to spell everything out. The sprint in question is the inevitable race to a particular pedestrian crossing in Moraga, a challenge which virtually every group I’ve ridden with in the last 30 years has taken up, until a bridge washed out and disrupted the tradition. The last time I rode that route, the new bridge was still under construction and had just one lane with a traffic signal installed, so for the group to make it through without stopping would be a toss-up.

Now the voices in my head started bickering:

“If there’s a sprint I should sit it out. This is my first group ride in months.”

“That’s nonsense. I always sprint.”

“It’ll be shoulder-to-shoulder, slicing & dicing, I’m not ready.”

“I’m always ready. I know how to do this.”

“What if my chain breaks under full power?” [This notion arose because recently, pre-riding a mountain bike race course, my chain did break and I crashed.]

“Stop being ridiculous.”

The negative voice, you’ll notice, was just making excuses, the kind that would serve the “I’m too old” belief system (which Ceely rightly abbreviates BS, pun intended). My self-talk CEO didn’t explain his rationale because he wants to rule with an iron fist. The problem with that kind of leadership, of course, is getting real buy-in from everyone. My inner critic wouldn’t be silenced.

We made our way down Pinehurst Road and the speed ramped up. Over the painful little climb on Canyon Road, a couple of guys were drilling it on the front, clearly starting to set up their sprint.

“I’ll probably get dropped right here and miss the sprint.”

“Pfff. No way. Start at the front, drift back, and work back up.”

“Missing the sprint would be kinda nice.”

“Missing the sprint is out of the question.”

Down the other side of the hill my inner critic worried about safety.

“There’s a giant pothole somewhere. It destroyed your car tire last year.”

“It’s a paved descent. This is just not that complicated.”

As we headed toward the sprint, the pace ramped higher and higher. Suddenly D— launched a blistering early attack, starting at the back and flying by us on the left. Everyone dove for his wheel. I got gapped and shifted into my highest gear to chase.

“They’re gone. I missed it. I don’t have the jump I needed.”

“They’re right there. At this speed the slipstream is huge. I can latch on.”

“What am I even doing trying to mix it up with these guys? I never had a sprint to begin with! I’m not a fast-twitch guy! What am I doing here?”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!”

If you were starting to get bored, fear not … this is where things get interesting. As you may have noticed, my inner critic isn’t very sophisticated. As Ceely described, this critic operates mainly out of fear: fear of failure, fear of injury. It’s old messaging, like a broken record. But an upside of being old is that I have a wealth of experience in road racing bunch sprints, and the movements have become so ingrained, they become almost automatic. My neocortex loves the tactical complexity required, and finally the thrill of the hunt becomes irresistible. All the negative self-talk drops away … I’m like a cat going after a laser pointer. Now the self-talk is more focused and intelligent … it hones in on the “goal-directed stimuli” described in Hardy’s article.

“B— is on the back but he’s just getting going. He’s the fastest sprinter here. If I get his wheel I’m golden.”

“And there’s his attack! And I don’t need a jump—I’m already going faster than the group because I’ve been chasing! Getting dropped was a gift! I love this sport!”

“Nobody saw him jump—his wheel is wide open! Get it! Get it! Harder, harder, drill it, I’m almost there!”

“I’ve got the wheel! Hold that wheel! Hold it! Shit, I’m golden!”

In case you haven’t had the pleasure of a cycling bunch sprint, this was the part where I was putting out all the power I was capable of, but without the wind resistance I’d have fought if riding alone. It’s a bit like catching a wave, I suppose … this extraordinary rush of speed and the delicious sensation of doing something I’d be incapable of if not latched on to my teammate’s wheel. Meanwhile, I could tell from my peripheral vision, and from the decrease in sound, that the rest of the group was gone. We’d made the jump to light-speed.

“Can I get around B—? No. I’m topped out. Can’t do it.” [This isn’t technically negative self-talk … it’s just stating a fact.]

“God, what a rush.”

“Second place in Walking Man is not bad.”

“Holy shit, who the hell is that?!”

Another rider inexplicably came flying by right as we reached the pedestrian crossing. It was Y—, D—’s  14-year-old son and a rising star in both road and mountain bike racing in NorCal. He’s got the build of a climber, which should make such a phenomenal sprint impossible, except that he’s clearly hugely talented. He also played his cards almost perfectly … the only reason he didn’t beat B— in the end is that he chose my wheel, probably assuming I’d start to pass B— and then (and only then) he’d launch his own sprint and overtake both of us. But I didn’t go fast enough, and didn’t start to pass B—… I just kind of sat there. Y— probably won’t overestimate me again. He’ll be going directly for B—’s wheel next time.

Did my negative self-talk start up again after the sprint? No, I’m more realistic than that. What would be the point of faulting myself after the fact, especially when I’d done a good sprint? Besides, since Y— races against my Albany High team, I automatically considered his feat from the perspective of coach. (My result doesn’t matter, it’s just for kicks.) Besides, I had more on my mind anyway: we still had Mount Diablo to tackle.

Epilogue

Sure, there was a little more self-talk on the way up the mountain, as I tried to keep up with Y— for as long as possible while still having enough in the tank to make the summit, and then make it home. But the inner critic quiets down a fair bit when adrenaline and endorphins enter the picture and things are going well. I ended up climbing Diablo a shocking nine minutes faster than last time (which was all the way back in September, when I was still coasting on my fitness from my DIY Everest Challenge). On the way home, I kept waiting for my body to give out, but it never did, and I even clocked a decent time on Wildcat Canyon, the last climb. Next time my inner critic starts naysaying, my inner CEO will simply reply, “You know nothing. Remember that Diablo ride? I got this.”

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Ready for Everest Challenge 2014?

Introduction

The one big race I do every year, the Everest Challenge Stage Race—two days of racing with 29,000 feet of vertical gain—is  coming right up.  In case that “29,000 feet” description doesn’t tell you much, consider that each stage of this race is like climbing a 5-mile staircase with 24,000 steps that would take you to the top of a 1,160-story building.  The first day is bad enough, but the second day is murder.  The third (and last) climb on the second day is, by itself, the equivalent of a two-mile staircase with 10,000 steps reaching the top of a 490-story building.

A friend asked recently, “Are you ready?”  It was not my wife who asked.  She knows better, having had quite enough of my blather.  It was my friend John who asked; he flew out from New York to race the EC two years ago.

I could have simply answered John directly, since he was reckless enough to ask and might actually be interested in the answer.  But why answer only him, when I could blog about it on albertnet, where other people, like my mom and a Russian hacker, might also see it?  Plus, maybe you’re considering racing the EC, or have already signed up, and are wondering more generally, what does it take to be ready for it? 

(Perhaps most importantly of all, this post will come in handy later, when the EC is over, as a retrospective building block for self-flagellation.)

My gut

My gut tells me that I’m ready.  But then, what does “ready” mean?  I’m very confident I can finish, since I have five times before.  Beyond this minimal sense, “ready” begs the question “Ready to do what?”  To a snowboarder, “ready” means “Ready to shred this gnar’!”  Which I’m totally ready to do, unless you’re talking about descending, where my modern chickenshit approach and undersized “big” chainring keep me decidedly within non-shredding, non-gnar territory.

So, what am I trying to do this year?  Well, after all the solid training I did last year, I ended up setting the wrong goal.  (I should have followed my own advice and not set a goal at all.)  I’d been so miserable on the final second-day climb in 2012, I vowed to take it easier in 2013 and pace myself better, especially on the first day.  (Day-to-day recovery is my Achilles heel.)  Did this strategy work?  Well, I certainly felt better on the second day’s last climb last year, but I was only 3 minutes 40 seconds faster ... and I was 20 minutes slower the first day.  So whatever suffering I saved myself then has been dwarfed by the year of self-loathing I’ve subsequently suffered.  (I’m reminded of a Steve Coogan line:  “Remember:  death is but a moment; cowardice is a lifetime of affliction.”)

So, this year, I’m going to try to man up and go as fast as I can, both days.  I know that sounds simplistic, but go try racing for more than twelve hours over two days and then decide if you still think this all-out business makes any sense at all.  So:  am I “ready” to go utterly destroy myself?  Well, can you ever be “ready” for that?  And conversely, aren’t we all born ready?

Of course, “my gut” doesn’t refer only to a subjective sense of readiness.  It also refers to whether or not I’m fat.  “Fat” in cycling parlance means having an abnormally low amount of body fat that is nonetheless still higher than what you wish you had.  I’m pleased to report that my fancy electrode-equipped scale tells me, as of a couple days ago, that I have 5.9% body fat. 

There’s some fine print, though:  you have to configure the scale with your height, age, and whether you’re an athlete or not.  This last setting probably tells the algorithm to simply lower the number so that the self-styled athlete doesn’t get pissed off and demand a refund on his crappy scale. 

The numbers

I keep a really detailed training diary.  I know, I know, I should use Strava for this, everybody keeps telling me that, but I don’t feel like sharing all my details with the world, especially if I’m updating the comments right after a workout and might write something untoward.  (The pro team Omega Pharma-Quick Step has a rule against riders tweeting within an hour of competition “when when emotions can be running high, and logic and reason can go out of the window.”)

Old-school Excel training diary in hand, I compared this year’s EC training to that of 2012.  (Of course how I prepared in 2013 is irrelevant, that race being an ugly smear on my memory.)  The below chart shows a comparison of the EC training period (beginning after vacation and ending in mid-September) for both years.  What I’ve discovered is that my preparation has been almost eerily similar:

Look at that.  Only ten seconds difference on Mount Diablo.  The biggest contrast is the number of Diablo ascents, but this year I did two fairly comparable rides in Colorado  (click here and here for details).  The difference in vertical gain might look like a lot, but actually, I gain that much vertical in just a couple of weekday (i.e., evening) rides.

Now, if I were a proper bike dork, I’d have a power meter and could look at all kinds of extraordinary numbers.  And in fact, it would help me during my rides as well.  I saw this in action last weekend when, on the second trip up Mount Diablo of the day, my pal Craig dropped my other pal, Ian, and me.  Craig just walked away from us (figuratively speaking).  At the summit, when Ian commented on this, Craig said humbly, “I was just watching my power meter and trying to keep it between 300 and 350 watts.”  To which Ian replied, “Yeah, I was just trying to keep mine between zero and 200.”

The requisite lugubrious day

I think it’s pretty unlikely that anybody training for a race like EC, and then racing it, will escape having a truly lugubrious day.  If he does, he’s either loafing too much (like I did last year) or is egregiously lubed like the pros.  (Yes of course I noticed that “egregiously lubed” is an anagram of “lugubrious leg guy,” except when it isn’t really, which is always.)

The trick, I think, is to get that lugubrious day out of the way during training so that you won’t have it during the race.  It’s like an insurance policy against having a particularly bad day when it really counts.  This almost worked in 2012 when I did a double-Diablo training ride fueled entirely by greasy dim sum, as chronicled here.  But I wasn’t quite miserable enough that day to call it lugubrious, which perhaps is why that last EC climb became my crowning lugubrious moment of the year.

What exactly do I mean by lugubrious?  Well, you know, just mournfully, pathetically, almost comically sad (though too sad for it to be funny).  This photo, I think, captures it pretty well.  Yes, I’m actually sobbing into my orange slices (after totally cratering in the 2003 La Marmotte).

So, you may be wondering, have I had my 2014 lugubrious moment?  Well, I almost got it out of the way really early, on January 1, when I raced the Mount San Bruno hill climb.  I went into the race angry, and was hoping to channel that anger into a great performance.  But as I wrote in my subsequent race report, “As I got dropped, I discovered that it’s possible to be bitter without being angry.  In fact, I just felt sad.”

Fortunately, that wasn’t my most miserable biking moment of 2014.  Nor was a frigid ride in the rain in February, though that experience was also awful enough to write about.  No, my worst ride of the year so far—which certainly deserves the lugubrious label—was my first double-Diablo after getting back from vacation (i.e., from missing almost three weeks of riding). 

Man, that ride was just awful.  I clocked abysmal times on the climbs, and couldn’t even keep up with my pals on the flat section back from the mountain.  (Because I’d taken so long on the climbs, Craig had to really motor to get home on time, and couldn’t wait up for me anymore.)  I finished up with over an hour of solo riding when I was barely able to turn the pedals.  By the end I was just totally shattered.  Everything hurt ... my legs, of course, and my butt, and also my forearms, my biceps, even my hands.  Even coasting hurt.  I came away from that ride feeling that the “good base mileage” rule is bogus—that I’d have been no worse off had I done no riding at all during the spring.  After that ride I was totally useless for five days straight.

(They say misery loves company, and I was duly cheered to learn that another pal on that ride fared even worse than I had.  Despite skipping the second trip up the mountain, he had to stop to lie down three times on the way home.)

Omen

All those stats I provided earlier may end up meaning nothing, as stats often do, so I should probably hedge my bet a bit with an omen.  I certainly have one to share, though whether it’s a good omen or not remains to be seen.

Last week I was hammering home through Tilden Park, at the tail end of an evening training ride, in the last moments of weak daylight before dusk set in, when I saw something swoop down from out of a tree.  Its trajectory was totally unlike that of a bird.  It came right at me and then swerved at the last second, but in the wrong direction so instead of going over my head, it went down and actually hit my thigh on its way past.  “What are you, blind?!” I thought, before realizing that yes, in fact, it was.  It had to have been a bat.  Moments after seeing it, I saw another creature of the same size and odd flight style, but this one was silhouetted against the horizon and was definitely a bat.  I got home and googled “bats Tilden park Berkeley,” and sure enough, bats can be found here.  Or they can find you.  (The other odd creature I’ve been seeing lately, but on Mount Diablo, is the tarantula.  I’ve seen three of them in the last month.)

So, what does it mean to be hit by a bat while riding?  Stay tuned to albertnet, because in early October I’ll give you the a full report on the 2014 Everest Challenge:  what I ate, and how badly I destroyed myself, and thus whether being hit by a bat is a good or bad omen.

Ride Report - 2014 Tour of California Mount Diablo Stage

Introduction

This tale, written for my bike club pals but also for you and your closest confidants, concerns a very special journey up Mount Diablo to watch real professional cyclists tackle the “queen stage” of the Tour of California.

Due to the soporific effect of hackneyed phrases like “chess game on wheels,” “burned too many of their/my matches,” “a picture of pain,” “riding like a man possessed,” and “turning himself/myself inside out,” I will not describe the riding (mine or the racers’) in much detail, but—in keeping with my club’s fine literary tradition—will focus mainly on the food.

Short version 

• Breakfast #1:  Rigatoni alla Bolognese with zested Parmesan
• Breakfast #2:  Blueberry pancakes, real maple syrup, sausage, and bacon (chez Ian)
• Lunch:  Three bottles Cytomax, fruit punch flavor/color; two Powerbar gels, 1X caffeine
• Glycogen-window Treats:  organic strawberries, berry yogurt, vanilla Greek yogurt, dried apricots, chocolate chips, fruit popsicle, half a Dos Equis Special Lager, one Heineken
• Dinner:  Homemade spinach-and-meat lasagne, Brassica oleracea var. gemmifera, bottomless glass of water
• Ride report:  Epic pass
• Race report (witnessed):  Professional racers are really fast, and sometimes funny

Long version

Two words into the short version of this tale, I may have already ruffled some feathers:  Ian, who hosted a glorious breakfast for our group, must be wondering why anybody, even a glutton like me, would have a pre-breakfast.  After all, in an e-mail to the group he’d written, “I will of course be making a separate batch just for Dana.”  So it’s not like I had to worry about the food running out.  Besides, as I mentioned in my 2012 Tour of California Mount Diablo report, I don’t normally eat breakfast at all.  So:  why two breakfasts?  Well, it’s complicated.

First, there was the matter of the Bolognese left over from Mother’s Day, when I spent four hours making a triple-batch as a peace offering after a) having neglected to make any restaurant reservations, and b) having suggested to my wife a restaurant that wouldn’t be packed on Mother’s Day (i.e., Hooters).  Now, if you’ve ever had a proper Bolognese (i.e., one that is a solid once refrigerated), you know that this sauce is almost impossible to resist under any circumstances, even with the knowledge of an imminent pancake breakfast.  Even when bacon is involved.

Second, there was the personal challenge of seeing if I could heat up some leftovers for my daughter’s thermos, to make her the most stoked kid at her entire school, without eating any of it myself.  You know those well-trained dogs that can balance a dog biscuit on their snout without eating it until given the go-ahead from their owner?  I aspired to match that level of pointless discipline.  Alas, I ended up nuking more than would fit in the thermos, so I had no choice but to eat the rest, which—though being only perhaps a cup of food—was the equivalent of a good-sized meal, because my non-heart-healthy Bolognese is the second most caloric food on Earth.  (First place is eggnog.)

What is “zested Parmesan,” you might ask?  It’s Parmesan grated with a zester (see above photo) so it melts like snowflakes on your pasta.

The plan was for me to meet Sean and Ryan at the coffee shop, and then we’d ride to Lafayette to meet Craig, who knew the way to Ian’s.  Well, I was so late getting to the coffee shop, I got angry voice-mails on both my mobile and home phones.  I didn’t want to add insult to injury so I didn’t even explain myself at the time.  So I will now.

Dana’s Top Ten Reasons for Quasi-Flakage on Tuesday 

1. Spent too much time photographing rigatoni alla Bolognese
2. Could only find Water Babies sunscreen from 2002 and didn’t want to end up with Moroccan-leather-red skin
3. Having eventually found Sport Performance SPF 50 sunscreen, took too long applying it to hairy legs
4. Took forever finding SPF 50 lip balm but refused to endure burnt lips yet again
5. Decided at last minute to find darker sunglasses
6. “Shut up, bowels!”
7. Being frazzled by already running late, struggled with recently-replaced Boa dials on my cycling shoes, because both shoes now (oddly) have right-hand dials so left-shoe dials are backwards
8. Had to charge camera battery and phone to hold my own against any Millennials I might encounter en route
9. Took too long indulging my daughter in a long goodbye (her cuteness = entrapment)
10. Didn’t allow for so much traffic, especially when riding past junior high school right when all the able-bodied students were being dropped off by their overprotective parent/chauffeurs

I was actually only six minutes late to the coffee shop, but Sean and Ryan seemed pretty stressed.  I guess that’s because I alone knew how to get to the trefpunt, and I alone knew what “trefpunt” meant.  (In English it’s “rendezvous.”  Wait.  French.  Whatever.)  So after I assured them we had plenty of time, we moseyed socially along until we actually were running late, so then we got to do some real hammering.  Man, I love real hammering, especially on the flats, because I never do anything but climb and seldom have anybody to draft.  We ended up reaching the trefpunt six minutes late, which was fine because Craig was running late himself.  We rolled in to Ian’s unfashionably early.  It was already getting hot.

Ian had the blueberry pancakes already made and keeping warm in the oven while he cooked the bacon and sausages.  Ian is from England, and—knowing what I know about the superior bacon over there—I was very impressed that, while he did comment on the high fat content of American bacon, he did so non-pejoratively.  Perhaps he knew I’d be blogging about this and was worried about the NSA questioning his loyalty.  I think this NSA flap has frightened all of us.  (Note to NSA readers:  when I say “flap” I’m not saying it’s your fault.  Thank you for keeping us safe!)

Due to Ian’s brilliant pancake breakfast concept I changed my fueling strategy radically.  That is, I didn’t bother bringing any food on the ride, foregoing the sandwiches etc. I’d schlepped in a backpack last year.  You might think this is foolish since pancakes have a pretty high glycemic index (i.e., they burn rapidly), so my blood sugar could crash after just a couple of hours.  But bacon and sausage, being high in the right kind of fat (i.e., the chewy kind) have a very low glycemic index.  In fact, gristle probably has a G.I. of about 1.  And low-G.I. foods slow down your burning of high-G.I. foods.  This is why a big carnitas burrito obviates the need to eat for at least twelve hours.  Dang it, I’m making myself hungry here!  Anyway, I tried to keep track of the number of sausages I ate, but could not (though it was at least ten).  Ditto the bacon and hotcakes.

I tried to spam that last photo out to all my followers on Twitter, Facebook, etc. and it probably would have worked fine except I decided to get fancy.  I figured, hey, Ian’s great food will probably get me a whole bunch of Likes, but couldn’t I get even more Likes with a really nice stock Getty image of a visually perfect stack of pancakes?  Alas, between my fingers being greasy from the bacon, my smartphone touch-screen being fogged up, and my skills being rather poor to begin with, all I managed to do was send the photo to my Paypal account, which they’ve now frozen.

That whole last paragraph?  Yep—pure fiction.  I’m not on social media, beyond this blog.

So, yeah, no lunch needed after that bodacious spread.  Of course, not bringing a backpack meant I couldn’t bring a hat or sandals for our long wait, on the mountain, for the racers.  But Ian, who is apparently going for Man Of The Year, chucked some extras in his pack for me.  (If I hadn’t taken my boys out of the game, I’d try for a son and name him Ian.)

The ride was very hot—temperatures in the 90s by the time we left Ian’s—but not all that hard due to our conversational pace.  Full disclosure:  I was technically blood-doping for this ride.  Last week I donated blood, which normally is okay from a sporting perspective, but in this case it was platelets and plasma, so I got my red cells back.  Since having blood return to my body is technically a transfusion, I guess I was technically in breach of the rules and I really wonder what my blood passport would look like if the UCI did one for me.  But I’m not going to be one of those riders who, when finally admitting guilt, takes down a lot of other guys with me.  So from this point forward all the names of my fellow biker/spectators will be redacted in my report, following the example of the USADA rider affidavits.  Otherwise you might think them complicit in my transgression.

We headed up North Gate road, which is the harder approach of Mount Diablo, just so we could lord that over the racers later.  On the lower slopes my bike computer registered 103 degrees Fahrenheit.  It’s a good thing nobody asked me to spell “Fahrenheit” because my brain was being cooked.  We chatted the whole way up, of course.  [Spectator 3] extolled the virtues of base layers, because they hide his massive pelt of chest hair (which frightens other men and lures in women, creating marital friction) and when I tried to respond my poor brain got stuck.  I started out, “Your chest hair makes Austin Powers look like—” but here I couldn’t come up with the name of Austin Powers’ hairless cat.  Fortunately, some random cyclist within earshot called out, “Mr. Bigglesworth,” thus saving me from acute embarrassment.  (Actually, [Spectator 2] and [Spectator 3] had probably stopped listening to me anyway.)

That wasn’t the only time a complete stranger joined our conversation.  Another time, we were trying to remember at what elevation the officials closed the road to VUPs (Very Unimportant People), and someone helpfully said, “It’s at 3,848 feet.”  Wait, did I just say “helpfully”?  Well, I lied.  This comment wasn’t that helpful because that’s the elevation of the summit, as we already knew, not the info we actually needed.  But it was very nice of the fellow to try to help and I wish him well.

We finally found a great viewing spot a little past the 3-KM-To-Go banner.  There were a few trees, and though people were already massed below them, the gradual setting of the sun would thrust that shadow in our direction (as [Spectator 2] cleverly realized).  We’d refilled our bottles at around the halfway point but were still running pretty low.  I asked if I’d get lice from the loaner hat, and its owner said, “That hat hasn’t been worn since the Tour of California Mount Diablo stage last year.” 

Here we are maxin’ out while the racers made their advance toward the mountain.

Look at the big “E” on my jersey.  See that insect?  It’s an earwig.  There were flying earwigs all over the place up there, and they bit!  Not just “bit” as in “man, that totally bites!” but as in, they kept actually biting us.  So we had to keep brushing them off each other, sometimes a bit violently.  At one point [Spectator 5] told me, “There’s one on your groin but you’re on your own.”

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, two more pals, [Spectator 4] and [Spectator 5] arrived, separately, one having dropped the other en route.  [Spectator 5] rode all the way from San Jose, even though he has a newborn at home.  The fathers among us chastised him at length.  “I did a whole load of dishes before I left!” he protested.  [Spectator 4] said, “Look , did you have an episiotomy?  No?  Well then shut the hell up.”  I tried to explain to [Spectator 5] that housework and other methods of helping out are not fungible, but my sun-baked brain couldn’t come up with “fungible” so it took a lot more words to convey that you can’t just bank goodwill by doing housework in advance.  You have to hang around the house in case your wife says, “Please take your shrieking demon-infant away from me before I do something I regret.”

Nobody was giving out popsicles or drinks this year, but a guy did hand up some official Tour of California gas-station-grade sunglasses, and a woman gave us miniature Champion Systems jerseys.  You may not know this, but it’s against the law for a blogger to praise a consumer product if he received any perk from its manufacturer.  So it would be illegal for me to say anything nice about Champion Systems products.  That’s okay, though, because I already had my say on the topic of their dangerously undersized clothing.  Anyway, it was nice of them to give handouts, and it was in a good-natured spirit that  [Spectator 3] quipped (once the CrampSys rep was out of earshot), “Is that their size medium?”

At least half a dozen big vans drove by, toward the summit, with absolutely nobody in them.  I’m sure there was a point to this but I’ll be damned if I know what it was.  And damned if I don’t.

After a very long wait in the open-air sauna, we finally saw the official vehicles, then some motos, and  the leader of the race.  We had no idea who he was but it didn’t matter.  Half a dozen seconds later came the lead group, with Sir Bradley Wiggins right on the front.  Despite setting a blistering pace, Wiggo looked not only more comfortable than we had pedaling our casual way up the mountain, but more comfortable than we felt just watching the race.  I think he was breathing only through his nose.  Note to self:  abandon tentative plan to turn pro.

The peloton was in pieces.  Lone riders came by here and there, and small and large groups.  Tom Danielson rode by, well off the back, and [Spectator 4] yelled, “Hang in there, Tom!  I know it’s not easy when you’re clean!”  Indeed, he did look a lot, uh, cleaner than in past years.  Then [Spectator 4] set up an empty water bottle with a $5 bill sticking out the top, as an ad hoc crowd prime.  If the cyclingnews start list is correct, it was the Dutch rider Danny Van Poppel who wheel-thwacked the bottle off the road, to our great delight.

The final racers trickled by, then the broom wagon, and then the show was over and we made our way down the mountain.  It wasn’t nearly as clogged with biker-spectators as last year, perhaps due to the heat.  I rode hard all the way home, part of the time with [Spectator 2] and [Spectator 3], and though I didn’t tackle my beloved Lomas Cantadas (the heat was still in the upper 90s and it had been a long day) I did feel a moment of pride when I made it over the so-called “I hate pain” hill (on Wildcat Canyon Road, by the Brazil Building) in the big chainring.  It was only a moment of pride, though, because then I remembered that my so-called “big ring” is actually only a 50-tooth because, uh, well, I’m riding a compact these days.

When I got home I presented the sunglasses and micro-jersey to my daughters, and instantly achieved hero status.  Lindsay knew right away what to do with the jersey.

The jersey could use some tailoring but I think Ken looks great in it.  All those Barbies are going to be fighting over him!  Note how closely he’s shaved his legs.

I’ve already listed off my assortment of post-ride sugary snacks.  After those I did some cheese grating duty as my wife put the finishing touches on the aforementioned spinach-and-meat lasagne.  The Brassica oleracea var. gemmifera weren’t quite done yet so they came out as a second course.

What?  You haven’t heard of Brassica oleracea var. gemmifera?  Yeah, I’m using a code name there.  It’s a vegetable that is so unpopular among Alberts that its name must not be uttered.  My dad made an exception once, when he composed a bit of verse on the topic:  “It takes more than a muscled lout/ To make me eat a [Vegetable 1].”

Anyway, even that course was pretty tasty.  It was a great dinner after a great day, and my lips, for once, hadn’t even gotten sunburned.  Life is good!

Ride Report - 2013 Tour of California Mount Diablo Stage

Introduction

I’m on battery.  Very little time here, probably less than I think.  My battery is bad.  My PC will bluescreen any second because that’s how it announces it’s run out of juice.  So this report, about my big ride to watch the Tour of California Mount Diablo stage, will be merciful and quick.  It’s targeted at my bike club pals, so if you’re not one of them there may be some unfamiliar proper nouns in here, but just roll with it.  If the text, brief though it may be, becomes too much, scroll down for the photos and movies.  And then go back and read the text so you’ll know what the hell you just saw.  Or not.  Whatever.  (For the report of last year’s Tour of California Diablo stage, click here.)

Full (but quick) report

Breakfast before the big outing was a plate of leftover Fettuccine Carbovera.  I’m coining a term there for Erin’s ad hoc creation.  It was like a Carbonara, to gratify the family’s saturated fat centers, but also like a Primavera, with a bunch of vegetables she threw in, probably to assuage her guilt at serving a starch-bomb to the family to begin with.  Very tasty.  With this I had a glass of my homemade Caffeine Water, which is like that Vitamin Water people drink except that instead of having corn syrup and artificial color to complement the needless easy-to-get vitamin supplement that gives people, including college-educated full-grown adults, an excuse to drink sugar water, my drink is just water and an off-brand caffeine tablet.  When NoDoz was recalled well over a year ago I had to switch to this off-brand, which I’m convinced doesn’t dissolve readily, because I end up getting no benefit from it during my ride and then being bizarrely unable to sleep like eight hours later.  So I dissolve it which makes a beverage with such a foul flavor, it must give me a performance advantage. 

I was pleasantly surprised to see four EBVC dudes waiting at the coffee shop.  Sean had pre-flaked and based on my flakage chart I didn’t expect to see him, and I figured at least one other guy would probably flake as well.  I was less pleasantly surprised by how few of us decided to spend the whole day standing out in the sun to begin with.  It wasn’t easy for me to get a furlough:  I missed one daughter’s soccer game and the other’s violin recital for this.  As I was leaving they let me know how unimpressed they were with my decision.  Parenting is hard, but they’ll thank me for this tough love later.  I don’t know why they’ll thank me—probably just to make me feel guilty all over again—but they’ll thank me.  If they don’t I’ll make them.

I’d been thinking of Jens Voigt that morning, and even cornered my younger daughter and made her watch his interview following his brilliant win in stage five, where he said, “I was really hurting so I thought ‘now or never.’”  I explained the point of this to my daughter—if you feel good the others do too, so you better attack when you’re suffering to make sure they are, too—figuring it might help her soccer game.  She’s good at soccer but in my opinion doesn’t suffer enough, yet.  I also told her about how Jens Voigt is known for saying, “Shut up, legs!” as they scream at him during a solo breakaway effort.

I was late meeting the guys, yes.  But not as late as Tony said.  His 10-minute-late claim is about as realistic as “clean coal.”  I timed myself and was exactly 5 minutes 40 seconds late.  It’s not my fault.  I was all ready to go, and ahead of schedule, when I suddenly realized I wasn’t done with my, uh, toiletries.  This wouldn’t have been a problem except at that moment my wife started taking a shower.  We have only one bathroom (a sore point in our family, I might add).  She would be talking to painters and buying paint and shuttling the kids around everywhere all day so I had to be careful what more I asked for.  Could I manage to ride without doing this download?  “Shut up, bowels!” I said to myself.  Well, I said it to my bowels, really, in my best stern German voice.

So, yeah, I was late.  It was worth it.  No offense, guys.  We made good time meeting up with Ian and Matt at Whole Foods, despite getting totally wrong instructions from some guy in a parking lot who probably just stands around giving bad directions to people.  Diablo was mobbed.  It was hot.  I was wearing a backpack.  It contained a good camera, a big thing of sunscreen, two glorious sandwiches (in the special internal sandwich pocket), an orange, a hat, sandals, phone, and in the outside pocket a totally brown banana that I brought just to get it out of the kitchen where it was slowly killing the flowers I’d bought for Mothers Day.  Ripening fruit put out ethylene gas.  Erin refused to move the flowers from over the sink.  They were her flowers.  I got a big furlough today.  I didn’t argue.  Plus I hoped to aggravate Ian with the brown speckledness of the banana.  As he is known for pointing out, he likes a firm banana.

There were spectators here and there reclining along the side of North Gate Road.  I couldn’t decide whether or not to tell them the racers would be coming up South Gate, making this vantage point utterly useless.  In the end I didn’t tell them.  Perhaps they had their reasons.  It’s often best not to engage.  Today I engaged with a shoeshine guy.  He was right in my face and I decided there was no harm in getting a quote.  He said, “Let me look at your shoes,” and then squirted this stuff on them.  Now I was on the hook.  Smooth.  “You’ve been had, don’t feel bad,” he said.  Now my shoes stink.  I don’t know what he used to shine them, but the fumes are making it hard to think.  To the extent you hate this report it’s his fault.  Oh, and that of my battery because it’s making me rush so much.

My backpack was heavy and suffocated my spine.  Remember “Goldfinger”?  That woman died because her spine couldn’t breathe through the gold paint, and she wasn’t even trying to pedal a bike up the harder side of Diablo.  (The racers themselves did the easy side, South Gate.  We did North Gate, for fear of being harassed by one another for being wimps.)  I was one second slower than last time from Checkpoint Charlie to the ranger station, due to the backpack.

Here are some photos, which perhaps we’ll use in the “Men of East Bay Velo Club” calendar.

While we waited for the racers for a couple hours, we tried to watch the race on our smartphones.  I got about five seconds of video before it froze, so I gave up and stashed the phone in my pocket.  Ten minutes later Phil Liggett is suddenly talking out of my pocket.  I had to force-kill the app to save my battery.  Ian theorized that the titanium in my leg was interfering with the signal.  Mark and Lucas had better luck and were getting the blow-by-blow report, and could see that our local hero, Nathan English, was in the breakaway with Andy Schleck.  We were pretty excited about that, of course.  Local Boy Makes Good!  But as the racers approached Mount Diablo itself, Nate got caught.  Lucas was yelling at his phone, “C’mon Nate!”  I guess that’s progress:  a generation ago men our age were yelling at football players through the TV.  At least phones could communicate, unlike TVs, and at least Lucas didn’t call him a dumb bastard or anything like football fans do.

The other guys bought sandwiches at the Food Whole.  Lucas showed his off.  It did look fancy.  (Oooh!  Brie!)  My sandwiches didn’t look so fancy but deep down inside I’ll bet Lucas was envious.  Mine were handmade by college grads:  I made one, my wife the other, and I looked forward to testing the theory about whether a sandwich always tastes better when somebody else makes it.  But I queered the whole test by not using identical ingredients.  One sandwich had avocado, cheddar, tomatoes, salt, and pepper; the other had mozzarella instead, and the addition of cucumbers.  I tried to brag:  “These cucumbers were marinated in Italian dressing all night.”  Mark correctly guessed that they were leftovers from one of my kids, not any premeditated culinary scheme.  The cheese in my sandwiches was nicely melted from the hot day and my stuffy backpack .  On the other hand, the banana had gotten even riper—let’s face it, flat-out rotten.  But good.  (By the way, Alex, who met us up there, had the best lunch of all, that being sandwiches he made fresh right there on the mountain, using a really cool knife to cut charcuterie and a cheese that was so fancy I can’t remember, or never knew, its name, all on an Acme baguette.  I was too jealous to snap a photo of it.)

Eventually the racers approached.  We could see them, ant-like, on distant stretches of road.  Just find the copter and look down.  A million support vehicles drove by, along with an astonishing number of snub-nosed (well, short-fuselage) school buses with the “School” part covered up.  They were carrying VIPs, no doubt, to a point farther up the road than we mere fans were allowed to go.  Probably those people were rich or good-looking but had almost no interest in cycling.  That’s just how it goes.

I focused my camera, zoomed all the way in to 16x, on a switchback way down the mountain.  I thought the helicopter might rise up behind the riders and I could catch a really good shot, maybe even a really cool movie.  As I sat there waiting for it, it actually happened!  Somebody next to me said, “Here’s your Airwolf moment!” and it was almost too good to be true.  Actually, it proved entirely too good to be true, because in the heat of the moment I totally choked and failed to snap a photo, much less make a movie.  The helicopter rose out of view and man was I pissed at myself.

When the racers came by I almost made good on my vow not to try to film them, which is almost impossible, and just to enjoy the visual spectacle through my eyes alone.  But I couldn’t resist, but also didn’t really look at the camera screen, so what you get below is kind of a Blair Witch Handheld Cinema Verité  kind of thing.  It has its moments, particularly the part where you can see the BMC boys, including race leader Tejay, with my very own bike (the grey and black Orbea) in the background!

Nate came by.  He ended up riding pretty well, passing by former Tour de France winner Andy Schleck.  Here are a couple photos of him.  I wonder if his all-time Strava record for Mount Diablo fell.  I could check, except I’m not on Strava (nor Facebook, nor Twitter, nor Tumblr, etc.)  … I refuse.

It didn’t take as long for the racers to go by as I’d expected.  They were all flying.  If the tables were turned and any one of these guys was standing on the side of the road watching me ride by, even on my best day, he’d shake his head and think, “Poor stupid bastard, why does he even try?”  And he’d be right.  I am humbled, which is humbling, because I think I was pretty humble to begin with.

The descent was madcap.  Throngs of cyclists, of varying ability.  Skilled, unskilled, bold, cautious … the worst combination was bold and unskilled, followed close behind by skilled and bold.  Nobody should be bold in such circumstances.  Some of the lesser pros blew by us, one of them trailing garbage.  Throughout my descent (I went it alone, not wanting to cause—or become—collateral damage) I kept hearing this whistling sound.  What was it?  Finally I realized:  it was the whistle built into the Fastek buckle of my daughter’s backpack.  (I borrowed the one without the butterflies on it but probably still looked like an idiot, but it didn’t matter because I couldn’t see myself anyway—BAM!)

At the bottom we regrouped right where the team vans were all parked.  We saw Jens Voigt himself roll up, and suddenly I remembered Mary Beth’s request to get a photo of him.  (She couldn’t come to the race because she had to walk her dog or something.)  As luck would have it, I already had my phone out, to call my wife and say I’d be late (and to ask her to put a fresh rug in the doghouse for me).  So I flipped it into camera mode and pointed it at Jens.  He looked over and even waved, and—dammit it to hell, the thing wouldn’t snap the picture!  I don’t know why.  It just didn’t feel like it.  I almost spiked it onto the sidewalk, but instead ran over to Jens’s bike.  The rumor I’d heard turns out to be true, about what he has painted on his top tube:

The guys were leaving and I scrambled back to my bike and took off in a hurry, further cementing the fear I’d had periodically all day that I was leaving things behind.  I think I actually made it home with almost everything—only my hopes of the Airwolf shot and the Jens Voigt shot were left behind.

A few of us rode to Bart, to mitigate the Dutch we’d be in with the wives for staying out too long.  At least we wore plenty of sunscreen, and we didn’t hit a pub on the way and show up at home drunk.  Punch-drunk perhaps, but it’s always that way after seeing a live sporting event of this caliber.

Dinner was crab cakes.  I made the tartar sauce myself.  There were mashed potatoes—mine plus the kids’ because they’d somehow spoiled their appetites.  I had a beer, a San Miguel, which is a pointless nothing-beer … it’s not watery like a Corona, which goes down nice on a hot evening after a long ride, nor tasty like a Belgian ale, nor powerful like an IPA.  But it was cold and liquid and didn’t bother me a bit.  Not having another beer cold did bother me a bit, but it’s just as well, considering how (relatively) slow I am on Mount Diablo these days with my off-season belly.

It’s almost time to switch Bart trains, so I can make a bunch of new enemies based on the stench of these shoes.  I can’t believe my luck, that this laptop battery has held out so long.  I hope you also consider this to be a stroke of luck.  I guess if you’re still reading you do.

Epilogue

I was so absorbed in this report, and my nagging fear of sudden battery death, that I got off at the wrong Bart station.  I hope you’re happy.  Oh, and one more thing:  Mary Beth, here’s a photo of Jens Voigt.  Obviously it’s not from this race (wrong kit); I snapped it at another great American bike race.

Everest Challenge "Pep Talk"

Introduction

The Everest Challenge is this weekend.  This fills me with a combination of excitement and dread.  Mostly dread.  It’s kind of like that back-to-school feeling all the kiddies went through this month, except EC is more intense.  Imagine packing all the trials and difficulties of a school year into one weekend.

I had my best week of training recently:  29,000 feet of vertical gain.  Well, EC has that much climbing in just two days.  Cyclists are, by and large, an analytical bunch, and I could easily find all kinds of statistics to support the notion that I’m doomed.  And yet, having finished this race three times already (click here, here, here, and here for details), I’m actually pretty confident.  (Not entirely, though—more on that later.)

My friend John is coming out from upstate New York to do this race for the first time.  He’s a bit nervous because there aren’t that many hills to train on there.  He lived in Berkeley for awhile, so he knows how good the riding is here.  (Mount Diablo, a 10-mile climb reaching 3,800 feet, is particularly good EC preparation, as is Lomas Cantadas, a two mile climb with an average grade of 11%.)  John e-mailed me with some misgivings, and I replied with a little pep talk which I’ve decided to embellish a bit and post here, for two reasons:  a) some of my readers may be doing EC or something similar at some point, and b) the gist of my pep talk could apply to all kinds of difficult undertakings, not just sport.

Here is a photo of John from the last time we did an epic ride, which was the Markleeville Death Ride in 2000.  He’s on the right; my brother Bryan is in the middle.  We’re wearing garbage bags because it was chilly and we didn’t bring warm clothing for the final descent.

Jitters

I’m more nervous about this race than I’ve been before, probably because I’m coming back from a major injury.  For me, more is at stake this year:  this isn’t just a race, but proof that I’m back (or that I’m not).  I’ve spent this week in an elevated state, something like a continuous fight-or-flight reflex.  It feels like I have a cold as well, though I felt the same way last year and a few other times before major events.  Perhaps my body is faking illness to make sure its master (i.e., my brain) gives it all the rest it needs.  Meanwhile, I’ve become obsessive about my bike, wanting to fix everything but not touch anything. 

The truth is, everything could go perfectly and still it would be absolutely grueling.  My friend Craig (who’s also doing EC) remarked, “Perhaps it’s a curse that your specialty is being good after 100 miles and 10k of climbing—you wouldn’t have to suffer so much if your specialty was a 12-second track event.”  I’m also anxious about some mishap (illness, mechanical failure) stymieing me.  Devoting so many weeks of hard training to a single event really leverages you emotionally.

John, on the other hand, is a bit worried about finishing (despite winning a race this year and getting third in another).  He’s studied the course profile carefully, and said in his e-mail, “I can’t stop thinking about EC.  I climb a lot of hills around here, but they’re all a lot shorter….  You love Lomas Contadas.  Looking at Strava, I can’t fathom why anyone would love that hill—it looks ridiculous. It looks pretty equivalent to Blakeslee Road here in Ithaca (if you want to look it up on Strava), and I frickin’ hate that climb. I’ve only done it twice:  it totally kicked my ass the first time, so I swore off it. Then I rode it on Sunday just to prove to myself that it didn’t own me. Well, it did (own me, that is).  If there are sections [of EC climbs] that get over 12% for any length of time, that will totally mess with my rhythm and my head.  And my legs.”

On the face of it, both John and I are over-thinking this thing.  But there’s no point commanding ourselves to stop; it wouldn’t work.  There’s no daytime equivalent to counting sheep until our preoccupations fall away.  What’s needed is to rethink this thing, to keep from falling into the same well-worn ruts of thought that make us worry.  A shift in perspective, away from the analytical, is in order.

The limitations of analysis

We can analyze the EC climbs, Strava data, our own training experience, etc. all we want but it won’t really make much difference at this point.  The fact is, the EC is fricking hard, and there’s no way to totally prepare yourself.  My own training hasn’t approximated either stage of EC, but then it hasn’t any of the other times I’ve done the race.  Nobody ever said the training has to be as hard as the race.  Training never is.  The human body always holds something in reserve to make up the difference.  Plus, for once we’ll be rested and fresh, instead of doing a big ride when our legs are already tired.

It is true that I love Lomas Cantadas.  The very reason I love it is that over time it has helped to forge in me a rare and useful trait:  grace under pressure.  I don’t have gobs of this trait, but more than I used to.  This is probably the only part of cycling that I have gotten better at with age. 

When I was dusting off my old Odyssey ‘91 story for this blog, I was struck by how much of the difficulty of that ride was just me panicking every time the road went uphill.  Recently I did several of these climbs again, during my “Non-Death-Ride Non-Warmup,” a point-to-point ride to a place I’d only seen on a map.  I had no idea what climbing was in store, or even how long the ride would be; plus, I wasn’t even very strong yet.  And yet, it wasn’t a disaster. 

The difference between Odyssey ‘91 and the Non-Warmup is that this time I was “tranquillo,” as the Italians say.  I was riding on about 10% physical ability and 90% resignation.  Resignation is totally underrated.  Sometimes I think I have a talent for resignation, but actually I think I’ve merely developed it by riding over Lomas Cantadas more than 500 times over the last seven years.

Climbing stupid

In that many trips up Lomas, I’ve never made it over without a struggle.  Sometimes the struggle is completely absurd—and yet I’ve never actually tipped over, or ground to a halt, or had to walk my bike.  Yes, I’ve occasionally yelled, “Spock!  Help me, Spock!” but I’ve never failed to make it over the hill.  I’ve tackled that climb several times when I was already shattered.  The trick is to pretend you have no choice and to take one pedal stroke at a time, riding like a robot.  Climbing stupid, you might say.  Not “climbing stupidly,” which I would never recommend, but “climbing as though you were stupid.”  Sometimes the brain just needs to be shut off (though actually I usually leave a few processes running, like the event logger that watches each half-pedal-revolution with astonishment and keeps track of the implausible ongoing progress). 

Eventually, even an 11-percent grade ceases to seem like a crisis, and starts to feel normal.  Not easy, mind you, but normal ... as in, “the new reality is that my life involves a lot of suffering on this hill, and there’s no way around it.”  Fear is replaced by fatalism.  This helps because suffering itself is never the real problem in sport; fear of suffering is the problem.  Suffering is inevitable, but fear doesn’t need to be.

The point isn’t that you need to ride Lomas 500 times to be ready for EC.  The point is, during a hard climb, once you stop thinking things like “what if I can’t?” and “is this too much?” and “oh, no!” and switch to thinking either a) nothing at all, or b) “I will do this until it’s done,” then the ride—any ride—is doable.  If you pace yourself, and keep panic and despair at bay, and ride as though you could not fail, you will succeed.  It may take a very long time, and you may find yourself mired in misery, but that’s okay.  Suffering and misery will not stop you from succeeding.  Only fear and doubt and despair can stop you.  

Here’s my brother Bryan lying in the road on the second trip over Ebbetts Pass during the 2002 Death Ride.  Sure, he’d had the stuffing knocked out of him, but that’s nothing a little rest can’t help, eh?

The psychological factor

Even without routinely climbing a hill like Lomas, a rider can have faith that, once the physical preparation for EC is complete (or as complete as it’s going to get), the rest of the race is mental.  Not as in intellectual, but as in psychological.  “It’s all psychological” is of course a cliché, and I’ve been struck by how untrue it seems in the context of racing.  You can’t (or at least can’t reliably) beat somebody who’s stronger just because you pretend you can, or try harder, or whatever.  But you can certainly silence the wimp in your brain that starts internally whining and casting doubt on your operation.  The notion that “I might not be able to do this” is just a psychological trick your brain is playing on you, to get you to quit.  Framing your progress as a “can vs. can’t” question is just weakness. 

(Obviously there are exceptions to this.  If you blow up completely, and literally cannot turn your lowest gear, and even lying down for awhile doesn’t help, then it’s no longer a psychological matter.  Or, if it’s 100 degrees and you’re not handling the heat well and you get goose bumps or something, then you need to quit to avoid heat stroke.  But these are very rare scenarios, in my experience.  It’s far more common for somebody to decide he can’t hack it, and either quit well ahead of total exhaustion, or sabotage his efforts by refusing to eat or drink enough, which reliably leads to total exhaustion and the mythical conclusion that failure was inevitable.)

I well remember my first EC.  I was good and scared about every climb, including the first one, and when I reached the top of it and still had good legs, I felt ecstatic.  The second climb, another out-and-back, was a lot harder than it looked.  When I saw my pals coming down it I assumed they were just really, really far ahead of me, but to my pleasant surprise the climb was over before I expected.  The last climb seemed endless and really beat the crap out of me, and I was worrying the whole time about the really steep pitches at the top, but when I finally reached them, they were more manageable than I’d expected.  I remember thinking to myself, “Is that it, mountain? Is that all you got?!”

The best part is, if you’ve paced yourself carefully and kept it in your pants, sometimes you (or at least I) feel strong like bull on the last climb, and it’s exhilarating!  On the flip side, if everything goes wrong and you suffer like never before, to where you want to curl up in the gutter in the fetal position, well, that also has value.  That’s vision-quest territory, and I’ve been there, too.  Just last year, in fact, while racing the Everest Challenge.